Hard for me to read but was your utility room to be in the basement? If so you need to find a place for that on the first floor.

What do you plan to have on the second floor? Do you need the living space?

No matter how many stripes you paint on it, a horse is not a zebra. Ball that up and throw it in the trash. Start over with your architect.

The types of rooms you put in a basement are often incompatible with putting them on a second floor. Noisy things, kids' spaces, smelly / craft things, things that get connected to the outdoors, home theatre / nighttime things.

That stuff just "doesn't work" upstairs. And it's weird - up or down - what difference does it make? Except it does. It simply won't "feel" right, and therefore won't get used as you envision.

Start over with the correct spacial relationships for building up instead of down.

As usual, Sophie Wheeler is right.

Even if painting stripes on a horse could make it a zebra, throw this design in the trash. Summit is right.

Tiggerlgh - utilities will either be in the room labeled "storage" near the garage or in the crawlspace. 2nd floor will have bedrooms and a bathroom.

We do need the extra space...I would like to have 5 bedrooms (master, 2 kids, guest, and craft room/office)...but I do not want to build a bigger rancher...we're on 10 acres so we have the space, just not sure I want that extra expense of building out rather than up.

We've spent a year getting all the bids, designing every inch this place...I really don't want to change the whole plan! The kitchen (not as pictured) is just how I want it, and the windows will be facing a hay field and mountains in the distance...can't imagine starting over!

If your plan was to have more bedrooms and baths in basement, I don’t see why that cannot be done on a second floor.. That is very common use for second floors, but of course I have also never seen a basement here (which are very common where I live) designed for “smelly things” as they usually include a family room or den, bedrooms, and a bath as well and are part of the overall living space.

If you don’t need 3700 sq feet (that would be too much for me, too) then you definitely don’t need to build over entire second floor. An asymmetrical design can work aesthetically and functionally but you need to work with your architect to get it to look and feel purposeful and not like an “add on”.

I do agree you are likely going to need to “start over” though - it does not mean you need to lose all the elements you like about current plan, just need to start over to properly integrate them.

"What would you do? Is there an option that I am missing?"

Design your home with an architect that understands what size spaces should be and how sound travels through spaces.

You mentioned that the reason that you are starting over is “irrigated fields”. If a geotechnical engineer’s report indicated expansive soils, that should have been known on the front end, before any design work was done. Why is that issue fearing its head at this late date? But, that’s going to be an issue for a foundation for a two story home too. So again, the issue is not insolvable, no matter what it is. With the right design professional. Whom, looking at that closer, you may not have yet met.

The thing is, that with a second story and adding bedrooms upstairs, you have flexibility of space that you did not have when you were building on one story and could expand the tiny bathroom and half bath and some other relatively cramped areas while moving a full bath and a bedroom upstairs.

If you really like this plan I would insert two more bedrooms along the hall and rework the bathrooms, making the master a little smaller, the common bath a little bigger and get a shower into that powder room, or stretch a little more and have two bathrooms on the hall and a master.

But it still doesn't give you an equivalent of a basement. You will need a barn or something for typical basement storage.

You want two more bedrooms than this plan has. That will require about 450 s.f. or so. It doesn't make sense to put in 100 s.f. of stairs to access 450 s.f. Either put all the bedrooms upstairs except the master. Or, put everything on the main level.

Either way you're looking at a major re-working of this plan. As the pros here have already alluded to, you will get a better design by looking at it as a one or two story house... not a one story house with a couple of bedrooms plopped on top. Or worse, a whole bunch of space you don't need on the upper level to fill up the footprint of what's below it.

As others have suggested, floor levels must be designed simultaneously and work together harmoniously. One cannot design a first floor, and subsequently decide to later add a second floor. It's just not possible. It's not the same as burying a basement below grade which never is visible from the exterior of the house.

A two-story house means designing the two levels simultaneously, together with the exteriors of the house, assuming one cares about efficiency and aesthetics.

If you really want a two story house, you are going to have to reconsider and reconfigure some or all of the first story in order to have the second story you want and that makes good architectural sense.

Sorry to say...but you've changed the game plan, so in all likelihood you will have to start fresh...

Good luck!

What do the elevations look like?