I take it this is in a development and can I assume that if you're building a lanai it's in either HI or FL?

Are you definitely married to an east facing lot? That would mean, especially in a warm climate your backyard will be unusable for a large part of the year because west facing backyards are extremely warm.

Also you said your parents come to visit several times a year. What are their ages? While they're healthy now, where will they stay when they can't maneuver up and down the stairs anymore? (I'm again assuming you'd want to give them one of the larger bedrooms and not the downstairs small one?)

Why do you need both a living room and a family room/great room.

Do you really need a dining room, a dining nook and seating at the island?

How about these?

http://www.dreamhomesource.com/house-plans/dhs/dhsw55086.html?from=search

http://www.dreamhomesource.com/house-plans/dhs/dhsw62897.html?from=search

http://www.dreamhomesource.com/house-plans/dhs/dhsw67806.html?from=search

The plans you posted both seem like big boxes with a bunch of rooms. Not sure you are going to be happy with the flow of that many people in those "boxes" - especially with the upstairs of ABC and the 1st floor of XYZ. How big is your lot? Does the garage need to be that integrated into the 1st floor?

Hi, there. :-)

How would y'all feel about hiring an architect? They don't have to be expensive, if the budget is tight.

I frequently suggest seeking out a pro for custom homes, especially when people post floor plans that are too "fat." Ideally, a house should be 1-2 rooms deep, not 3-4. The house can be many different shapes (simple rectangle, or letters like L, T, U, H, I, E), and keeping it skinny gives you tons of natural light throughout the home, cross breeze opportunities, and a proportional roof.

As CPartist alluded to, the best lots put the living spaces facing south (assuming you're in the northern hemisphere). Especially with an east-facing entry, I think an architect is even more important. :-)

@cpartist - yes, we are in South FL. Spouse definitely prefers Eastern exposure so that would be a must. Thanks for pointing out that lanai would be hotter in the evenings, wish we had the budget for a pool :)

My parents are in their 70s and spouse parents are in their 60s. We were thinking of allocating the downstairs bedroom to them in either of the plans since they will definitely think twice about walking upstairs or visiting us next time!

In plan ABC, we were considering converting the living room into an office space.

In both plans, the dining room would be used when we have formal dinners but otherwise that space would be used minimally.

@inv116, thanks for the links - the flow is important as you said but we looked at several plans offered by several builders and we really need a master suite and one bedroom downstairs, so these two plans made the cut.

@one - thanks for the suggestion, we hadn't thought of hiring an architect but we have pretty narrowed down our choice to these two floor plans.

We can recommend an architect that will work with you for a better result. He is very experienced, has low overhead, and as a result, he will be budget friendly. You should consider having a phone conversation with him. I've seen about six of his plans on this site and can recommend the result. Let us know.

Excellent advice to at least consider what an architect could add to making your home truly work for your needs. Your home is a HUGE investment, and hopefully its truly a pleasure to live in, for all sorts of reasons, once it is done. An architect can be invaluable.

XYZ offers a nice suite for the inlaws, they could even have their own rental car garage. But it's all garage on the front, and (okay, I'm not usually this blunt, but here goes) it looks like the front door is in a butt crack. I'm really to put it that way, but that was my first impression and I can't shake it.

The rest of it isn't bad, better light than ABC.

neither has good flow between kitchen and dining room, no connection at all.

ABC offers your long term guests a suite on the right side, one of the bedrooms could be a sitting room. Or, downstairs they have a view. In XYZ, he first floor bedroom window is to the street, not so nice for guests (but a great AirBnb suite for a business traveller).

Of course you would change the piano-shaped island in ABC.

You would be doing yourself a disservice by building either of these two plans.

Floor Plan 1:

This is a monstrosity that would only serve to waste a lot of your money and unnecessarily consume a lot of the world's resources.

It contains 3 more bedrooms than you need. It also contains a "minimally used" dining room, formal living room, game room, and media room. What are you going to do with all of these spaces? Seems like such a waste.

Meanwhile, your in-laws are stuck in a tiny guest bedroom off the kitchen?? You waste tons of square footage on huge needless rooms, but put family who spend months with you in a 12'x10' room with a cramped bath. I don't get it.

