How big is your lot?

If you live in an area that gets snow and ice, good luck with that roof.

Have you considered hiring a local architect to get 100% what you are looking for?

That's what struck me at first - the main living areas are going to be dark. The few exterior windows/doors are all shaded by porches.

For what its worth I like the plan, If it was me I would make the extra bedrooms at least 12 x 12 if used for kids bedrooms.

I don't see an issue with the roof that the others are seeing. Where we are at in Colorado this style is becoming popular. Our last house was a mountain style home and had a similar roof structure with multiple gables and we never had issues with snow or leaves, but I might be missing something the others are seeing.

That roof will cost a fortune and with all those gables, is at high risk
for leaks, and at the least, those gullies will fill up with leaves in
the fall.

I agree that it's an overly complicated roof, and it can't be made better in this plan. The reason is that it's essentially a square house: The main house is three rooms deep -- porch - dining - kitchen / porch - family - foyer -- so the roof must be wide in the middle ... and it's four rooms wide the other direction. So you're forced into a large roof, and then the gables, etc. are added to keep it from looking plain ... and they bring in the problems mentioned above with leaves and gullies.

The picture shows a standing seam metal roof, which will be more able to withstand these issues, but it will also cost a whole lot -- especially because of all the gables, etc.

A similar house plan that's only two rooms deep could avoid these issues ... and the easiest way to find that would be to find a similar plan (and they are prolific) that puts the secondary bedrooms upstairs.

Your LR, DR and especially your kitchen, will be very dark - they are in the center of the house and have no direct windows.

Bummer, but -- yeah -- the main parts of this house will receive little direct sunlight. On one side the sunlight is blocked by the garage; on the other, it's filtered through the porches.

The skylights on the porch will help but not alleviate this issue.

Light in the bedrooms:

- In the master bedroom, I'd add a door directly to the porch. This would give you light on a third side (nice), and it would be a nice fire safety addition.

- In the secondary bedrooms, I'd add a window on the wide wall. Light from two sides always makes a room better. Unrelated topic: I'd go with wider doors (or maybe sliders) on those closets ... so you won't have dark corners on each end.

The picture does not show the house with a "snout" garage but the
floorpans do. It turns your garage as the main "feature" of your house,
instead of your front door.

Yes, this photograph is downright deceptive -- taken directly from the front, it hides the fact that the garage pushes forward. However, it's not nearly as bad as some snout garages ... it pushes forward about 12' /half the garage rather than the whole garage being out front. Still, it is a problem.

Consider a guest arriving ... it seems natural to pull to the end of the drive, so the red box shows where the guest will park. The guest has no view of the front door, which is uncomfortable. Hope it's not raining. The red line shows the guest's path, which forces the guest to circle the garage /the house's lease attractive feature ... the path is approximately 50' long /the length of a basketball court, and the guest cannot see the goal: The cute little welcoming porch.

Overall, I think the parking-and-arrival sequence doesn't get nearly enough attention, and this one is pretty bad.

Still thinking of arrival: Family traffic, entering through the garage /mudroom will all funnel through the kitchen. Okay, they are skirting by the edge of the main kitchen work area, but it's not ideal.

Next, consider your laundry patterns. Laundry's already a constant and thankless job ... the red line represents you transporting laundry to/from the master bedroom ... the green line represents the secondary bedrooms' laundry:

Speaking of bathrooms, I'd lose the half-bath. You have a hall bath available to guests only steps away. I'd rather have a bit more storage rather than a duplicate bathroom, which is expensive and high-maintenance.

Or ... that half bath could become a small walk-in closet for the front bedroom ... which would allow you to remove the front bedroom's existing closet and move the other bedroom/closet to shift forward about 2', giving the back bedroom a deeper closet (or more floor space for one of the bedrooms). Yes, I'd opt for larger closets in the secondary bedroom rather than a duplicate bathroom.

Is that a back door in the dining room? Note that it won't be accessible once you've placed a table in this spot. Is that another back door in the great room? If so, that means you'll have to keep furniture at least 3' away, cutting down your usable space in the great room.

I like the beams and built ins in the great room.

The kitchen is okay ... but I'd put the dishwasher towards the dining room, which would make loading dirty dishes easier and would preserve drawer storage on the end where you'll do most of the cooking. The refrigerator isn't specially convenient.

Overall thoughts: This plan has some nice features, and it is absolutely as good as many houses out there ... but with all the good floor plans available online, think you can find a better one with these same nice features.

MrsPete, the down side to removing the reach-in closet in bedroom 3 is that you lose the sound barrier between the bedroom and bathroom.

I agree with the rest of your comments.

MrsPete, if the OP has kids, I'd keep the half bath. I don't like using the kids bath when I'm a guest.

My issues with this plan are the lack of circulation, it's just a big open space with only one way to get anywhere, and the lack of an "away space" to borrowSarah Susanka's term. Unless they build out the upstairs, but it seems difficult to get to. Also walking through the master bathroom to get to the closet. We don't know if OP has a lot already chosen; this is a plan for an in-town lot, except that the side-load driveway will require some width.

I do like that the bedroom hall opens off the foyer. In fact, the foyer actually gets to do a little more work than many plans show: it has a bathroom and a closet AND the hall to the bedrooms, instead of just being the little-used front entry point with those other things opening off the living room.

Here's where there's a problem with the roof.

Thanks for all the comments. To address some questions, our lot is a little over 2 acres in central Virginia, so rarely heavy snow or ice storms. We will be building a basement. We understand that with any ranch, the foundation and roof costs will be large. We've had initial discussions with a few builders and they all work with draftsman, so we know that we can adapt plans and try to put together something we love. We prefer an open concept with only one eating area, which is why the plan appealed to us. I did have some worries about the flow, especially entering the house from the mudroom and entering the master bedroom. We do not currently have any kids, but we are planning space to have some. We really like the addition of the half bath- as bpathome points out, that way guests don't have to use the potential 'kids' bathroom. We have also discussed converting some of the covered porches to just decks which would allow more light into the house and also reduce some roofing costs. Overall, the commentary is greatly appreciated as there are some good points to discuss as we proceed with planning!

The garage could move to the left side of the house, opening up the front.

If you're building on 2 acres you don't need your garage attached to the front of the house. And while you rarely get heavy snow or ice storms, you still get them and that roof will be a major problem.

We've had initial discussions with a few builders and they all work with draftsman, so we know that we can adapt plans and try to put together something we love.

I wouldn't bet on it. Most draftsman have absolutely no sense of design and only put the boxes where you tell them to. Don't believe me? Look at what I went through. And I have a design background.

For a little bit more money you can find a creative architect or person of design talent to help you create your dream house within budget. There are a few who actually frequent this forum and work remotely.

" . . . so we know that we can adapt plans and try to put together something we love."

Did you hear of the guy that bought a Chevy to get a Porsche? Consider working with a local architect to design a home to fit the site and your needs.

You will be better off in the short- and long-term to spent your time talking to architects, and selecting one to walk your site and explore design concepts with you.

Good luck on your project!

It seems to be ridiculously expensive to build for what you get.

I see this post is over a year old but wondering if you ended up building Hickory Flat? Would love to see pictures, if so! We're about half way through building ours and couldn't be happier with it. We made a number of modifications to the drawings that would have addressed some of the concerns on this thread.