Things I'd consider altering:

- The exterior and the roof have a lot going on. I'd say simplify it. Eliminate a few gables, lose the little indentation on the far left /by the kids' rooms, shorten the roof (of course, with 42' of depth, that may not be possible). It's all just too much.

- Overall, I don't think the windows are adequate. At least, not if you want a light-filled home where you don't need to use the lamps at mid-day. For example, the kitchen has only one window, and it's set into an indentation. The one room that has lovely windows is the dining room ... and it's hidden back in the corner where no one can see it unless they're IN that room. Which way is north?

- The biggest problem the house has is circulation. Imagine yourself walking these pathways. The axis walkway down the center of the house (from garage entry to kids' bedrooms) is rather narrow -- at one point you could touch the island with one hand and the sofa with another hand; another foot of width here would be helpful -- your other hallways are minimal in width but will probably be okay because they're short. The dining room, though, is the worst example: You have one narrow pinchpoint through which the whole family must crowd at dinnertime ... and then they have to circle around the table, trapping one another 'til the end of the meal. It's a nice-sized dining room, but it's too hard to reach. To complicate matters, the hard-to-reach dining room also houses the only door to the backyard, meaning that kids are going to constantly crowd through the kitchen and circle through the dining room to reach that door.

- I get what you're doing in the living room: For a family of six, you want lots of seating, and you want a big window and a fireplace, and you want space for a TV on the wall ... but what you have is two sofas jammed up against the wall, two narrow entrances to that room (functional, but awkward), and then a bunch of empty floor space. Yes, it's functional, but I don't think it's going to be attractive.

- Do you need a coat closet by the front door?

- When you walk in the front door, the sight line is ... straight into the master bedroom. I'd look at swapping the master bedroom and bathroom; this would require, of course, more hallway, but would allow the master to get natural light from two sides.

- Pocket doors are great for spots like laundry rooms; that is, doors that are left open frequently ... but they are a very poor choice for bathrooms. They're more difficult to open/close, and the humidity in a bathroom shortens the lifespan of the doors. That's a long bathroom to have only one window at the end.

- At 6 1/2' wide, your master closet isn't quite wide enough for comfort. Clothing on each side will need 24", leaving you a scant 30" walkway. Can you get through? Sure, but a few more inches would make it so much more pleasant.

- I'd like to see the laundry room closer to the bedrooms; it'd save many steps. I'm not adamantly opposed to a bathroom /laundry room combination, but neither is it ideal. With this house having a bathroom open to the hallway, I'd eliminate this half bath portion ... and instead go with a cabinet for folding /space underneath for waiting loads.

- Do you really need three garage bays, three human doors exiting that garage, and two steps of staircases? These duplicate items will add up on the bottom line.

- With dimensions like 16x11, the kids' rooms are large, but they are rather oddly proportioned and tend to have the windows on the narrow end, which will to rather cave-like rooms; if you're raising hobbits, they'll love these rooms. Though their rooms are rather large for kids, their closets are minimal; good closets = clean kids' rooms.

To sum up, it seems to me that this house has LOADS of space allocated to bedrooms, the family room, and other specialty rooms ... but all that space comes at the cost to your main, most-often used rooms. I'd eliminate something and add that space to the living room, kitchen and dining rooms. In short, it has lots of fancy items here and there, but it's short on solid basics.

Thanks, mrspete! I will definitely let these great suggestions sink in and discuss with the mrs about them.

What is your family composition?

What part of the country are you building in?

What direction is north?

How big is your plot of land?

Which direction has the best views?

Why in the world do you want your guests to come into the foyer and the first thing they see is a view of the master bedroom?

Husband, Wife, 4 kids ages - 11,8,6,2

Building in WI, north is facing garage side. Land is .8 acres. Wooded lot with covenant to keep it wooded covered.

I'm hoping the master bedroom will be closed most of the time :-) But I concur, that this is not preferable. The best views would probably be the front and the rear.

With 4 kids, I'm not sure I'd want the laundry room in with the bathroom. I don't know about you, but when there's a lot of laundry like after a vacation or a couple of busy days, some laundry gets sorted on the floor. Or it falls coming out of the dryer. (And, sometimes the birthday cake is atop the dryer waiting for it's big moment.) Looking at it from another view, I'm not sure I'd want guests to see my laundry room. And besides, you can see the bathroom from the kitchen, and every time people walk between living and dining.

