There are some awkward and wasted spaces, the area to the left of the entry is too small to do much with and awkward for furniture placement because it will likely be a main path for people to walk through. I might play around with making the entry to the garage on that side and you could make that area the mud room w/ closets/benches etc. and maybe even laundry. May not make sense for how you live/what your wanting but it's just something I would consider. The upstairs has a lot of hallway, which means wasted space. I would move bedroom 3's closet to where the desk and sink is, move bedrooms 2's closet to where bed 3's was and move the kid's bath to where bed 2's closet was (you will have to scoot the master bedroom wall a bit also). Not only will the closer bathroom be more convenient for kids/guests but it will let you utilize that hall from the top of the stairs to the east side of the house (if you said back of house is south). I would plan on using 2x6's walls around the bathroom though so you can provide sound insulation around the pipes. You would also have to make sure you plan for sound insulation around the bathroom for the ceiling in the first floor. (No one wants to be watching tv or eating dinner and hear the pipes flush.) In the master bedroom I do not think the closet is too big, it looks small compared to current standards. I try to always measure closets by lineal hanging space. I would guess yours has 9-10' hanging space and even less if you want to use your corners for storage. (Measure your current closets for comparison). In planning our new house 16' is my benchmark minimum but personally I would much rather have to put clothes on hangers than fold them so perhaps I am biased in that regard. Where are you planning on putting your furnace (garage or basement?) Geothermal pumps are sometimes quite a bit larger than typical furnaces so it will eat up quite a bit of your shop area in the garage if you do that. Looks like you'll have good access to basement with the walkout so that is probably your best bet. In that case, plan for a vertical mechanical chase at least through the first floor but continue it up through the second floor if you want your second floor vents in the ceiling. (If your second floor vents are in the floor you'll have a bulkhead running along somewhere near the middle of your house.) Minor things but if your not expecting them they can be a hassle. Good luck in your build!

Well, dang that chimney! ;-) Moving the DR door instead seems like a good alternative, if you're willing to give up the kitchen doorway. I can't decide if your cabinet maker did you a favor by mentioning this possibility or not. ;-) But since it's under consideration, why not look at all the possibilities before pulling the plug and going ahead with the remodel? At least this way, you'll know you've looked at it from all sides and the plan you went with was the best of the bunch. So here's an idea if you leave the kitchen doorway in place: And another if you close the kitchen doorway off. Both of these rely on a corner sink. You need 74 to 80 inches of wall space to install the DW (allowed 26 for DW and cabinetry), 12" cabinet between DW and sink and 36" or 42" corner sink cab to make this work. Corner sinks have their pluses and minuses but one thing I think they help with is fitting the sink and DW in an area you may not have thought they fit - that corner by the window in plan C. Moving the sink to that area allows you to move the range over to the fridge wall, which gives you more space on each side of the range, making it easier for 2 to work in the same space. I'm assuming that your windows on the wall to the back door are counter height, hopefully I'm not making a mistake with that assumption. In Plan C, if your fridge cab is 39" wide, the range is 30" wide and the cabs on each side of it are 20" wide, and your DW wall measures 80" (42" sink cab), you'd have 40" between the two runs of cabs. If you stretched the cabs next to the range to 24" each, you'd have 33" between the cab runs. If you shrank the DW run to include a 36" sink cab instead of a 42" sink cab, you'd have 37" between the two cab runs. Don't forgot to include an open DW door when considering clearances. You don't want an aisle so tight when the DW is open that you can't walk through the kitchen. In Plan D, you could have a 18" cab (trash pull-out?) between corner sink cab (42") and range before a 36" corner Susan cab. If you went with a 36" corner sink cab, then you have room for a 24" cab between sink and range. It's tight but it's a small kitchen. You haven't said but I'm assuming that your fridge is a left hand door swing (hinges on left) so that you can place it up against a wall as you've shown in your working plan. I'm also guessing on a few other measurements, including the size of your fridge and its cab so you'll need to check my measurements based on those assumptions to see if either plan fits in your space.

What size is the sink you are doing? Does the window wall just end and the cabinets are going past it? Can you go 3" further?? Those blind 42" cabinets aren't the greatest because the opening is so small ( 12" ) so you can't even get big items into the back corner. My suggestion would be this: This will require 3" more on the sink wall. My question about the filler is because I do not see one at the wall. If you have full overlay doors and/or trim on the windows, you must have a filler there. I am quite concerned about a 36" walkway especially in front of a ref. Very tight so this plan adds 3 more inches to that. If you stay with the 15" garbage unit that would add 3 more to the walkway. You can find a large single bowl stainless to fit in a 30" sink base - even if you have to modify the sides of the cabinet to fit it ( we do this all the time when inches make all the difference ). If you really want a nice pots and pans drawer base, make it the one to the left of the stove ( B36 ) Hope this helps!

Old topic, but I wanted to say that I grew up in a 1920s farmhouse with a semi-open floorplan. No doors, except to the bedrooms and bathrooms, but huge arches in walls instead. Den, living room, and kitchen were all their own rooms, but you could see into the other rooms partly with the arches, but not entirely as you would if it were an open floor plan and everything was squeezed into one big area. It was me, my mom, my aunt, my sister, my grandma, and dogs and cats. Noises and smells didn't bother us -- we lived on a farm! It was really nice, definitely my favorite type of floor plan. Closed floorplans are too cramped, open floor plans just make me feel nuts... the opposite of cozy. I'll only ever have a semi-open floor plan in a home. Hooray for arches and passthroughs!