palimpsest, thank you so much for reminding me that big is not necessarily better. I moved the fridge to the other side of the kitchen post, and the layout suddenly seems more flexible (please see below). However, husband thinks having a bulky fridge standing right next to the hallway may not be a good idea... zone4newby, the powder room does look awkward. The one in the original plan looks better, so I changed back to it. In fact, the whole left side of the front entry is now the same as the original plan. :) lavender_lass, I really appreciate your thoughts and the inspiration photos. I am going to check out the photos carefully and see what I can incorporate into our plan. I too love having a farm table in the middle of an L-shaped kitchen. I had a similar setup in my last rental, although that table was mainly used for spice plants, flower pots and things like that. I moved the washer/dryer back upstairs. :) Husband voiced his opinion last night...he prefers to have the laundry closer to the bedrooms than the kitchen. We will just put in a second set of washer/dryer later in the master suite, like what you suggested earlier. I also reconfigured the closet upstairs, so the master bedroom (upstairs) is a bit more spacious now (please see below). Renovator, thank you for warning us about the exposed timbers. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea. Husband had the same concern, so we took a trip to the builder's state to have a tour of 3 full timber-frame houses, and 1 hybrid house (pre-fab panels with some timber elements). One of the full timber-frame houses was indeed quite dark inside, but I think it was done that way on purpose as the owner wanted it to feel like a barn. The other houses all looked great. We especially liked the hybrid one, which is a 2400 sqft American Bungalow (including the walkout basement). During that trip, we also found out that a custom full timber-frame house is not financially feasible for us. So a hybrid house kind of hits our sweet spot. The cape we are considering is a hybrid. Here is what we have so far. The office stays large due to the location of the timber post in the kitchen. The door for the walk-in closet upstairs should be okay, in terms of the ceiling height clearance, as the original plan has it configured that way too. This post was edited by ILoveCookie on Sun, Jul 28, 13 at 0:02

Hi supergrrl7, I am a lawyer, though I don't practice in intellectual property. Even if I did, I would never give anything more than general observations on the law, and certainly not legal advice over the internet. Anytime people have a legal issue that could result in significant liability, they should talk with an attorney competent to practice in that area. A lot of attorneys will talk to you for little or no cost, at least to give you an idea what kind of representation you might require. I chat with folks almost every day without charging them. Summerfield has given me permission to use the plans she made. And really, it's not quite true that I'm simply using her plans--Summerfield took my plans, made some wonderful modifications, then I made some modifications on her plans, and she modified them again. Then we took the result and made a number of other changes, and then used that as a guide to create the plan in CAD. Certainly we incorporated some of her new ideas, but we also incorporated ideas that others redrew online. (Let there be no confusion, of course, I am tremendously indebted to her and many others on this forum.) THAT SAID, I have my actual set of plans on CAD and in print that I would be more than happy to give you. I've put a lot of time and thought into those plans, and while I can't say if they work well for anyone else, we are extremely happy with them. I would love to see anyone else get use from them, whether just to use for ideas or to actually use as the starting point for their own plans. I recently posted the latest versions, which will have some modifications, and I can provide you blown up versions if you email me from the forum. If you're not comfortable using those plans given their origin, by all means, see an attorney. Cheers!

Thanks arielitas_mom! yes,my plan is to make a nice, big, luxurious tiled shower along the same wall that the corner shower is now. Probably about 39" w x 6 feet long (unless that's TOO long...). I do feel like this is a compromise, since a 3BR/2BA (and lts face it, most people will use it as 2BR/2BA/office) feels like it's step down, as far as the target market, from the 3BR/3BA/office we'd planned when we bought it. But it's good to hear some positive feedback from you folks about the compromise, because it really would stretch us too far to do the addition. Thank you! So what do you all think about the fact that there's no proper dining room? The DR area is really more of a dining "nook" and there's no place to put a really big dining table. ?????

OH! THANK YOU! I am so loving ALL your ideas and suggestions, and believe me, I am seriously considering each and every one of them! OK... so I cut out some sheets of paper the sizes of the pictures we have been considering. The 4 pieces of paper on the long wall represent the four 13.5" Sturbridge ("4 Seasons") prints. I think they fill the wall nicely! The 2 pieces of paper above the toilet represent the two 8" x 10" Warren Kible prints (the cat and the pig). (Boo seems to approve!!!) THEN, I'll change out the toilet seat (probably a plain white one... or maybe black???), and maybe replace the magazine holder with something like this... ... and call it *DONE*!!! So, what do you guys think?! And remember, you can be BRUTALLY honest!!! Really! ;o)