The light up book cases are my favorite. I very much like the exterior, which to me is similar to a look called "Yankee modern", done by a firm I wanted to use when we were going to be doing a Beachhouse tear down. It's farmhouse but simplified. Particularly nice in this setting. The interior is a bit more Spartan then I might like but also very nice. Two washers and two dryers is something I always recommend. We have had two sets ever since we had children. In our last house they were all in the basement. In this house one set upstairs and once downstairs. In the scheme of things it's not a huge indulgence but it makes a very big difference in any young family. It strikes me as furnished just right actually. As for real life, not everybody stages before they photograph , for goodness sakes .... Heck if we make that a requirement we may never see some reveals!

First, I'm sorry about the divorce. I live on a farm...so the first thing you want to consider is do you have space for the things you NEED, not the things you WANT. You don't NEED a pizza oven, but you will need a mudroom. You don't need high ceilings or central vacuum...those are wants. And a basement is not a necessity, either...as for geo-thermal, I think you might want to do some research there, too. What you will NEED...a back up source of heat and power...especially heat. Will you have a well? Did you know without backup power, the well will not work during a power outage...this means toilets will not flush. Animals will not get watered. Difficult to clean or cook anything, even with bottled water. A jack and jill bathroom for kids on the weekends...how about a hall bathroom that is also your guest bath? Kids may not need walk-in closets, but they will need a large enough room for desks to do homework and keep enough stuff they feel comfortable staying over. As for you...realize how much work and expense animals can be...even chickens. Gardening is expensive too, and it all takes commitment. The kids will probably want more than chickens, once they get used to the space...and that means more cost and time. Hey, it's worth it, but be prepared! :) In the house, make sure you have a large pantry, room for a freezer, lots of work area in the kitchen (especially for the garden produce, wine and cheese) and plan on a dining room table that expands. Kids like to have friends over and people are usually pretty informal in the country...so staying around a few hours to sample that wine can turn into a casual dinner. Also...while a generator is great (and you should have one) wood stoves or fireplaces in the living room and maybe the bedroom would be a good idea. Remember, if it gets cold, you do NOT want your water pipes to freeze! Insulate everything and try to keep sinks on inside walls if possible. An island sink in the kitchen might be a good idea. And toilets on inside walls, too. I hope all this helps. Find a builder, who wants to do what YOU want to do, as long as it's feasible with your climate, budget and lifestyle. Best of luck and keep us informed! And post pictures :)

Um I assume the area labeled garage is only the ancillary garage and not the main one? Your windows sound fine. One thing you might consider is having the windows come down to the countertop on either side of the range, but having the bottom parts frosted for privacy. As for your other things, let me take them one by one: Island - open to options, this is still an area being worked, but we expect to have a prep sink, microwave (if not matched with combi-steam oven on wall), trash/recycling, and seating for at least 5. I'm also debating a 15" or 24" induction cooktop on the island - open to thoughts on this, and how it would be utilized and be placed. With an island that is only 5' wide you only have room for 2 or maybe 3 if it's kids to sit at the island. Each butt needs 24". I'm also debating a 15" or 24" induction cooktop on the island - open to thoughts on this, and how it would be utilized and be placed. You absolutely do NOT want any type of cooktop on the island and especially one that is so small. Even induction needs good venting. Are you planning on having two vents? Appliances - still working to make final selections, but here are the current options: Range - most likely 36" Wolf (DF364G) or Blue Star (BSP366B), but debating 48" - think it'll be overkill with the induction cooktop and separate oven, but it looks cool...just not worth the extra money. We're committed to gas for the look, but I feel the love of induction here! I would forget the gas and go with a 36 induction cooktop and separate ovens for several reasons. 1. Do you really want your baby breathing in those gas fumes? 2. When your child is older, then you need to constantly watch your toddler to make sure they stay away from the range, and don't accidentally turn it on or burn themselves. 3. With induction, it's much easier to clean up. Would you rather be spending your time scrubbing grates and stovetops or playing with your baby? 4. Induction is more precise. 5. Since you have a grill outside, it's almost redundant. 6. It will be a heck of a lot safer when you and the kiddo start cooking together. Range Hood - size clearly depends on the range, but planning to go with VAH Wall Mounted Professional Series (or similar) with duct to ceiling. I've heard excellent things about the VAH and my sister is quite happy with hers. Induction Cooktop - open to advice here, but looking for a 15" to 24", and most likely in the island...this may be unnecessary and removed. See above where I explained you don't have room on your island and why I would go with induction only. Refrigerator - Thermador Freedom Columns (T30IR800SP and T18IF800SP) or SZ 48" built-in (BI-48SID/S). Another excellent choice. Oven/Warming Drawer - leaning toward the Miele Combi-Steam Oven (M6160TC) plumbed in, but still need to check out the options and get hands-on experience. Trying to match with the Miele warming drawer (ESW6680). Note: These aren't shown in the plans, but intent is to put them by the fridge on the side toward the range. Just make sure you don't put the warming drawer too low down or you'll never use it. Microwave - Sharp (SMD2470AS) - open to options here. I love my Sharp MW drawer and this is the one I'm getting for my new house. Realize that every MW drawer is made by Sharp so no reason for paying more for branding. Dishwasher - Bosch (SHX68T55UC) - may go higher end to get quieter, also need hands-on experience to confirm dishes fit, etc. Sink / Faucet - Rohl 30" Farmhouse (RC3018WH) and Kraus (KPF-1602-KSD-30) Prep Sink / Faucet - TBD, open. All fine. I would also look at the Franke Farmhouse sink. I think I like the look a bit better. As can be seen in the layout, we have a formal dining room, but that's not used as much today...we'll see how it evolves with the new home. We'll also have a table in the Sunroom to serve as a quasi-breakfast nook/eating area. Down the road, we'll add a patio, as well, with more seating and eating options. The formal dining room is far from the kitchen and if it's not used, why not turn it into an "away" type of room or a library or study for now. Then if your lifestyles change where you realize you need a more formal dining area you can turn it back into a dining room. Overall, IF you don't put an induction cooktop on the island, I like the overall plan. As long as you keep the prep sink on the island, I think it's a well thought out plan. The only change I can see offhand is to move the prep sink a bit over to the fridge so you have more space on the left of the sink for prepping.

