dana100, your requests are very reasonable and achievable. There's nothing unusual or unachievable about them. The way strong designers and architects work is to first begin with a series of small hand-drawn pencil sketches, talking with you and your spouse about the relative advantages and disadvantages of each concept sketch. Sometimes this is called by architects a "charrette", a French term for how design sketches where done and loaded on carts in Paris at the Ecole for jurying... The issue here is that the organizing concept and the development of the design as currently depicted is simply not working to your best advantage. What to do? Well the issue is whether or not the current author of the current design is capable of doing better...or whether you need to cut bait and go elsewhere. If you are working with a local architect, then simply have a discussion about needed improvements to this plan. The architect will understand and be capable of working closely with you for new concepts. On the other hand, if you are dealing with a builder, "designer" or CAD-driver (associated with the builder or working independently), then your options are more challenging, since their experience in design is most often limited at best and they only know to do what you tell them. The most important point, however, is this: it's much better, less costly, and always more satisfactory over the long haul to get things right and proper while still in the paper phase, than to proceed to construction and the related expenses thereafter for a less than satisfactory design. Get it right first. Whatever it takes. Then build it. Not vice versa! Good luck on your project.

I realize thats all correct - but unfortunately we will be doing all this in phases as having 1 kid in college, and 2 more in high school allows. Our first priority is the inside, upstairs. I've mocked up a basic floor plan. We want to turn the master and bedroom 2 into one large suite, and make the bathroom much larger, as it's tiny. The kitchen has to be gutted, and the laundry is going away as there is another downstairs. (Downstairs also has a bedroom and full bath, along with a game room type deal. We would like to keep 2 bedrooms plus the master upstairs, so we thought about splitting the great room in half (the guy has a screen an projector in there currently. So - anyway, feel free to rework the floor plan as you see fit. basically the only thing off limits is the stairs. Big master suite and bath, open kitchen to living room for entertaining......educate! All pics are here: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5729-Dogwood-Rd-Pinson-AL-35126/885010_zpid/?fullpage=true

absolutely beef up those columns. either do cedar or white or paint them whatever dark trim you're using. not the best mock up, but it shows you how the heavier columns look proportional carrying the roof. then I'd do something like this w/the garage doors. The over-door lights would be great since you have all that height an idea if you want to do a railing around the porch cedar posts. I'd pair this w/a similar garage door, the lights and I'd prob redo the siding in bright white with a different roof color. I'd say black, but can't tell if your roof is red/brick color or not. another cedar post.

The room is 27x20.