Some responses to the items I pointed out earlier... 2 - Foyer closet--I personally prefer hooks + a bench BUT now notice that you don't have a coat closet in the mudroom area. As it is, you will probably hang your 'current season' coat on a hook in the mudroom and store your 'off season' coats in the front closet. Since your foyer closet is so close to the mudroom, I think this will work! :) The foyer does have a spot for a bench which I think is ABSOLUTELY essential (unless you want your guests to wear their shoes indoors at all times.) 3 - Depending on your lifestyle, having space to have guests over to watch TV is nice when you have small kids. It's hard to get out to see a movie and/or friends, so inviting friends over for a movie kills two birds with one stone. We were never 'TV people' before our son was born. It is amazing all of the small ways a person's lifestyle changes when a baby arrives! I'd suggest talking to other parents in your lives (your own parents and your friends who are parents) to try to get an idea of what your life will be like once children enter the picture. 6 - Is there seating room at the island? I know guests can get a little uncomfortable (both physically and socially) standing around while someone is working in the kitchen. I think seating makes their presence seem more comfortable for everyone. :) 7 - As an voracious reader, I find it unlikely those chairs in the study will be your favorite reading nooks, since the natural light will be coming in at your face instead of at your back. Think about where you gravitate toward for reading in your current home. For me, anyway, during the daytime I like to have natural light from behind or next to me. If it's evening, I like a LOT of BRIGHT light above me (can lights galore!) 8 - I also work on the computer. (I work from home full time as a web developer and stay-at-home mom.) Side-by-side is different from back-to-back. If you both spend a lot of time at the computer at the same time, you'll just want to make 100% sure your computer nook is comfortable for everyone. Don't just think about once you're settled in---thinking about coming/going for trips to the kitchen, bathroom, and nursery. (If anyone plans on working at the computer while caring for the baby, I'd recommend a computer set-up near the nursery, at least for the first year of each baby's life.) 9 - If the stair layout is the most economical way, I'm sure you'll get used to it. I just know it would drive ME crazy to have to make a U-turn when I'm SPRINTING to the baby's room to take calm him down before his 'sleep fussing' turns into real crying. :) 10 - Our builder's opinion on the pocket door to the water closet is mostly that they're a pain to use if they are frequently closed. At the risk of over-sharing, our master bath door only gets shut when one spouse worries the aroma will offend the other spouse's senses. So, for us, the inconvenience of sometimes operating a pocket door is worth the aesthetic of having it out of the way 99% of the time. Again, it just totally depends on your lifestyle. I think our builder charges about $150 more for a pocket door vs. a normal door--it's worth finding out what your builder charges before going crazy adding them all willy nilly, of course. :D 11 - If you're not bothered by it, I think skipping a closet door in the bedroom would be fine. For aesthetic reasons, I'd recommend having any closet areas that are visible from the bedroom be anything but shelving. My husband and I are neat freaks and we both worked retail so we know how to fold and stack clothes neatly...and our shelving still never looks tidy. Hanging looks better by far. (I'd personally have a closet door that swings into the room, but that's just a personal preference, not a game changer.) Hope that helps! It's all just my personal opinions. We're only in the planning stages too, so I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. :) (Hope you'll go comment on my floorplan since it sounds like we have similar lifestyles.) Here is a link that might be useful: Floorplan of my 4BR 2-story Minnesota home

So you have the Broan 6" MD6T and you have it unfiltered, unconditioned, and ouputting under the fridge for conditioning purposes? So you are relying on the exhaust heat of the fridge to cool the incoming air? How cold did it get this past winter for you? How cold was that make up air? Detectable at all? Here we had -20 real feel in NY with the wind chill at times. It was brutally cold and cold often. I think I might have to put in a heated MUA. So update on Broan. The lady I spoke to today was completely useless. To make a long story short she had absolutely no idea how to use the Make Up Air Specifier on her site. It was quite pathetic and my impressions of Broan's customer service = suck. I spoke to Dean at Electro Industries at length about all the factors I'm thinking about. We went over two options - one using the MA-10 (10kw all in one 10" heater with damper, blower, filter, and current detector to control blower speed) and the less expensive heater unit EM-WX1025R. The broan MD6T comes with a 24volt 20VA transformer so I could then use the one signal to turn on both the Broan damper and the heater unit. Both options unit can accomodate up to 637cfm in a 50 degree temperature rise. It's a 10kW unit though and would require a 50A or 60A two pole (240V) breaker and its own dedicated lines (of course). I can take care of the electrical so no problem there but man I'm guessing my heating bill (which was astronimical last year) will be more than I can tolerate this year. Temperature Rise Needed/CFM EM-WX1025R 10000 Watts 80/395 70/452 60/527 50/632 40/790 30/1054 MA-10 $1917 + freight EM-WX1025R $800 + freight. I think that should be sufficient - it's better to have 50 degree air coming in than 0 degree air. I'm thinking that maybe I can get away with non-heated air if I can get fresh air to come up that old supply register near the range. The opening is closer than the fireplace but it might work if I put a blower in-line as well.

Noise is tough to compare because window units vary so much. My new one is very quiet compared to the old ones. I thought about buying a portable but it was much more expensive than a window unit, then you have the issue of emptying the water. Plan on doing it once or even twice a day. How often will vary on how humid things are and on the size of the container. An evaporative unit is self-defeating. A big part of the a/c unit is to dehumidify. If you evaporate it back into the air, you're defeating the purpose. There's also the issue of security. You'll often have more of a security issue with one of them than with a window unit although window units aren't very secure either. Also, they're not as efficient as a window unit so it'll cost more to operate and won't cool as well coupled with the higher cost, it's basically a unit you get out of desperation rather than choice. Since you're running a refrigerator you're putting heat into the air again that the window unit puts outside. This means you have to make up for the heating in there. A friend has one and regrets it. Wishes he had bought a window unit. I've been thinking about having the window unit mounted in the wall. My old unit was just left in the window year round the last few years. Not sure if that contributed to its death or not but I'd doubt it. My new window unit is pretty light weight. Especially compared to the unit it replaced however it's also less BTUs. Another plus is it has a remote control that I really like. If you don't mind the expense, you could also consider a ductless unit. They're expensive, close to the cost of central or even sometimes more, but I guess they're very popular in New England.

I'd be inclined to suspect a combination of fan dampers not closing properly and gross overchilling of the bathrooms. Aside and editorial: I'm not a doctor, but I consider anything below about 75 deg F too much change from outdoors for good health in the summer. The hotter your climate, the more critical this is. Seventy-eight or even 80F is ample cooling when the outdoor temp is in 3 digits. It saves significant money on your summer electric bill, too. Overcooling the indoors also makes you more miserable when you go outside, because it inhibits your body's ability to adjust to the heat. As you've seen, overcooling can also cause house problems. If the bathrooms were in the 60-65 deg F range, that's excessive. I've never heard of a bathroom with more than one heating/cooling register. Is the bath that huge??? Try closing off all the vents but one. Leave the doors open when the bathrooms aren't in use. Remove the fans from their housings and check for proper damper operation. Clean the dampers and ducts thoroughly with a brush and vacuum. Lubricate the dampers (if necessary) only with a dry lubricant, such as Teflon or graphite. It sounds like the fans aren't really working all that well. I think that the 14' run to the cap is too much, especially with bends. You need a shorter path to free air. Consider ducting the exhausts straight up through the roof (example). The roof cap will also provide a redundant damper. Use rigid pipe.