It is neat to watch every time it happens. Congratulations!

Thanks mrspete! I will revisit the eating area and add some space around it. Pointing it out like you did gives me a chance to really look at it, and it needs to fit our family with space to walk around behind the chairs. You've pointed out something that I need to look at closely. Yeah, laundry chute....for dirty clothes to fall down from our Master to the laundry in the lower level. But for our adult clean clothes, I can haul them upstairs once they are laundered. But the laundry will be done in the lower level where the kids clothes, bedding and towels rule the washer these days. As for the great room, with 18'10" by 18'6", if we are smart about furniture choices (we will have our only couch set planned for the lower rec room - its old so the kids can use it) and layout, we will definitely be considerate of walkways - another great point. Thank you mrspete, this is new to us and although we are using a designer - this website and feedback I've read on other sites just goes to show that you can't think of everything....and best not to leave it in the hands of others. Much appreciated!!

I think the first thing that hit me was the open living, dining, kitchen area, which will be a space where all sounds, sights and smells will pervade everywhere. Will it be where your young children play and where their toys will be stored and out on the floor? Said differently, this plan doesn't look like one where long-term, age-in-place living can take place, but beginning with young children. The fact that there is a bedroom adjacent to the kitchen suggests that you may have living needs and preferences you haven't described. It's an unusual location for a bedroom. If an angled garage is good, then angle it in the opposite direction to keep it from being a negative visual element of the front elevation. And of course, passive solar design depends on windows (lots of them) with properly designed roof overhangs, arbor/trellis designs or other shading devices. We don't see any of those. Finally, for someone highly regarded with over 30-years experience, designing with a process which only produces one floor level at a time is very suspect, since proper architectural design, especially for a passive solar house, is conducted by looking at site planning, floor plan options, elevations and roof plans all simultaneously. That's because a decision in one of these areas directly affects all the other areas, and vice versa. As an industrial engineer you should know that engineering solutions are not created by simply considering one element of the engineering situation at a time, linear fashion. Design is a comprehensive, not sequential, endeavor. Good luck on your project.

I personally like the separated dining area, which could be anything you want, and don’t Mind the basement laundry as I’ve never had anything else, plus it’s nice to have the rough work space, as someone said, cleaning boots, cleaning pets, soaking a wash, scouring our plant pots etc. Plus if the washing machine leaks it doesn’t Leak into an overhead area. I’m not a fan of having the dining crammed into a sitting area, but on the other hand, a longer living area may be more flexible if let’s say, you have oversized things. I really don’t like kitchens with no natural light as I use a kitchen all throughout the day and people end up in one a lot I find, but the galley style may be cramped, hard to tell.