Consider putting an exterior door across from the laundry room to open to a patio outside the breakfast room. Consider putting a door at the bottom of the steps to the bonus room. Heat rises, and heated automobile exhaust smells with it. Whether summer or winter, you'll want the better control over your heat exchange and any heat/ac bills. You could put a door (perhaps a frosted glass French door or pocket door) on each/both side of the fireplace to access that hallway behind the chimney. This addresses not only visual symmetry but adds an extra door for sound privacy and potential fire escape access. Rather than make your pantry separate and walled off from your kitchen, you should make your "pantry" a walk thru butler's pantry by increasing the space for the pantry by having less of an indent between front porch and garage. The butler's pantry is a short hallway with floor to ceiling cabinets on both sides through which you may access the dining room directly from the kitchen without going through the living room. You could have an 18" countertop beneath the butler's pantry window and floor to ceiling 18" deep cabinets on the rest of the walls. You could make the built ins on each side of the fireplace be more shallow so they could serve as bookshelves for the living room side and linen and/or shared game/toy storage closets for the children's hall side of the wall. You could save some cost by straightening the exterior walls of the home. If you straighten the back wall of the house, you could add a roofed indoor/outdoor living area -- any combination of pergola w/semi-clear roof and/or sun room and/or open porch and/or screened porch the full back width of the house from the master bedroom wing all the way to the left back corner of the home. You might want to swap the locations of the laundry room and powder room, putting the powder room closer to your master bedroom -- the better to enable both his/her powder rooms for the master bedroom as needed. Flipping the locations of the laundry room and the powder room would also move the smells of the powder room farther away from the door to the breakfast/eating area. You could also make that powder room a 3'-4' wide "L" shape, with the longer side against the master bedroom wall and a pedestal sink in the corner angle of the "L" and the toilet in the short part of the "L", enabling you to have more room in your laundry room by keeping you from having an inaccessible base cabinet corner in the laundry room. On the left side of the house for the children's bedrooms, do straighten that left exterior wall of the house (rather than having those unnecessary angles at the front and back corner. Then, rather than three small bedrooms, build two larger bedrooms with a bath-and-a-half and the closets for the bedrooms between them. More sound/privacy issues addressed. (Depending upon the gender of your next child, you could make one of the children's bedrooms larger than the other. As the eldest child becomes a teen, the bonus room above the garage could become an extra children's bedroom.) The bath-and-a-half would be three small connected rooms: a single shared bathtub w/shower in the center room accessible from each side via a powder room, each of which would be accessible from one of the children's bedrooms. Then add a larger closet for each of the children's bedrooms between that bathroom (bath-and-a-half) interior wall and the children's hall wall. (House rules: everyone rinses out the shared tub/shower after each use and no child leaves anything in the tub room other than their towel drying on their assigned towel rack on the back of their own powder room door and/or exterior wall and no one ever leaves the doors to the tub room locked from inside unless they're actually in the tub room.)