In the list the OP posted and the description Bevangel provided, the only Allowances needed are for the material for counters and cabinets. The Unit Prices for tile and flooring are useful but they are not Allowances; an allowance must be a total price so it can be aded to the contract price and you don't want to be telling the contractor how much material to order. Describe the kind of finish and the installation method and put the Unit Prices in the appropriate place in the contract. Appliances are usually bought by the Owner and installed by the Contractor. You can often get a better price through your designer or on your own than from your contractor. Recessed lighting and switches should be shown on a lighting plan and the housings and lamps (bulbs) specified in the fixture schedule. This determines the correct number of fixtures and the number of dimmers and the correct lamps so you don't get cheap inefficient R lamps in all of the cans. There is no mystery about insulated and air sealed housings, it's all in the building code and your designer will be modify a schedule from a previous project. "Other lighting fixtures" are usually bought by the Owner and installed by the Contractor unless you want the electrician to help you choose them. Plumbing fixtures and fittings should be selected and specified in the base bid even if you are still thinking about them; they can be changed later. There are only a few that look good and work well and your designer should know them well. Make your designer earn his/her fee and enjoy the construction process instead of worrying about the contractor getting ahead of your decision process. Save your emotional energy for the problems and that inevitably arise in construction and use a complete set of documents to help protect yourself from them.

To me architecture is as much an art as it is a science. However, some prefer one type of art over another...just like in genre of music. I for one can't stand rap music. I detest it. My dislike does not make it 'wrong'. Yet, I will not spend any of my money on anything related to rap. Many love rap music and it makes plenty of money. So...apply this to architecture. Do many architects prefer a certain 'type' of construction and disprove of 'fat' layouts or big roofs? This is obviously not my profession, but I do love learning about other professions and other perspectives. I understand your analogy, but the thing is, you're not talking about musical preferences here -- you're talking about misplaced notes, or a tempo that doesn't work with the melody, or instruments that don't blend well together. Even when you're talking about forms of art, rules still exist. You got it right in your title: This is a first draft. It can be polished and improved significantly, but -- for that to happen -- you have to be willing to listen to advice. And you're getting good advice here. I have actually thought about an L shaped house, but I think for us the flow of this works better. Let's test that theory and see if the house has good flow. The red lines represent the path you'd take from the various parts of the house to the laundry room. Note that EVERY ONE OF THEM funnels through the kitchen, one of the busiest rooms in your house. So while you're cooking, people'll be squishing through carrying large baskets of clothes to and fro. This is the exact opposite of good flow. On the other hand, let's consider getting groceries into the house, into storage and to the table -- this works! You bring groceries in, there's the pantry, there's the refrigerator ... when it's time to cook, you bring them into the kitchen ... then straight on to the table. I'd think about the sink location, but everything else is set up to run like a well-oiled machine. So the question is, how can you make ALL (or at least most) of your daily chores run easily like the food storage ... instead of horribly like the laundry lay out? Consider all the other things you do on a daily basis that could either run poorly ... or be designed well: Bringing in the mail, taking out the trash, taking care of the dog, managing the kids' homework, storage of sports equipment, wrapping a present, sitting down to read a book. Think through all these things, and then work on laying out the house so that everything you need is logically organized.

