If you do two stories (walk out basement plus main floor) and have master bedroom up and other two bedrooms down, I would think you would want two bathrooms (or at least two WCs). People sleeping downstairs who wake in the middle of the night needing to use the toilet should not have to climb a set of stairs to get to one. If you want the master upstairs, consider putting the laundry room down next to a downstairs WC and cluster both directly beneath the upstairs bath and WC. That will allow you to cluster the plumbing which helps keep costs down. With a second WC and the cost of building stairs, it might or might not be more economical to build two stories than to spread the whole house out on a single floor. But, given your sloping property and your desire to maximize views, I'd go with two stories anyway. Having a second WC or even a second full bath won't cost THAT much more if you can cluster the plumbing. As for critiques of your latest posted plan. I would agree with previous comments that your living room/dining room area won't work very well. With three bedrooms, one assumes that at least occasionally you will have 3 to 6 people staying at the house. The living room would not be at all comfortable for that many people. Plus, do you expect to watch TV, or converse in the living room. No place for a TV and no room to create a conversation area where people sit so that they can look at one another. As designed, you don't really have a LIVING ROOM. You have a dining room with a sofa off to one side. The trip from the master bedroom to the WC requires you to walk thru your closet (wardrobe), out into the dining area, and then turn back down a hallway. Not a trip I would want to navigate during the middle of the night...especially since I have to admit that I often leave my shoes scattered about in my closet and I'd be tripping over them in the dark. Maybe you're a neat-nick and ALWAYS put shoes away exactly where they belong. But, do you really want the only path to your master bedroom to be thru your closet??? Also, you show no closets except the Master bedroom closet and a very small broom closet. Most of us have tons more stuff that needs to be stored away than will possibly fit into those two small closets. Eg, X-mas decorations, extra blankets, towels, and pillows, off-season clothing, the big bag of dogfood, the vacuum cleaner, the ironing board, board games, umbrellas, recycling bins, etc. With no garage, any of that stuff that you own is going to have to be stored somewhere inside your house. The biggest complaint I hear about new homes when people move in is that they don't have enough storage space...and that is often from folks who have a two or three car garage!. And, the space you have allotted a staircase isn't nearly long enough. Even in Australia, I suspect there are building codes that restrict just how steep a staircase can be. Here in the U.S, for a house with eight foot (2.44 m) ceilings and 1 ft thick joists between floors, you would need a staircase run about 13 ft long (3.96 m). Anything less will result in a staircase that is too steep to meet code. Plus, even if you're not restricted by a building code, if you make the staircase steeper than about 40 degrees, it is VERY uncomfortable to use and pretty dangerous. Definitely NOT something you want to deal with in the middle of the night when trying to get the the WC! Suggest you look up the building codes in your jurisdiction and find out exactly what the staircase requirements are. Then you can do a bit of trigonometry to figure out how much linear space you need to devote to your staircase...assuming it is a straight line staircase. (BTW, please don't think that if you design a bent staircase - a U or an L or some other shape) that you can squeeze it into less space. Every bend makes the staircase take up even more room. You need to understand staircase requirements before you begin trying to design two stories and then block out the necessary staircase space first on both floors. Trying to design any two story space without knowing up front how much space must be dedicated to the staircase is an exercise in frustration.

You'd have to flip the powder room with whatever that is behind it, too, so the entrance to the powder room is off the garage hallway, next to the entrance to the basement stairs. Then incorporate whatever that is in that hallway now (I can't read it, maybe a closet?) into the mulit-space that is now laundry, desk, pantry, and (closet)? Or, you could re-locate the powder room to the back notch in the great room, where the entrance to the basement stairs is currently, then leave alone your garage hall closet. Now you can use what was powder room real estate to re-coup your pantry space. Also, critical problem: you have no front closet inside front entry. Take a notch out of that laundry room to make a front closet off your entry hallway. If you want to re-coup your launrdy room/desk space, then bump out the notch in front of the now powder room to make the house flat across the front there instead of notched. This should approximately get you back your space you lost from the staircase coming into that room. This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Sat, Jul 19, 14 at 13:12

