Add some overhangs that are the same structure/material as the roof above the first floor windows in the back. I wish I could describe this better, but there are several homes near me that are designed that way and it looks really great!

It is kind of hard to tell how your second floor lines up with the first floor but if I'm interpreting the drawings correctly, I'm pretty sure you haven't provided enough room for your staircase. It looks like you have twelve risers (including the landing) between the first and second floor. Typically a riser is between 7 to 7.5 inches high so twelve risers gives you 7 to 7.5 feet for the TOTAL floor to floor distance. If you have 8ft ceilings downstairs, your floor to floor distance will be more like 9 ft because you have to add on the thickness of the ceiling/joists/flooring. So, IF you were to reduce your downstairs ceiling height to 8 foot, you would still need 2 or 3 more risers at least. Each additional riser will need 10 to 11 inches of "run" space so with 8 foot ceilings you would need about 2 to 3 feet more run space for your staircase. And unfortunately, you don't have room at either the top or bottom to add any extra steps. And, if you keep your downstairs ceiling height at 10 ft as you have indicated, you'll need to find space for about 6 more risers...figure an additional 6 ft of run space. Revising the stair case so that it will work will force you to change everything else so I'm afraid there is not much point in making lots of additional comments about your current plan. However, a few suggestions to help guide you if you want to continue trying to design your own plan without the assistance of an architect. First and foremost, keep in mind that a straight staircase is the most space efficient and the easiest to design. Landings take up extra space and are harder to design. With a narrow lot, you're probably better off sticking with a straight run. Second, in order to design workable rooms, you need to develop your spatial sense to a very high degree. You have to KNOW in your bones how much space various things take up and how much space you need to move around them in. 1) Get a tape measure and go measure your bathtub, toilet, and sinks AND the space you need beside and in front of each in order to use them. Having a sink right in front of the toilet (like you show in the powder room) isn't very comfortable when a guy is trying to stand in front of the toilet to use it. Having your shower block half your tub (like you show in your master bath) would make getting into/out of the tub difficult and possibly even dangerous. And, BTW, given that wet feet and steps are a slipping hazard, do you REALLY want three steps between your masterbath and bedroom closet??? Besides, who would want to have to navigate up three steps to use the john in the middle of the night? 2) Measure your kitchen cabinets, fridge, sink, stove, etc AND the standing room you need in front of each when the oven door or fridge door or DW door are OPEN. If two people will be using your kitchen, you need to add on additional aisle space so person 2 can squeeze past person 1 if need be. Get out the things you use when cooking and measure how much free countertop space you need beside each of the appliances. 3) Go to your closets and measure how far from the wall your clothing sticks out. If you're planning to have a walk-in closet, find one and measure how wide an aisle you need beside the clothing in order to move around in the closet. For reach-in closets, notice how wide the doors are in comparison to the width of the closet. Closet "ends' that can't be reached easiy are wasted space. You'll quickly realize that closets that are narrow and deep (like the one you show for the upstairs back bedroom) are inefficient uses of space. 4) Measure the length and width of your car with the doors open (including the hatchback if you have one and ever intend to open it while IN the garage). Your garage needs to be big enough so you can get in and out of the car. That requires room on the sides of the garage for the door to open and room at the front/back to walk around the car so you can actually get to the car doors. You also need to plan space for trash cans, your water heater, bicycles, the lawn mower and any other stuff that you typically keep in your garage. If you don't make it large enough, you garage will turn into a large closet and, if you're just going to have a large closet, why design a garage at all. Just make a large closet and be done with it. 5) Measure beds and dressers and other bedroom furniture AND the space you need to move around those objects. When you design a bedroom, you have to think about where major pieces of furniture will go and how easy/hard it will be to move around the furniture to the closet. Also, will the room have free floor space large enough to comfortably get dressed. 6) Measure the dining room table with chairs PULLED OUT around it as if people were sitting in them. Remember also that diners may need to be able to walk around the table while others are still seated so you also need aisle space. 7) Measure living room furniture and THINK about how you want to place it for conversation as well as watching TV. In your plan, the furniture is probably fine for watching TV but is poorly placed for conversation. And then you have a huge area near the fireplace that isn't used at all. Then think carefully about how each room will be used. In your plan, the room behind the living room appears to be a dining room but you have a window seat dinette set off in one corner. How is the rest of the room going to be used? Finally, as you are designing, you always need to stay aware of how the exterior is going to look... particularly the front elevation. For example, where an upper and lower window come close to lining up, you'll want to make sure they actually line up. Having the front bedroom and office window offset by about half-a-window width as they now appear to be would just look sloppy. Kind of like someone who has misbuttoned his shirt buttons. Make sense? I do hope this posting doesn't sound too harsh b/c I do appreciate how much work you've already put into your design and I know hearing negative feedback can hurt. Truly, I mean this to be helpful.

bubbafide I'm also undertaking new construction on land we bought a few years ago. Like you I sketched some plans myself and saved lots of pictures that I liked. Then we met last July with a custom home builder in the town near our property. We liked him a lot. He told us which local home designer he thought was the best and we signed a contract with her to design the home. Meanwhile the builder visited our site and told us the best place to build and which direction to face. The designer didn't like my plan but I think it helped us with thinking about the functions we wanted in the house. It took us about 6 months of intense discussions and back and forth to finalize the floor plan with the designer and the builder. The home builder and his construction supervisor made a lot of critiques and suggestions to the floor plan. Then we had another intense go-around with all parties on the electrical plan. Then there was a month for the builder to cost out the plan and give us a price quote. They started construction two weeks after we approved the budget. I'm not sure on your utilities but we also had a three-month wait during the design phase for a water well digger to get around to us. (hope you don't have that problem) Last week they started construction on our foundation. This is all to say that I think your next step is to select a custom home builder and then use a designer or architect they recommend since they need to work closely together. I'm in Texas so can't help with specific suggestions but perhaps you could start with looking at home builders who have done a style of house that you like. We went with a home builder whose specialty is environmental issues. Please let me know if you have any questions on the general process.

I like lyfia's idea to just widen the garage. You could still have man-door to it. You didn't show an image of the lot you are on, so it's hard to say how much space you have to take advantage of for a back yard. But here is a very rough idea of moving the laundry downstairs and having the hall along one side. I didn't do anything about the stairs but it's a very (did I say very?) rough idea of how you can have a hall on one side, opening up everything else off of it. Those are high windows on the left with bookcases or shallow cabinets beneath. You'd want to change the bedroom/bath configuration to get rid of the bumpout, (maybe have reach-in closets instead of walk-in, along the wall on the left) but I'd move the kitchen behind it in a broad U, not the claustrophobic U you have now, and have the living and dining at the front.