Do you have a study or home office? With more college-bound kids, you want plenty of space for all that correspondence (yikes!).

The tub bumpout looks nice from the outside, but if the rest of the bathroom were even with it, you'd have more counterspace, more storage, and more room in the toilet room making it easier to clean. The vanity nooks seem to be quite deep, but I don't know the dimensions. But then, I like elbow room, I have the bruises on the funny bone to prove it lol. Do the kids upstairs have room for all their accoutrements in the bathrooms?

as for the clouds, that looks a bit like Snoopy napping atop his doghouse.

"Consider blurring out your name and city in the image."

Or, post the date and time of the house warming party.

^^^ you betcha!

The light well is really cool. How do you clean the inside windows of it? (Answer: hire it out?)

How do I edit the post and replace it with a new picture?

Well it appears its too late. Ughh oh well.

bpathome:

Yeah that should be enough room for the kiddos stuff in the bathroom AFAIK. They may just have to make due:) After all having each their own bath is way more than I had as a kid I know that much!

Yeah I will take a closer look at the master bath stuff you suggest. I think it about 48 inches or so in the vanity nooks.

Cleaning those windows will be a challenge for sure!

Any way you could make the images bigger? Separate them out by floors, elevations, and site plan? :-)

Personally I would not like having the master bedroom so open to the living room, or having the bed share a wall with the living room. That was the original setup of our current house, and it felt like the private area was very exposed. Also, if someone (parent or child) was socializing in the living room at night, no one else could easily go to sleep in the master because the sound carried through the wall.

A coupla site constraints that was "driving the bus" that's not apparent here. Some part of the house had to be within 40' from the road so the house had to be forward and the lot is pretty steep. It's actually steeper then what's drawn (those are 10' contours) as the road was built higher than the latest topo info we had. I would have loved to do an "L" shaped or similiar but the rear then would have been 18'-20' out of grade. Setting it up parallel to the slope instead of across it we could accommodate a 10' difference.

Agree - don't like the master/living area with no sound buffer between them.

That long, straight stair could be problematic (I have TWO long, straight stairways in this house and they're scary, especially carrying anything down).

Is that a window in the master closet?

Yeah that is a window. My wife likes the natural light in there. We will just make sure it has max UV blocking and it appears high enough that people seeing in shouldn't be an issue. This is something we requested specifically.

As far as the stairs we like it as designed. When ARG first created the design I looked at that and wondered about a landing instead. Yes it will be long but having a stair with a landing would restrict the number of windows and probably wouldn't have fit with the overall design as well I don't think so we preferred to leave it as is. Would be interested in others thoughts though.

And yes the lot made things much more difficult than most houses. It allows for a nice walkout etc...but does have its challenges for sure. And added costs in fill:)

One devoted dame here you go. Hopefully this helps.

With a second living room on the lower level, I expect the kids will be there, not in the LR, with their friends. But my DH and I go to bed at different times; movie watching might disturb the other (and then there's the "what if one snores?" problem) So, good soundproofing should help.

Also, is that a room divider/bookcase/display space behind the sofa, creating a passageway to the master?

Stairs: nice thing about straight stairs is it is so much easier to carry luggage and furniture up and down. I do like how these stairs become a feature, with the light well and serving as a space and circulation definer on the first floor.

Any thought to putting the upstairs bathrooms on the outside walls so they can have windows? I'm sure you talked about it :)

When you do the kids' closets, don't do an L-shaped hanging. Just have the hanging on the long wall. The back wall can be shelves, or hooks for hanging robe, jacket, belts, scarves, etc.

Lovely. The MBR wall and living room wall wouldn't bother me. The master wouldn't work for me though. IMO - there is too much space devoted to closets and not enough to counters. Will the master vanity areas be just for teeth brushing/shaving? Where will all the bath supplies live? Who gets stuck with the toilet room right next to the vanity? And what is the plan for trying to close the door once inside? I love my husband, but the the thought of me brushing my teeth 12 inches from him doing his morning thing....uggggg Where will the towels hang for the person showering?