olychick... thanks for your feedback. I suppose I just needed to hear it from someone other than my DH that side-by-side baths are ok. And that wall that butts up against the tub in the left bathroom "hides" view of toilet from hallway/doorway, so no need to reverse the door there. weedyacres... I think you hit the nail on the head about the disproportion of my MB layout. Something about it doesn't sit right with me, but I'm not very good with visualizing things based on a plan drawing. I'm not sure what you mean by shifting the closet down. Do you mean moving it into the current Playroom? We would like to keep that room undisturbed since it will be the office after the addition is done and building into that space would make it less than ideal for what we had in mind. What do you think about switching location of the shower to where vanity is? And moving MB door to the bedroom side (thus opening into the bedroom, rather than hallway)? I am open to making the shower smaller, too. Our contractor is suggesting building walls around shower so there would only be glass door (apparently, glass panels that large cost a LOT).

With regards to the primary Kitchen work zones, both Layout 1 and Layout 2 are the same. There is nice separation of the Cleanup Zone from the Prep and Cooking Zones. There is plenty of workspace in the right places - in the Prep Zone especially (both Prep Zones!). The Primary Prep Zone has 42" b/w the corner and cooktop, another 16" b/w the corner and the sink, and the corner itself. The Secondary Prep Zone has the entire peninsula plus approx 21" b/w the cooktop and corner. The Cooking Zone and Prep Zone are protected from through traffic by the peninsula. To go around the peninsula, traffic will give these zones a wide berth when coming in from the front door in the LR, from the door in the DR, as well as traveling from the DR/stairway and the rest of the house and from the LR/FR/Library/Office and the rest of the house. The peninsula seating is conducive to conversation. The seats are far enough "down" that they are out of the 48" doorway to the Office/Library/FR/PR. Note that seating overhangs are the minimum recommended by the NKBA (15"). The peninsula is all one height - counter-height (36" off the floor). Others can access the refrigerator and MW without getting in the way of those working in the Kitchen. Yet both the MW and refrigerator can be easily accessed by those workers. Easy Reach (upper cabinet)...it's shown as 24" along one side and 40" along the other side. If you cannot get that, try for a 24"x19" and then you could have a 21" upper cabinet next to it. Try not to have an upper cabinet that's less than 18" wide - unless you'd like a pullout like the ones linked below. They're designed for 9" or 12" cabinets. So, you could go with a 24"x24" Easy Reach and then get a 12" cabinet pullout and a 4" or 5" filler pullout or a 9" cabinet pullout and 6" or 7" filler pullout (you may have to finagle the measurements a bit). Upper Wall Cabinet Pullouts: Rev-A-Shlef Cabinet Pullout Hood Organizer with Wood Adjustable Shelves (available in 9" & 12") Cabinet Pullout Organizer with Stainless Panel (available in 9") Cabinet Pullout Organizer with Wood Adjustable Shelves (available in 9" & 12") Upper Filler Pullouts: Filler Pullout Organizer with Stainless Panel (available in 3" & 6") Filler Pullout Organizer with Wood Adjustable Shelves (available in 3" & 6") Base Filler Pullouts (for the one shown b/w the corner susan and sink cabinet): Six Rev-A-Shelf Base Filler Pullouts (available in 3", 6", & 9") Note the cabinet turned 90 degrees in the peninsula - it faces the LR. This is a better use of space than a corner cabinet. The cabinet is 27" wide to act as filler inside the kitchen b/c you need at least 3" of filler on both sides of a corner to ensure drawers/doors (and pulls/knobs) clear each other on both sides. if you have an appliance (e.g., range or warming drawer) right next to the corner, you will need more to clear the appliance doors/handles. Layout #1: There's a...