You have small windows on a large house. Yes I think there is not enough light coming into the house. I will ask our architect friend about widening the guest bathroom by 6" and replacing the entry door to 36" (from the current 32"). That should create a 3' x 4' clear area between the toilet and vanity. The shower door is currently 30" wide and the shower has a 36" diameter space inside the walled area. The plan is to use a curb-less shower design. That's all fine but it's an obstacle course to get around the toilet to the shower and there is not enough room on the shower side to get in and out of the shower. A wheelchair needs 60" turning radius. And go watch people sometime who use walkers and how hard it is to maneuver. This bathroom as drawn will NEVER be friendly for those with disabilities. Look others have been treading lightly. JDS who is an excellent architect in your neck of the woods tried to say it nicely and so did Casey. I'll be more blunt. It's not a very good design as it is now. Now having said that, I will say I feel your frustration. I've been adjusting and changing my plan for a year now, partly because of zoning miscues, partly because we just decided to add more land and mostly because I started on here like you with a very poor elevation that read nothing like the craftsman I wanted. Of course my needs are different than yours. My house is in SW FL and this is our forever house in that we're both in our 60's already. Here's the thread that gives links to all my threads (second post down): Link to the Saga of Cpartist's craftsman home And here's the link to the latest since we bought additional land: Cpartist's latest saga My point being to take all the offered advice and really think through what you need and want. It can only get better if you're open to changing what is there. Also one other thought. I might be wrong but I was under the impression that underground garages are harder to keep dry, etc?

If you are just going to be putting the house on the market, then I would be very cautious about making any significant changes to the exterior. I can pretty much guarantee that what you think are improvements and updates will not be the same as the potential new owners have in mind and they will rip it all out to make it their own. And unless you are prepared to put in a fully designed and professionally installed landscape, you are not going to realize any sort of decent return on your investment. IOW, the money you put in to redoing the exterior you will not realize back as an increased sale price. Focus your attention on the interior. The best and least expensive route is just a thorough clean up of all the outside areas - mowing, edging, weeding, any pruning requirements and fresh layer of mulch (non-dyed mulch!!) Everything must look very clean and tidy and well-maintained. You can warm things up a bit and make it look more welcoming and appealing with a couple of seasonally planted containers on the porch and steps, a new door mat and some decor on the porch - a couple of chairs or bench and side table, a small area rug and maybe some art piece or something to hang off that broad expanse of empty siding. Make it look used, not forgotten.

New Houzz member here, I had to chime in on this split level renovation. We're in a split level (and I love my split level) and when we first moved in it was in original late 70's Brady Bunch condition. We did a refresh of the kitchen by removing the u-shaped work area and running cabinets/counter along the entire back wall of the kitchen. We also removed any spindles and changed the wall between kitchen and dining room to a pony wall. Fast forward about 7 years and we decided to do a major renovation and addition. We pushed out the house 7 feet along the entire back wall (behind kitchen/dining room). We also flipped the dining room and kitchen - it was the best thing we did because the kitchen had too many doorways which got in the way of most kitchen activities. Even without the addition at the back, I would flip these rooms again because it made our house so much more functional! We did build a partial wall between the living room and the newly-located kitchen to allow for another wall of cabinets and a small pantry. Here are pics of the original condition, our initial refresh, and our final "big" addition/renovation. Original condition of kitchen, dining rm, living rm: Small refresh/opening up of kitchen/dining when we first moved in (that's a not-very-well-constructed sunroom in back off the dining room that we removed in our "big reno" phase): And this is how it looks now (only have the mid-project photo of kitchen & dining room area. The fridge/pantry wall is the partial wall we built to divide it from the living room): Sorry for the long post, but I'm definitely in favour of you taking the steps tomake your split level work better for you :)

Have you thought about wall paper on that wall you definately need a better light and IMO no Edison bulbs any hwere if you really care about colors you choose.You have some nice choices but then you cast a yellow light over it all. Change your bulbs to LEDs in 4000K before doing anything moore you will be surprised how much better everything looks at night.