Does anything stand out as unusual or impractical? It's almost double the size of an average American house. Your main floor has a large family space plus an away space ... why the whole basement as well? It'll be at least a decade -- and probably another house -- 'til the kids want to be separated from you. One thing we're wrestling with with is our kitchen island size I think you're falling victim to "this is what nice houses have" syndrome. Why do you need a breakfast table (not a nook -- nooks are tucked away spaces) PLUS a large island with seating ... located literally within arm's reach of one another? And I'd venture to guess another outdoor table only steps away. How many eating spaces do you actually need? I'd say choose one or the other ... if you go with the island, enlarge it a bit /make it really nice, not stools lined up so no one can talk comfortably ... if you go with the table, shorten the island to allow for circulation (and don't neglect the space you'll need when chairs are pulled out ... this table is in the center of your floorplan, making it a major thoroughfare. Our breakfast table is 3 1/2' round -- definitely go with a round table in this area -- and it's ideal for 4-5 people. We never put food on the table; rather, we serve plates from the stovetop for casual weekday meals. Don't forget that you want to be able to reach the back door. Currently it sits 6' from the stove so we can move it over at least a foot to 5' away 6' between the stove and island seems to be too much. 4' would be better. Another question is whether the master shower at 5' x 6' is just strangely large. Yes. In my opinion (and I spent several years measuring friends' showers and hotel showers to develop this opinion), showers shouldn't be more than 3 1/2' - 4' wide. Why? Because once you pass that width, you're kind of out in the middle of a too-big space, which feels uncomfortably exposed. If you one day need grab bars, the walls'll be too far apart for them to be reachable. However, this is an easy fix. Just reduce the size of the shower and center the tub on the open wall. Overall, I think a lot of your things are over-optimized. This may not be just as bad as under-sized, but it's a problem. You don't want over-sized ... you want right-sized. Have you measured friends' houses, etc. to see what sizes you actually prefer? The laundry room is on the second floor adjacent to the master bedroom. I'd bump the machines to the left /make it easier to vent the dryer. I personally would leave the laundry room door open most of the time, so I think this is a good spot for a pocket door. I'd also double the window in the laundry room so it would allow more light into the hallway. If you're going with modern front-loader machines, which are pretty deep, this laundry room isn't any too wide. Someone commented on the double doors to the mbr, are there issues with double doors? They seem to be common on mid to higher end houses around here. Again "this is what nice houses have" syndrome. Things that are common aren't necessarily desirable. Double doors require two hands to open ... and the light switches must be placed either behind the door or too far from the door for comfort. And what's the gain? Nothing. Well, if you're working with a small space, you might want your doors to "park" in a smaller area, but that doesn't seem to be a problem ere. In fact, I'd consider a 17' long master. What are you going to do with the space at the foot of the bed? Nothing. It's just empty space. Imagine you put a TV on the wall ... it's 17' away ... too far for easy vision, and you have to turn up the volume. Do pocket doors wear over time? We would prefer to keep them closed so the mud room to kitchen area would be closed most of the time. Yes, they do wear out, and they're harder for little fingers to open. I personally would go with a pocket door here anyway ... because I'd keep the door open most of the time. An alternative: A swinging door. Other thoughts: - I understand that you like to cook (and you will again once the kids are a bit older), but a larger kitchen is in no way a better kitchen. This much cabinetry is going to cost a fortune, and much of it is likely to end up as clutter-space. - Is that a pantry in the middle of the house? Again, this would be a good place for a pocket door. Note that your standard hinged door covers up a big portion of your shelves, meaning you'd have to go into the pantry /close the door to access these items. OR, this might be a place for double doors on swing hinges (swing hinged doors don't require hands to open). - The dining room isn't exactly close to the kitchen -- it's not absolutely ridiculously far, but neither is is conveniently placed. Consider the steps that'll be necessary to transport food, plates, drinks to the dining room. The butler's pantry half-way between is a good place for a buffet set-up ... be sure to include a few outlets there so you can run a crock pot in this area. - Is that empty room across from the stairs a half-bath? If not, it should be! You absolutely need a bathroom on your main living level. - Upstairs you're over-bathed (plus another full bath in the basement and what I think is a half bath on the main floor). You'll run yourself ragged keeping these bathrooms clean /keeping toiletries and toilet paper in them each. And only one of the upstairs baths (the one that shares a wall with the laundry room) looks to be adequately sized /comfortable. The others have minimal sink space, meaning no storage for the kids as they grow older. I'd go with ONE nice-sized bathroom open to the hallway. So much less money, so much less work.

Unless you have significant trade skills and will help to construct your own home, I think building a custom home is something for the rich who want what they want at a premium price. Most people cannot afford the premium in a custom home, and it certainly is a losing investment nine times out of 10. Reading your remarks, I think you are clearly the person who should be looking for a premium-built used home that is selling below its cost to build. Such homes can occasionally be purchased at steep discounts. I was toying with the idea of retiring to Nevada, and one home I saw had outrageous build quality. They had high-end stone masonry everywhere and things like custom arching beams. They spent about $375/square foot to build but because the neighborhood had homes with $150 to $200 build cost, the resale value of the home was $240/square foot. I would rather pay $250/square foot as an investment, and buying $375 for $250 is the way I would want to invest $250. I think the problem for people building a custom home with a tight budget is they can be easily fleeced on the home build quality without ever knowing what hit them. For example, to get costs lower the builder may switch to 2x4 framing on 16" centers instead of 2x6 framing on 24" centers. The 2x4 home will be much less insulated and will have very shallow window bays. It will feel cheaper. The odds are you would never ask about the framing. The homebuilder saves a ton of money on his material costs by switching to 2x4. You end up with a home that does not feel quite right and never know what hit you until much later down the road. Where custom home building really shines is in the ability to select high-end materials and building approaches that are never seen in tract homes. For example, when you do the framing you can use new stud designs that incorporate closed-cell foam into a truss design inside the studs. Normally a wood stud in the framing has very poor insulation and directly acts as a heat/cold sink that bypasses your home's insulation. The newer style studs (e.g., "T-Stud" is a brand) have an R-value of 20 (versus 6 for a normal stud) and have four times the strength because of the engineered design. Alternately, you can insulate the outside wall of the home and use SIP insulated panels on the roof, to directly overcome the insulation problems with normal studs. These things can greatly increase the comfort of the home, but they also increase build cost, and in any case, they are rarely done outside of a custom build environment. In a perfect world, in addition to an architect, it would be great to find a home builder that you could hire as a consultant - at an hourly rate - to help educate you about key variables in building a home, and that person could help you to understand budget impacts of various build choices, as well as help you specify things to the builder and architect. I wonder if there are retired home builders who do this on a consulting basis, even remotely.