To make helpful comments, others will need to know about you/your family, your location, your building site -- which direction does the house face -- views etc, fully custom -- what can you change, etc, etc.

Where will the TV go?

If you have a late night party all the noise will go upstairs to the bedrooms.

Will anyone ever go out on that balcony? Maybe once or twice and then never again!

Do a pocket door for bathroom in bedroom #4.

Add windows on the right side in bedrooms 2 & 3.

If you have a large family, you might want to increase the garage size a bit. If you have 2 large cars, you won't be able to fit much more in there.

I don't like J-and-j bathrooms and the pocket doors make it even worse.

1000 sf of duplicative and wasted space. 3 places to eat all within sight of each other. 2 gathering spots directly next to each other with insufficient clarity of purpose or separation. Poor circulation. Poor definition of functions through design. Might as well be a warehouse.

Squares are cheaper to build, but this is too far in that direction, while still remaining too deep front to back, and with too much wasted space. It will be 150-300K over where it could be, because of that wasted space that isn’t pilling it’s weight.

Moved the door into the guest room, and the powder room to behind the kitchen.

Maybe turn the island 90 degrees .

Bathroom on the first floor would be better in a more private location. Imagine a group of guests at the dining room table and someone needs to go........no privacy with current placement and potential to hear all including the flush and aromas if someone really has to go :) Even turning the door to the entry would help. Or flipping the front door with that powder room. But still not as private as I would like from the dining room. With the master, do you want the closet on the longer outside wall that could have windows, or the bathroom? I would prefer natural lighting in the bathroom even if it needed to be clerestory windows to block the neighbor's views. Is the upstairs den an adult office or a kid's hangout or tv room? If adult space ok. If kid space I would not want it against the master bedroom wall in case they are up late as teens with friends. Would the great room and living room be used at the same time? Would it be good to put doors on the LR so it could be more isolated sound wise so adults can be in one room, teens/kids in the other? Do you entertain LARGE family or friend gatherings that need all of the eating space? If so, great. If not, I would eliminate one of the big dining table areas. The kitchen counter can be the family informal eating area. Overall there are many nice details on your plans. Take what comments resonate with you and the way you live :) Ignore the ones you disagree with.........lafdr

Also agree with Sophie.

It looks like your island will be 6 feet long, if you do 4 foot wide aisles on either side. I dont know if this is big enough for your intentions, but just thought I’d point it out.

I wouldnt want the powder room so close to the dining room.

I might swap the toilet and shower in the master to move it away from the guest room.

Maybe you could split the powder room longways and turn the side toward the dining room into a built in china cabinet and the side toward the entry into a coat closet or a niche for art. Then add a pocket door to the guest bathroom from the hallway and use that as the powder room. Put a small window over the toilet in that bathroom for natural light. Since you are close to the neighbors, put in obscure glass.

My friend had a powder room that shared a wall with the dining room and you could hear EVERYTHING! Not good!

Another thing you could do is put french doors leading into the living room so you could close it off it someone needed a quiet retreat from the rest of the home.

I agree with others about the upstairs balcony. It's too narrow to set chairs on and you will probably never use it. I'm trying to visualize what it does architecturally to the family room and I would only keep it if it creates an interesting feature. I may be wrong, but it seems like this will be a modern style home.

I get the three eating areas. In my world we never eat at the island because it really isn't that comfortable. Mostly people sit and talk to the cook or sit and visit there. The breakfast table gets used for everything from paying bills, to doing projects, to having a cup of coffee, to eating a meal. The formal dining room is used for special occasions and dinner parties.

Looking at your Jack and Jill bath upstairs, it appears very narrow. Imagine getting out of the tub and only having 3' of space between it and the wall. If you've never lived with a J&J bath, I would really rethink it. I grew up sharing a J&J bath with boys on one side and girls on the other. The boys always thought it was so funny to lock the door on our side. Then they wouldn't let us through their room to get into the bathroom. We drove my poor mother crazy. And, our bathroom only had one two doors, one leading to each bedroom. Yours has 4 doors that you and your kids get to deal with.

Planning a home is hard work and posting plans on this site can be painful sometimes. Just keeping working at it and keep an open mind and I'm sure you will get a lovely home :-)

"Killer" staircase -- no landings. Could extend into Foyer.

Double-height rooms are a waste and conduct sound. "Catwalks" are dated.

Outside walls are for windows, not closets (MBR). Rethink double doors to MBR.

Garage is too small.

Avoid pocket doors that will see daily use.

No toilet/sink near the family entrance to the house. You have a big Foyer (little use) and small 'staging area' (constant use).

I see a 'thoroughfare' -- and otherwise poorly laid out -- Kitchen.

Random thoughts:

- As others have said, you do have a lot of repetitive spaces; for example, the three eating spaces.

- Thoughts on eating spaces: If you're going to have a table between the kitchen and great room, I suggest a small circular table; it'll make circulation easier. The dining room is too far from the kitchen for convenience.

- The house's circulation is good, but all those walkways are increasing your square footage /price a great deal.

- I'd extend the pantry to the left so it "matches" the edge of the house. No, the back corner won't be as convenient, but extending the pantry will cost about as much as the extra "corner", and you might as well have the space.

- The great room and the living room don't have acoustical privacy ... I'd add a single French door to each side of the fireplace to fix this. Note: I grew up in a house with a fireplace flanked by single French doors (ours led to a sunroom), and it was lovely.