Ah, the living-dining passage. It goes right through the kitchen, past the stools, and it's not a wide passage. I like a quiet dining room, but perhaps this is a bit too secluded, with only one way in and out.

If you plan to lay the LR furniture out that way, the backs of the sofas will get soiled quickly from hands (especially coming in from the garage) and leaning.

The kids on the main floor don't have much privacy from the living room. And their bath? Swap the toilet and closet so the toilet isn't the only think you see as you walk by.

Four kids in Wisconsin means boots, snow pants, mittens, toques, jackets, rain gear, sneakers, caps, mosquito repellant, etc. It looks like they will always be coming in through the garage or front door, and the only places to drop all that stuff are small and in full view of the rest of the house. Unless you are all very disciplined about using the closet.

No guest closet for the front door?

I visited a house with a stair from the garage to the basement, it was to make it easy to stash the hockey gear, golf bags, etc. I thought it was a great idea! It led to a storage area with a laundry nearby. What is the intention for your garage stairs?

When you're ready (not yet!) post the kitchen in Kitchens. They will want to see the whole house plan, too.

So what you're saying is the rear will be facing west? And you want to put your kitchen facing west which will be good in winter in your climate but will be miserable in summer.

What is the lot size? Meaning width and length? What are the set backs? With a west facing rear, you really need to think in terms of an L shaped house if possible.

I'm sorry but this house needs a lot of work. Chief Architect doesn't make someone an architect anymore than buying bandaids and cough medicine makes someone a doctor. Designing a house is a lot more than fitting boxes together.

If you haven't read the following books, I highly recommend you do so first.

What Not to Build

The Not So Big House

Home by Design

First I'll agree with everything mrspete and bp said.

Let's start with my colored lines.

Red is for bringing laundry from your master bedroom to the laundry room. But you're putting the laundry room for 6 people in a bathroom? Really? And that room is only 6' x 10' and it needs to include hanging, sorting, etc?

Green is the passage from the various rooms to the dining room. As mentioned, it creates a pinch point going through the kitchen, although kudos for you for keeping it out of the work zone.

Same as mentioned with the purple lines which is your needing to get to the outside deck.

Blue is coming in from the garage and needing to put away groceries. This one isn't bad at all.

But, when you enter a house you want it to be welcoming. Ideally when you enter from the foyer or even from the garage. When you enter from your garage, you're confronted with a bathroom or a closet or the kitchen. And it's a very tight space.

When you enter your front door, you're confronted with the master bedroom? Or a closed door?

Where is your coat closet? What happens when guests come in the front door?

What about a mud room? Or where will all the boots, scarves, and other winter stuff be stored? That one little closet as you enter from the garage will not store all your winter stuff, especially as the kids get older and larger.

Where do you plan to put things like vacuums, cleaning supplies, etc? In other words, where is your utility closet?

The light coming in from the west will be hot in summer and will only brighten the rooms in the late afternoon.

The light coming in from the east will do the opposite in that they'll warm the rooms in the morning (good in winter, not so good in summer) and then those rooms will be fairly dark the rest of the day. So while it looks like there's fairly good light, the only consistent light is in that master bath and those two bedrooms.

(CP, how do you do the light?)

(CP, how do you do the light?)

With photoshop.

Thanks.

Great stuff guys!!! I will def digest all these great comments/views/suggestions tonight after work! :-)

For comparison, take a look at this L-shaped ranch:

Here's another that might interest you:

It has all the rooms you now have on the first floor, but it's easier to reach them all. I like that office location.

Someone needs an architect who has done this successfully before...not using any names. :-)

Some points for me to consider:

1. I’m considering the idea of swapping the master bedroom around so it’s not directly in front of the entrance.

2. Make the entrance to bathrooms doors and not pocket doors.

3. Closets - Widening the master closet, make the bedrooms in the basement have larger closets. Larger closet when entering from garage for all the mud/winter stuff. Location for cleaning/vacuum supplies.

4. Switching up the laundry room and ½ bath somehow per your suggestions.

5. Will consider rototilling and overhauling via L shape plan.

Some thoughts/answers for you guys:

1. Crowded Kitchen concern:

a. I could make the middle sofa a love seat, move the sofas further down. That would give more space to get to garage entry or dining room. I think this is just an arrangement of furniture that could help with this.

b. I could also make the island a tad narrower to give more space on the right of the island.

