Factoring in the shade provided by the front and rear porches, the great room's probably going to be rather dark. But if you want a "home theater"-type environment, that might be a plus.

Have you considered using double doors to access the front bedroom's walk-in closet? And skipping the door from the great room? That'd address your symmetry concerns, and while it wouldn't be quite as convenient in terms of Christmas tree storage, moving a tree's only a twice-a-year event.

You might want to post your elevations, too, along with info about the building site and the plan's intended orientation . . . someone's sure to ask sooner or later.

The 1.25 acre lot is slightly sloped away from the house. The house is going to face west with the grouping of trees to the rear of our home, There will be skylights in the screened in porch, so I hope that will help with lightening things up. I would love to have black cabinets in the kitchen, but it looks like cream is in our future. : )

Dauglos, thanks for your input! I hadn't thought of having double doors
in the bedroom. That would help with the limited wall space in the
living room to personalize the space. The limited wall space was a
concern of mine, one I hadn't thought of when going to an open concept.

Which direction is north? Also where in the country are you building? Lastly what is your age group? I'm asking if you intend to have kids or???

dauglos is correct this house will be dark. Ideally you want windows on at least two walls in every main room. That includes all public rooms and bedrooms. This not only helps with light but with cross ventilation for those nice days you want the windows open.

The great room will be especially dark since you're putting a screened porch across the back of it. Where will the natural daylight come from? It won't.

Here is a rendition of how much light will most likely penetrate the interior of the house. Notice it's not much and most of the middle of the house will remain dark?

Are you definitely set on this house plan?

I will start by saying your kitchen needs a lot of help. Post your kitchen with your house layout on the kitchen forums here. Let the kitchen gurus give you a kitchen that can truly work for you.

Your whole master bedroom should be reworked. You're giving up the best space (a corner) to a closet? This brings back my comment earlier about windows on two walls.

The guest bedrooms have room to have windows on two walls. Why don't they?

I hope you realize that your seating area in the living room will be a lot less than stated. I see you have about 16'6" across, except you'll lose 3' for walkways and another 2' for the fireplace, so your actual usable width will be 11'6" for seating

As for the length, I'm guessing that's about 17'10" long? In this case you'll lose 3' where the french doors are and 3' at the entrance for walking for a total of 6', leaving seating space of 11'10". Will your furniture fit that reduced space?

If you don't have children in the house, why do you need a double vanity in the guest bathroom?

I would not do double doors in the master bedroom. If you do, where will you put your light switches?

The entrance is a straight line to the back door. This is bad Feng Shui and Chinese and Asian buyers will avoid buying this house in the future. I have too many Chinese customers and this is one of their tops no no.

I hope you're planning on simplifying your elevation. You have so many different elements going on, that there is no focal point. Ideally you want your eye to first see the front entry, which is how we welcome people to our homes. Yours is confusing. I don't know where to look first with all the different types of materials.

I personally would get rid of the bump out in the front of the garage so instead of four gables, you only have 3. That will help put some focus more on the right side where the door is too. Plus, visually we relate better to odd numbers.

In the kitchen, is the sink in the peninsula a prep sink? That counter certainly doesn't look like a prep area, it's a too-wide aisle from the refrigerator and cooktop. Or will it be more of a bar sink?

In the guest bath, if you go with one sink you can have a mirror in the middle and sconces or artwork on either side, and more counterspace and storage beneath.

In the mudroom, adding a closet may make the bench to narrow to be useful. Measure it out to be sure it will work.

Don't you need a guest closet?

cpartist, Yes, we are set on these plans. I will definitely post the kitchen on the kitchen forum as I agree with you that it needs work. To address some of your questions/concerns, the master bathroom and garage will face north, we would eliminate the double doors in the master (too formal), windows will be added to the side wall in the bedrooms, and I was only putting one sink in the "guest" bath as it would be nice to have more vanity.