Floor Plan 2:

Can you post the front elevation? I'm picturing a storage unit, with garage doors on both sides of the house, and taking up two-thirds of the space you see from the street. Your front yard will looked like a paved parking lot with all of the driveways that will be needed.

You must give up the owner's suite for the in-laws. I can't imagine spending big bucks on a house and relegating yourself to a secondary bedroom with no walk-in closet or attached bath.

@Stinky - thanks for your response. I understand your concern about world's resources and if we truly cared about it, we would all buy foreclosed homes or run-down homes and buy all of our furniture from thrift-stores. That said, we feel this home has a lot to offer in term of location-wise, we are literally only 3-4 miles away from major grocery stores, schools(elementary, middle and high) and shopping centers so we want to think we are helping with consumption of world's resources by reducing daily commute plus reduced CO2 emissions, vehicle wear and tear etc.

Seriously, In-laws have the option to stay in any-room or use any bathroom - it's going to be their choice if they want to climb up/down stairs everyday as well but we wanted to have a separate bedroom/bathroom downstairs as an alternative.

Here is the elevation.

We prefer more windows in all rooms so that's something we are working with the builder to bring more natural light into the house.

I think my resources comment distracted from the main point...

Your parents are in their 70s and their mobility will only decline. Climbing up/down stairs isn't much of an "option" as you put it. You yourself said... "We were thinking of allocating the downstairs bedroom to them in either of the plans since they will definitely think twice about walking upstairs or visiting us next time!"

Why have so many unnecessary/redundant spaces (3 extra bedrooms, formal dining & living room, game room, media room), when you could have a nice first floor guest suite for the elderly family who spend months at a time with you?

Do you like the elevation of plan 2 you posted? I find it extremely unappealing. With the separate garages and driveways, it looks like a duplex or multi-family housing.

Your parents are in their 70's. At 70 my Mom and Dad could go up and down stairs. My Mom went to the gym 5x a week. However at 72, my Mom developed Parkinson's disease and by 76 could no longer do stairs. She lived until age 84. My Dad could also no longer do stairs by his late 70's. In fact for the two of them in their last years, the shower curb might as well have been Mt Everest for them. One step up or down was difficult. And it would have been hazardous for them too.

With both houses you are having to adapt yourselves to the house instead of the house working for you. If you're spending 6 figures of your hard earned money, why build a house that doesn't work for you and where you'll be constantly trying to adapt it to work.

You have unique needs in that you have your parents staying for long stretches of time and they are getting up there in years. Like Stinky said, why would you either want to give up your large bedroom to allow them to stay downstairs, or relegate them to a room the size of a child's room? Frankly if you want to consider either of these poorly designed plans (and they're poorly designed for lots of reasons, not only because of your parents), the only solution would be to add in an elevator. (That can be done for around $20,000) Then your parents could easily move from upstairs to downstairs, and visa versa.

Are you allowed to build a truly custom house on any of the lots you're considering instead of these overblown, poorly laid out houses that will allow no natural light into the spaces and will not live well for your needs?

BTW: Not only the lanai will be hotter from April through end of October, but so will any rooms that face west. It's very poor design to orient a house east/west in our climate. (I'm in SW FL) My house will be oriented N/S with my backyard facing south so my lanai blocks the summer sun and my 32" eaves block the upstairs summer sun.

The homes aren't built yet, but they are restricting you on which plan can be built on which lot? I wonder why that is? Does it keep other identical homes from being built next to each other?

Ordinarily I would always go for the water view. But that depends on what's on the other side of the water; I wouldn't want someone else's back yard looking into my living room. So in that sense, the conservation area might be more private, and you'd see more wildlife than just geese.

Do YOU require a first-floor master? I'm thinking that the inlaws could use it, and either plan seems to make it easy to convert bedrooms to a master upstairs, and on the opposite side from the kids' bedrooms.

ABC's garage connection forces everyone to walk right through the kitchen. The kitchen is already disjointed, adding traffic makes it worse. XYZ makes it farther to carry groceries.

ABC puts the inlaws right next to the laundry and kitchen, not so peaceful for a long visit, but definitely part of the family. XYZ gives them more privacy and their own storage in the garage.

In either plan, will you have space for a home office for paper records, files, etc?

In either plan, will the guest bathroom double as the powder room?