2. Too much traffic for dining room:

a. In our current house, our dining room also has the patio door and I find that we go to the backyard just as much through the back garage doors as the patio door. I guess for our family’s use, I don’t see that being a bottle neck due to a balance of usage.

3. Living room:

a. Again, I think we can move the sofa’s in more to try and use the empty space better.

b. Good call on the space for vacuums, etc…, I will find a spot.

4. Entrance:

a. There will be a hanger and bench for guest’s shoes and coats. That’s all though. No formal closet per the existing design. Again, i don't personally like the main entrance facing the master bedroom much either.

5. Garage:

a. Yes, I do want 3 garage bays as we have 3 vehicles and winters in WI are a pain! For some strange reason, I do want that extra stair case to the basement through the garage. Use will to be able to get tables/chairs easier in and out in case of large gatherings, and hauling larger stuff down/up.

What other solid basics can I do? I’m in IT by trade so I’m no means an architect. I’ll take a look at those books mentioned. Some good points. Sounds like some balancing between the basement and first floor is really needed.

As mentioned you are no designer or architect and it's obvious. You need to consider finding a person of design talent or an architect to help you realize your house.

I'm a fine artist. When I needed to create my website I didn't sit down and do it myself. I tried, just like you're trying to design a house, but I realized I didn't have the capabilities to do it right, so I hired a professional to do it for me.

An architect or person of design talent has gone to school and studied design and architecture. They've been critiqued for their good designs and their bad designs and then they had to work in a firm for 3 years until they were even allowed to take the licensing exams.

What you are doing with your list is focusing in on details when you don't even have the big picture yet. A house is not designed by putting boxes together or moving them, but by considering not only the interior, but the exterior and how it sits on the lot at the same time. Your house so far doesn't consider any of that.

Taking that list you made above and making the changes will not fix the house because it overall does not work. (I apologize for my bluntness.)

Fair enough. Obviously and as I've mentioned myself, i don't get paid to design houses. I get paid to build software systems. I was definitely going to pay the $2K or so for professional help that's needed to draft up a design that could be buildable. I've shown this to a couple contractors and they thought it was ok but they're not designers so I guess my first pass will need more work. More professional design work to be more precise. Hopefully none of you are offended by my design newbness like I insulted the artistry.

Professional design work that takes the size of your family and your needs into account. Moving furniture around is something you do when you move into an existing house. You are creating a home from scratch, so your spaces need to plan for furniture, but can not rely on furniture to fix layout problems.

Don't sacrifice island size in the kitchen to make it easier to get to the dining room, when you can simply design a space that works in the first place.

No you haven't insulted anyone. It's normal to want to try one's hand at designing their own house. It's actually fun.

But remember you're spending your hard earned money, six figures worth. So why would you want to make do by moving furniture or saying it's ok to live a certain way because that's how you've adjusted to living in your current home. The beauty of building a custom house is creating a house that will work for how you live, not one where you have to adjust to the house.

Instead of bringing a plan to a designer, spend the time figuring out exactly what you need. Somewhere on here is a thread Virgil started regarding creating a bubble diagram. I would do that.

Here's that bubble diagram thread. I have it bookmarked! :-)

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4351651/beginning-bubble-diagram-for-a-custom-home

Ann you said it better than I ever could have.

Most of us who hang out here, even if we are building ourselves, tend to be house geeks. And many of us, myself included have learned so much by hanging around this forum, so that now we enjoy giving back.

Trust me, my house went through tons of versions until it was right, and even now, I see a few things that I might have tried to do differently. LOL.

OK, playing with floor plans can be a lot of fun. We get it. We see it here daily. Floor plans, however, are not designing a custom home. A custom home design consists of: 1) site analysis, planning and development; 2) interior space planning and adjacencies; 3) exploration of concepts for interior plans and exterior forms; 4) development of inside, outside and site--all together. Simultaneously.

Seriously, put down the Chief Architect. Go find a real architect. One who has successfully demonstrated that s/he understands and has mastered all of the above.

It will save you time and money. And you will be happy.

Sounds good. Landscape design is another important factor and that'll have to mesh in well with the rest of the house. Hopefully the designer/architect will be able to help with everything. Thanks for all the suggestions!

Front entryway needs to relate to the house and to the exterior land, and be welcoming. Current entryway is too small, has two overhanging roofs, and is dwarfed by the facade.