LOL - of COURSE you like it as designed. Remember that, though, when you (or your wife, or your kids, or one of your kids' friends) falls ALL the way down them. :)

Yes. I've done it and it's not.fun.at.all.

We had a very eye catching curved staircase in our previous house ... that required more care when using it.

We have a straight staircase right now and no one has fallen ... well DS2 did fall part of the way, but would have fallen on any stair as he was rushing down to his friends carrying way too many nerf guns in both his arms with no way to steady himself. No injuries other than silver nerf paint embedded on my hardwood stairs and DS2 learnt a lesson about rushing down stairs with your arms full.

You could fall down any stairs, so maybe people should only build one story houses!

I would have no concerns with building or buying another house with a straight staircase.

Another good job by ARG. However the master bath would need some work to work for us. Too many collision points. Going into and out off the toilet room and shower will be blocked by a person using the vanity on either side. Switching the entrance to the hallway area for both doesn't fix it since then one blocks the other too. Maybe put shower and toilet room on one side and a shared longer double vanity on the other side. The toilet room can then have the door swing out as well and no need to step behind the toilet to close the door. Also there is apparently a lot of heart attacks that happen to people while on the toilet so having a door where a person wouldn't be trapped in case of an emergency would be good too.

Thanks all for the thoughts so far.

bpathome:

We will soundproof that common wall with the LR and the BR with insulation. We have had the same arrangement in the last 2 houses so I dont think it will be a big problem in this one. And yes the kids will spend most of their time in the basement I am sure, they really dont wastch much tv or socialize in our LR in our current home so imagine it will continue in the same manner in this one.

Yes that will be a half wall of bookshelves with open shelves or similar above the half wall. It creates a divider of enough weight to create a separation from public to private spaces.

The kids do not want windows in their baths so this works nicely for that.

Good advice on the l-shaped shelves. We will take your suggestion and go with it.

nightowl/lyfia:

I will take a closer look, at the issues you both describe and talk to my wife and see what she thinks. The nice thing in our household is that hardly ever are we both in there at once. We have different schedules entirely for getting up etc where the issues created by two in at once aren't a problem. In fact, evenwhen we are getting ready in the evening at the same time getting ready to go out etc...I give her the bath until shes done then get in and do my thing. Just how it works best for us. But there may be some way to make some improvements nonetheless.

Doug has left the kitchen plan flexible. Once you have the dimensions, be sure to run the kitchen past the Kitchen Forum for planning and review.

I would move the door to the master bath water closet in order to enter from the end of the closet rather than the side.

Be sure to post pictures of the build as you move forward.

Will there be stairs off the rear deck?

Love it, although I agree the master bath may need some tweaking.

Don’t forget the “Costco door” from the garage to the pantry!

Wasn't going to post on here as I didn't want it to look like I bumped it but seeing as how it's already bumped I thought I'd post some "process" drawings

Site plan studies exploring how to handle both the steep grade, garage and no more than 40' from the street:

So I modified it a bit going toward the final:

I think I see a better MBR design in the early process sketches above....

Very nice plan, and kudos to you and your wife, Jeff, for realizing from the start that this was the way to go, especially with a challenging site.

I had the same concerns about the mbr/lr and master bathroom, so good to hear about the soundproofing etc.

+1 to doublechecking on your bathroom storage, and to running the kitchen by the Kitchen forum.

I think the bathroom storage will be fine. We have two vanities (one bigger than the other as drawn for my wife) and two linen closets off my wife's WIC. This is more storage than we have now. However I do wonder about the small nook of sorts that the other vanity creates.

I think i will give strong consideration to moving the door in the water closet to the wall across from the toilet instead of it current location. This should solve some of the anticipated flow issues.

Once we get further in the process I will post on the kitchen forum for input there and keep everyone up to date as construction progresses.

I am curious about the door into the pantry that someone suggested though I think the two doors that are drawn should be sufficient. I can certainly see the advantage though of a pass through to keep one from having to open multiple doors to get groceries in. I think the door most forward into the pantry will likely be a pocket door to maximize space and that isnt so difficult to leave open of course to ease movemnt into a room. They do have their downsides though.