Our children are grown and we would use the bedrooms for out of town guests as both of our families live in WI and we live in TN. My mother will stay with us during the winter months, so I have kept her in mind when designing.

I am very concerned about the house being dark as I love a light and airy living space, so I need to work around that with lots of lighting. I am hoping with it facing west and getting the sun in the back of the house in the morning and the front of the house in the evening that it will help. I am adding an additional window in the kitchen to open the space up a little more as well.

bpathome, I'm not sure I know what you mean by guest closet? We are adding a closet to the front bedroom along the bathroom wall. I am not sure if I want a coat closet in the foyer/living room, but have thought of taking 2 feet from the pantry for that purpose. We never use a coat closet as we always enter from the garage.

The sink in the peninsula is more of a bar sink as it would be used primarily for washing my hands when I am baking. We are also going with a solid surface instead of the step up counter. I want it more for a work area to roll out dough, make cookies, etc.

cpartist, we are planning on a white brick home. I agree, there is too many materials used on the model.....it too makes me cross eyed!

I am very concerned about the house being dark as I love a light and airy living space, so I need to work around that with lots of lighting. I am hoping with it facing west and getting the sun in the back of the house in the morning and the front of the house in the evening that it will help. I am adding an additional window in the kitchen to open the space up a little more as well.

If you have the front facing west and add more windows, you're adding to the heating of the house and with harsh afternoon light. West sun is the one direction most of us don't want. (Ask me how I know.) Even so, you don't have enough windows facing the front to bring in the light.

All the artificial light in the world will not make up for the house being dark and now that you're telling me that the rear will face east, that even compounds the problem because the rear will get light from 6 or 7 am - 11 am and that's about it.

Those two bedrooms (once you put windows on the south wall) will get the best light in the house since they'll be facing due south.

I'm sorry but there is no way this house will be bright and light inside.

Any chance of turning it so that the rear faces more to the south? Or any chance of changing the footprint at all?

cpartist, we are planning on a white brick home. I agree, there is too many materials used on the model.....it too makes me cross eyed!

That will look a heck of a lot better. :) I still would eliminate the front gable on the garage side. Go with 3 gables and make the garage gable one gable.

I love this plan can you tell me where it is form?

It is a Don Gardner plan that we modified quiet a bit.

Can I ask where your driveway will be and how guests will enter the house?

I would envision a driveway the approaches from the right side of the house, across the front past the front door, then looping to the garage. Can you have a turn-around, or even two curb cuts?

Guests will enter via the front door and I haven't even considered the design of the driveway yet.

I ask because your garage is a side load garage so it's important to figure out where your guest will park and how they'll approach the front door.

For example, my garage is a rear load garage on the side of the house on a corner lot. I realized that the front door was a bit more problematic as parking in our neighborhood can be difficult. Plus we have a bioswale (fancy name for a ditch with flowers in it) in front of our house that we are not allowed to build over.

So we had to figure out a way for guests to come into the house too. Hence we created a "friend's entry" and the driveway could easily hold 4 cars. It will work for us since we're not formal people and our front porch will be nice to sit out and chat with neighbors walking dogs, etc.

The problem is as architectrunnerguy is fond of saying that the design of a house doesn't stop at the front door. The lot, how the house is situated on the lot, the views, how the lot will be landscaped, and much more need to be considered when designing a house.

bpathome, we won't be able to do two curb cuts as our restrictions won't allow it, so we will most likely just have a large driveway to hold multiple cars. Our lot is 150 ft across and extends back 250 on the right side of the yard and 400 on the left side of the yard, so there is lots of room to put a large car pad.

cpartist, I am all over the landscape as that's an area I love to design. I just never thought of the driveway any other way than right up to the garage. I'm interest in what my builder has envisioned. We just received the blue prints (pretty excited) so now all the fun/headaches can begin!

Thank you everyone for all the wonderful words of advice. It is much appreciated!