No the laundry room doesn't need to be next to the garage. How often have you ever carried a bunch of laundry in from the garage to wash it? Or carried a bunch of clean laundry out to the garage to put it away? LOL. The only reason laundry rooms in many on-line plans are next to the garage is that many designers still think in terms of women tending to the laundry WHILE they slave away in the kitchen all day and there IS a good reason to have the kitchen near the garage(carrying bags of groceries in from the car) so the laundry winds up there too. It was probably sensible to have the laundry near the kitchen back in the days when very few women worked outside of their homes, and most spent hours and hours in their kitchen every single cooking meals, baking fresh bread, and canning produce from their gardens. Plus, in the early days of washing machines, one had to pretty much 'babysit' the washing machine because they tended to get out of balance easily and you had to start the machines and then come back and laundry powder and bleach after the tub filled and then come back again to add fabric softeners at the start of the rinse cycle, etc. Nowadays tho, the biggest chore related to washing clothing is getting the laundry TO the machine and then getting the clean clothes back into closets. And no woman I know spends hours and hours in her kitchen everyday any more. So IMHO, it makes much more sense to have the washer/dryer close to the bedrooms/bathrooms because that is where 90% of laundry originates and that is where 90% of clean laundry is stored. However, with your design it appears that the master closet is only accessible by going thru the master bedroom. Not sure what revisions you're planning to make but will they result in the laundry room being accessible without having to go thru the master bedroom??? Your children may be too small to do their own laundry now but, when they get older, I'm sure you're going to want them to learn to be responsible for caring for their own clothing. To do so, they are going to need to be able to get to the washer/dryer without having to go thru your bedroom. Besides which, I don't think a 4 bedroom (4 SUITE) house where the laundry can only be accessed via the master suite would be very easy to sell if/when you ever decide to put this house on the market. Personally, I'd revise the upstairs area to put the main laundry room up there. If you were to close up the two-story great room OR the two-story entry, you would have plenty of room for a second floor laundry. Then I might consider adding a stacking washer/dryer in the master closet so I could do mine and DH's dirty laundry without lugging it up/down stairs. ***** Finally, I know you didn't ask for comments on your elevation, but before you settle firmly on the plan you posted, you might want to take a look at the attached link (which was first found and posted here on GW by CamG.) It summarizes some of the principles of good exterior design. At least take a look at pages 22 thru 37. I know everyone's tastes are different, but honestly, in my opinion the exterior elevation of the house you've chosen could serve as a poster child for many of the design faux pas perpetuated by spec-builders pushing mini-McMansions. Shutters that don't fit the windows they are attached to, an excessive number of gables resulting in a needlessly complex roof-line, far too many decorative design elements thrown together (faux archtop windows bay windows, a round window, double hung windows; quoins, arched keystone pediments, a splayed copper roof over the bay window, decorative attic vents...including one on a garage gable that leads to a section of garage attic that isn't even accessible, full cornice return on one gable, terminating cornice returns on the other), and all of that topped off with a double height entry because otherwise one wouldn't be able to find the front door. Somehow it reminds me of the sorts of bridesmaid's dresses sometimes selected by very young brides.... too many frills and furbelows and no sense of classic style, proportion or grace. Here is a link that might be useful: The Value of Design

I installed a very similar shelving unit in 2 closets in our bedroom a year ago. I think my closets are about the same width, but not as deep. For us they work beautifully! I did not add drawers, as we have a chest of drawers in the bedroom; I just have shelves for jeans, shorts, heavy sweaters, ski gear. In my closet, I have 2 hanging rods. Out of season or less frequently used clothes go in the back - they are not as convenient to reach, but it is still possible. The shelf above is for out of season storage - but the new shelving unit (and a healthy purge) means I have very little need for that high shelf. In DH's closet, I moved the hanging rod up as high as I could reach to hang up clothes, and added 2 shelves below the clothes for shoes and boxes. If you find that arrangement completely unacceptable, I suggest you take out the existing shelves/rods (I don't like hanging clothes on wire shelves anyway), rotate the shelving unit 90°, and add double clothes rods in the remaining space. It looks like there are a few pairs of pants that need a longer space - in my closet, I have a rack on the back of the closet door for long dresses.

shead - I sort wash loads into 4 categories: whites, lights, darks, jeans. On very few days would I want to put everything I'm wearing into the same load. And obviously, lives are different. DH works on a farm. All of his work clothes (which can amount to more than a load per day in the winter when he wears multiple layers) can all be washed together. It will be FAR more convenient to wash his clothes in the master closet and put immediately away than lugging them to the other side of the house and back again to put away. 90% of my things can be washed together as well.

I'm sure others will chime in soon, but my immediate thought is that the closet is taking up prime corner space. Flipping the bathroom and closet would let you put in more windows in the bathroom. It would also allow you to add a door between the closet and laundry room, saving you steps when carrying clothes back and forth. If you do flip the closet and bathroom, you'll need to make sure your plumbing (at least your toilet) is not on the shared wall with your bed (unless you live alone). I would not want to be awakened in the middle of the night to the sounds of a flushing toilet behind my head. My second thought is that I (and a lot of others) have no use for a freestanding tub in the master. Make sure you would really use it before spending a large amount of money and sacrificing a lot of space for it. We removed ours when we remodeled our bathroom several years ago, and are not including one in our new build.