We went through the limewash/paint issue too and decided to do the painted brick. Ours is a creamy/greige colors - cream in bright sun, a little more gray/greige in shade. Similar to the house you posted but ours is a bit lighter I think. We had the same issue with our ARB - wanted earth tones and european. I am not a european house person, for the reasons you state - we are pretty casual people with 3 boys and a big loud dog so I was afraid the more european interior would not be for me. Ours is really a georgian house, although we added a few french details like the chimney pots and flared rafter tails. When it was red brick , it was very georgian looking. Now that it is painted, it is less so, although our front porch is still georgian. We are doing copper gutters and darker shutters to give the outside some depth. We used Stoney Ground by Farrow and Ball, mixed by SW though, on the outside. It is a great color - doesn't photograph accurately but lovely in real life. We decided against lime wash for a couple of reasons. One, it can look blotchy. We looked at a Spitzmiller/Norris renovation on Habersham after it was lime washed and it was splotchy looking from the street. Also, it gets very splotchy when your irrigation runs or it rains. We were also a little concerned about the dreaded pink brick look that happens if you lime wash. If we would have lime washed, we would have used a browner brick to counteract that, and we would have done several coats (3 or more) of lime wash for an opaque look. This is a house my builder built of lime washed brick at Sea Island. It is a brown brick (Old Savannah by Cherokee). Here is a link that might be useful: Sea Island house

Are you sure you have an ARCHITECT working with you and not just a draftsman???? An architect should listen to you but he/she SHOULD have ideas - LOTS of ideas - about how to make your desires/dreams into a reality. On the other hand, a draftsman is someone who merely takes your plan and creates a clean, properly scaled drawing that can be used as a building guide. If your "architect" is expecting you to have all the ideas right down to the placement of closets, doors, and windows, he/she is NOT providing you with the architectural services that you are paying for. You need to fire them and get someone else. If you are actually working with a draftsman and want/expect to design your own home, please be aware that while it is not impossible for a non-architect to design a beautiful, functional home, it does take a lot of study, a lot of thought, and a lot of work to get there! Unfortunately, it looks to me like you're trying to START at the finish line...which is fine IF you have a good architect. Not so fine if you're correct in saying that the person you're working with just "does what YOU say." I'm sorry but the plan you have sketched above is simply not very good. Among other things, the way it is laid out forces you to waste far too much of your available square footage on hallways. You've sketched a masterbath with a garden tub (whirlpool tub) and no windows to look out of while enjoying a soak. You've got a powderroom opening directly off of the kitchen so that anytime the PR door is left open, you'll be staring at the toilet. You've also obviously given no thought whatsoever to what the exterior of the finished home would look like. And, given that in a previous post you mentioned that your husband wanted something a bit different and not just a plain box, the last thing I would think you would want to do would be to build a house with no style. Have you given any thought to what style you would like your home to be? Do you already own the lot where the house will be built? If so, which direction will the front door face? Where are the best views? How wide and how deep is your available building area? Do you have room for a side load garage or must it be front facing? Are you in a cold climate or a hot climate, a wet or dry region? Is the land essentially flat or sloped? All of these things should be taken into consideration when designing a home. If you don't already own your land, you're probably getting the cart before the horse anyway because, what if you design a house that is 85 feet wide and wind up with a lot that will only allow you to build 70 feet wide? Before beginning to design a home for you, an architect should know how many people will be living in your house and what kind of lifestyle do you have. Are you formal or informal? Do you entertain a lot or almost never? What do you like about your current home (even if you're renting) and what drive you nuts there? What are your MUST HAVES and NICE TO HAVES? How many bedrooms? How many baths? So you dream of a big whirlpool tub or a huge shower? Do you lust after his/hers vanities? How much closet space do you want/need? Do you want a formal living area or an informal family den? (or both???). So you want a formal dining room or would you never actually use one? Does your family gather in the kitchen while you cook? Do you need space in your kitchen for multiple cooks? Do you want the kitchen/living area to be open to each other or would you rather be able to hide the kitchen mess? Do you lust after a kitchen island? Will you be unhappy if your kitchen sink isn't under a window with a view? Do you need a large pantry? How many garage bays do you need? What size cars do you drive? Does your husband want space in the garage for a "shop." Do you need/want a mud room? Do you have pets and need a space for number of garage bays? attached/detached garage? porches? office? playroom? bonus rooms? Do you need/want a spacious laundry room or just a small spot for the washer/dryer? Is it important to you that certain rooms get lots of natural light? If so, which ones? Is it important that some rooms be tucked away where they'll be quiet even if the rest of the house is noisy? Do you and your husband tend to keep similar hours or is one of you a night owl while the other is up at the crack of dawn? Does your family all tend to gather together in one room or does everyone scatter to their own space? Is it important to you that your home impress visitors? Do you want soaring lofty ceilings or cozy nooks? Do you drawn toward traditional decor, country chintz, clean modern lines, Victorian froo-froo, or some other decorating style entirely? All of the above (plus more) is the kind of information that a competent architect would get from you so that he could help you put together a "program" that would then guide him in designing your home. If your person hasn't yet asked the questions above yet, RUN. Based on what I've seen you post thus far, I honestly think that at this point, you would be better off searching through all the plans that are available online and finding something there that you could live with. (I'm not saying that most online plans are great - and certainly they aren't "custom" - but it doesn't look to me like you're getting the kind of custom help that you have a right to expect from an architect. If nothing else, searching thru the online plans would help you to begin thinking about how you want your home to LIVE and what you do and don't like. After you study about a thousand online plans and try revising them to be closer to what you would like, you'll be much better prepared to start trying to sketch your own from scratch. Or, come back here with several that you "kind of like except for..." as well as answers to the questions I listed above, and perhaps some of the folks who frequent this site will be able to help you put together a workable plan. In the meantime, invest a couple of dollars for some graph paper and do your sketches on that so that various rooms will be at least close to "in scale."

