I've looked at your plan several times, but have found it difficult to come up with ideas since I'm not clear on what can be changed, and it's hard to see the measurements. Looking at your second plan, it's guesswork to see what the old plan was. It would be very helpful to see the original, existing plan. But I'll take a stab at it. What is it that you don't like about the MBR, besides the location of the WIC door? You said you're redoing the bathrooms. Can their fixtures be relocated? Can the kitchen cabinets along the dining room wall be changed? Seems like there must be a better way to do the butler's pantry, which is inconvenient in its present location. Can the locations of the appliances be changed in the kitchen? The great room seems huge--what are the measurements? Do you really need it that large? The reason I ask is that it seems like you have space in it for the dining table at the end towards the kitchen. If so, I'd go back to the 3 car garage, and just attach it to the house. Then I'd rework the present dining room, mudroom, and butler's pantry. How many people/ what ages are living in this house? Is there a reason the mudroom is so large in Baton Rouge, especially with the laundry elsewhere? I assume you need 4 active bedrooms, and wouldn't want to convert one to a study/guest bedroom? Living in the north, I don't know much about life styles in Louisiana. How much of the year are the doors and windows open, or do you mostly close up and use air conditioning down there? Which way is south on this house plan? How wide is the lot, and how close to the lot line are the doors of the present 3 car garage? More info and the original plan will help! Anne

Thanks so much for your input everyone! Bevangel, special thanks to you for modifying my picture. It definitely helps to have a visual! I think moving the doors further into the hall will work, and should be very easy for the builder to do. We'd lose a little more exterior hallway space (the bedroom doors were originally at the dotted line), but having the longer hallway within the master bedroom will be more dramatic. I love this website! I'm glad I finally decided to join and stop lurking. ;)

for reference, here is the layout of the property. it is on two lots on a corner across from a park.the red square is where the potential kitchen patio would go if i installed sliding doors in the dining room. there is a detached two car garage with a 300sq ft efficiency built into it. I'm not sure what to do with the garage. this neighborhood is an old one, adjacent to the town's university. it's populated with professors, young families and students, and most of the nicer houses have built the garages into additional space for the home. anything done to the garage would be later on down the road, however having a plan in the works would be nice. there is enough space there for an additional 1000 square foot rental unit if i don't include the old aquarium. 1100 sq ft 2 bedroom rentals in the neighborhood run around 1200+ utilities, and are never wanting for tenants. so, add to house's square footage or invest in a rental unit? I'm not sure what the best course of action would be, but i have no use for a detached garage, i prefer to park on the street as the doorway isn't tall enough for my truck. My grandfather had an exotic fish farm in the old aquarium, it used to have the greenhouse paneling for a roof, but it has since deteriorated. My little brother and I both live in this house now, he's going to school for a plant biology degree and i was thinking about converting this structure into a greenhouse for him.

Maybe your wants/tastes are beyond what the area will support? This might not be the lot/area for you, specially when you keep saying you will probably not want to be there for that many years? We built in a nice community with med/high home prices for the area. When we started designing the house we felt we were going to overprice ourselves with new construction, because most of the homes were older existing homes. We were ok with that, because we planned to be here till we couldn't manage a large house or we died! Well, covid happened and the prices for the older homes shot through the roof. We built a brand new house for less than older homes, that need updating, have sold for. Doesn't really matter that we could make a nice profit on the house, because we have no plans to sell right now! Bottom line, I just don't think this is the right location for what you want to do or you wouldn't be having such a hard time with the whole thing. Things shouldn't be that hard when they are meant to be the right choices!