I think a lot also depends on your daily life. I don't bring in groceries every day, so the kitchen being extremely close isn't a deal breaker to me. I do prefer though, not to have to walk through a living area between the garage and kitchen. You don't have that set up to worry about. In addition, I have to wear nice clothes to work, but I don't wear them around the house. We live in the country and also have pets, so I have much relaxed 'uniform' that I change into once I get home. For that reason, the master bedroom is normally the first place I go when I get home. This would work great with your layout. The only concern I have with your plan is the wall that the bed is on. I wouldn't want to be on a main, shared wall. I don't think flipping the bedroom/bathroom would be a solution either, as I wouldn't want to be on the garage wall either! If you wanted to put your bed below your windows, that would work with your current floor plan. I don't know what kind of windows you had imagined there, but if they were not tall windows, that would work. Alternately, could you make one big hall closet and slide your doorway to the side. This would also give more privacy to your bedroom if a guest were using the hall bathroom. I did a copy/paste of that. In addition, I think you could work to create a design that was better configured for the bathroom/closet. It seems like a lot of wasted space to not even include a tub.

Zone4 - I love a lot of things about that plan. I'll list the immediate things I see that wouldn't work. If anyone has any way to make those things work then I would gladly suggest it to my builder. I like the exterior a lot! -I would like the main level laundry (we hope to have an upstairs laundry with kids rooms) to be near or even in the master. -Not sure about kitchen. Would have to work on the layout. Are the dimensions wall to wall? Does anyone know? -We are hoping for at least 16 feet (would love 20 but don't think it will happen) for dining space to accommodate our large table. -Upstairs beds and baths seem to be on the small side but not terribly small. -Would like a laundry upstairs. Reno-I'm finding that to be very true. It has made me stay in check on size though. When I would make plans before I would bump a wall out here or there and end up with 8000 square feet. LOL Okay, well not 8000 but you know what I mean. I'm not sure I understand what you mean about "thinking about the spaces created between the room you are moving around". Do you mean the room I am moving to another location in the plan or the main focus room (ie., living room or kitchen or...) that we think is highest priority and making the plan work around that? I keep reminding myself that things that take a lot of work are usually worth it. I'll keep trudging along. I appreciate your help!

Robo- I like several things that you did! Biggest issues I see that I have been trying to avoid are: -Master bedroom door faces main areas. I *do* like that I can get from the bathroom to the closet without crossing in front of the door though. -Where to put a back door? I'd like a spot I could get to easily holding food for the grill and also a place for kids to come in with muddy feet. I guess it could go in the laundry. -closets - Like you said, there aren't many. I really would like plenty of closets. I want to look over your ideas some more though. I really do like some things you did. Thank you. :) Last night I worked on some things too. I'll post a pic here.

Technical writers are woefully under-employed in all fields! We didn't find the manual for the heater, found most of the others that we filed when we moved in here. And finding a schematic on line for our furnace, Armstrong Air Ultra V Advantage 93. Last winter we had to empty some tube that kept filling up with water, a pressure valve I believe, because the heater would stop firing when the water was full. We'd take a cup and pull the plastic hose off, let it drain into the cup and put the clearish plastic hose back on. Now my husband is finding another hose full of water, and it seems to be leading back to our humidifier, an Aprilaire 550. We've never (I know, I'm ashamed to admit it) done anything to service the humidifier or change the filter. This weekend we will spend some time reading up on the proper care and maintenance of the humidifier, including how to change the water panel evaporator (he just came upstairs saying those words--Google help me!) He's looking for some way to identify the circuit damper. There is no error code with the lights, they are blinking "normal." Slow and deliberate. We'll figure this out and learn along the way. In the meantime, we're spot-heating with our little electric woodstove-style fireplace. 'Tis cold in our neck of the woods tonight! If we need it, the heat will work. It just doesn't blow worth anything upstairs and now that we think about past performance, the downstairs vent doesn't blast us anymore when we sit in the chair near it. The heater runs for several minutes, kicks off for a short time, then does it again. Then we're at the temp set on the thermostat and good to go for awhile. Horribly inefficient. This is why our cooling bills were outrageous. I still cannot believe that we didn't figure this out in the summer.