I agree the aisles are too tight. 36" between island and fridge is pretty squeezy. Also, you said you plan to put "Mixers etc above the refrigerator." Not sure how tall your ceilings are but cabinet depth refrigerators are usually taller than standard depth, so you're not likely to have much storage space there. PLUS, mixers etc. can be heavy (unless you're talking about a hand mixer, not a stand mixer?) and trying to reach them from over the refrigerator seems dangerous. In a kitchen that size, I would ditch the refrigerator drawers and prep sink and add storage instead (then you could put your mixers etc where they are easier to reach). I would put the range/hood on the window wall where you have the uppers now and the sink on the island. Then you could do a continuous counter instead of a raised bar, which would give you better work space and limit the junk collector nature of the raised bar. Having had three raised bars now, I HATE them. Where counters stay reasonably clutter free, clutter never fails to find a permanent home on a raised bar. I don't know why. It just is. By moving the sink to the island, you will have room for dish drawers in the island, so you won't need the upper cabs. Few microwaves are less than 15" deep. You could build out that wall a bit to give you room for standard depth pantry cabinets with pullouts, or a corner pantry closet like natal's. Take a look at her pantry in the thread linked below. We have a very similar set up, except that our "corner" pantry is 42" wide, not 53, and it works great. Here is a link that might be useful: What size should a step in corner pantry be

remodelfla - Good question about the dining chairs! I think it will be OK since the island should end right about where the dining room wall is right now and it's not tight. I may have moved the wall a bit though to squeeze the refrigerator in. The drawing shows it to be a wee bit over 5 ft from the island to the table, but the drawings may not be that accurate. Is there a minimum that you would suggest? The space on either side of the cooktop is 24". Hard to tell that from the drawing. Right now I have 18" on each side and that works fine as long as I'm not trying to do major prep there. I do wish the drawers on either side were a little larger though. I would consider moving the cooktop if I thought there was another place for it. But this house has the same issue my main house had - a square kitchen where there was too much space between walls, so it would be too many steps to use opposite walls. And the adjoining walls have doors/windows that limit their functionality. But if anyone has a good idea for a different layout, I'd love to hear it!