- In the guest room, I'd move the door to the side ... this would allow guests to use this bathroom, and you can turn the powder room (poorly placed next to the dining room) into a closet (everyone can always use another closet). Then I'd add a door to the little hallway leading into the guest room (or maybe a pocket door) so that guests could "close off" the space -- when needed -- for privacy.

Illustration of these thoughts:

Upstairs thoughts:

- The master is way bigger than it needs to be.

- Master bath: You don't want to waste a corner on a closet ... flip-flop it to the right side and bring the bathroom to the left. That's a lot of wasted space in the middle of the master bath.

- Bedroom four, if you flip-flop the bathroom and closet, the bathroom can have natural light.

- In the J&J bathroom, if you flip the fixtures so they are on the wall shared with the laundry room, you can have natural light in the bathroom. Pocket doors on bathrooms really don't work ... they're perfect for doors that will rarely be closed (like the laundry room), but they wear out and the mechanisms inside the wall break ... then you'll need a pro to open up your wall. This is especially true in bathrooms, which are moist.

- The dryer's on an interior wall -- how will it vent?

- You have so, so, so many doors upstairs ... and a bunch of them open over one another. I'd lose a bunch of them.

Actually...I think the potential for this design is strong, but the interior spaces and circulation need to make sense (which they don't at the moment).

You have a variety of redundant interior spaces which appear to make little sense, as others have pointed out. PPF's first floor changes are good ones to consider; s/he knows what s/he is doing.

Concentrate on getting your first floor properly and creatively organized and with a variety of spatial experiences on the first floor as the house "unfolds" with passages to various parts.

Good luck on your project.

Is that a floating fireplace separating the two living room spaces? I actually really like it. It creates a unique space.

I like your main floor. I can understand wanting 2 seperate eating places and 2 different living rooms. I would personnally love this floor plan for myself. Of course everyone is different and the trend right now is "don't duplicate anything and have everything open".

I do agree with all the others about the powder room though.

Why do you want the MBED in the front of the house instead of the back of the house//

On a house this size, 100 feet is wide enough for a side load garage. Yes - it costs more in driveway concrete. But the curb appeal benefit is large.

Otherwise agree with Sophie for the most part. Had 2 houses with catwalks (built 1993, 1999) - with no kids just 2 people living in house. Would never do again even after the kids leave (and absolutely not with kids around). It gives you nothing really and creates a lot of volume for heating as well as cost to build. I thought it was cool when I was young.....

"Why do you want the MBED in the front of the house instead of the back of the house//"

Actually robin if you read the plans the 'MBED' is in the back left corner of the 2nd floor.

There are three trains of thought on the location of a laundry room. First, locate it where the dirty laundry is generated most, so you do not have to transport the majority of the clothes long distances. Secondly, locate it where you are most of the day, so you can conveniently tend to the laundry. Thirdly, locate it adjacent the servant's quarters, so it is convenient for them to perform the family's laundry duties.

It appears you chose the first or third.

A-maze-ing

Why do you want the MBED in the front of the house instead of the back of the house//

And once again robin comes here pretending he knows all about house building. To not even be able to read that the master is on the second floor in the rear left corner?

Once again, your lack of even the most basic knowledge about home building is showing robin.

A laundry room that is 5'6" deep is not wide enough to be comfortable when doing laundry. Most machines take up 30" of space which would leave you 3' of space. That would be claustrophobic standing in a room with no windows and opening the machine doors while standing between them.

My machines are in the hallway behind closed doors and my hallway is 39" wide and it's too tight and that's in an open hallway, not a closed room. (Builder screwed up because hallways were supposed to be 42" wide)

Also here's all the space in your house taken up with pathways and/or wasted space.

Working with the original first floor plan, and some suggestions already made, I omitted the bumped out pantry in favor of pantry cabinets with a snacks/serving area between them. I left the PR off the entry, but rotated the door, and added a closet to the opposite wall:

So...I kind of like it. I imagine it looking out over a view, so I like layout at the back. I liked the original guest room door because it wasn't visible from the reset of the house. With so much wide open, I like a hall that makes you wonder what's around the corner, but it's also more private for the guest.

Some folks do want two dining spaces. This one is nice and airy-looking, but I would probably multi-task it with a home office, with my filing system of binders hidable behind cabinet doors.

I'd like stools at my peninsula, but not for dining. More for perching, coffee with the today show, recipe-studying.

I do like the fireplace between spaces. Can't quite tell what is between the fireplace and the window, maybe bookcase? That helps with the separation.

I like the powder room turned toward the foyer, and would NOT want it back behind the mudroom. Although, I was doing yard work a lot, it would be convenient especially for washing up. An option could be to have a half bath back there, but have the guest bath available as a company-ready powder room.

mill......sorry I misread the plans....your right.

Buildings are a group of spaces arranged in a rational way that the inhabitance can function well. Those spaces have at least three dimensions, length, width, and height. Normally the spaces work the best when the spaces are well defined. The definition of a space can be achieved in several ways such as wall arrangement, floor decoration, ceiling configuration, furniture arrangement, and others. When the defining features conflict with one-another, a psychological uneasiness can be created. In this case the furniture arrangement in the Great Room becomes very important in creating a balanced space. There is a lot going on in the space, on both levels, that will determine the space's success or failure.

I will say that we just finished a build that originally had a jack-n-jill bath. I am so glad we took it out and just put the door to the bathroom in the hallway. It's accessible to guests and to the bedroom AND gives you more room in the bedrooms.