Thanks for the responses. They made us think a bit more about the space and have decided to add another foot or so of width so I can put some shelves on the non-window wall. We mocked that up & it works just fine. Ohhh, inglenook! I want one of those so much, but I think it will have to wait until we finish the lower level. Gosh, after I posted, I was afraid of how the comment about DH singing, humming & talking to himself would sound, so I'm glad it gave y'all a laugh. He has always been an auditory learner/thinker, but I believe it has become more pronounced since he retired. I don't want him to change, but I know that it sometimes just gets too much for me. I kinda feel like our dogs must - we have a couple of small dogs beds tucked into some nooks in the living areas. They go there to sleep when they just want to get away. (Like the two of us intrude so much on their little doggie lives. LOL!) The "full service" turret sounds grand! Our sitting area will carry down to the lower level, so that might be a nice place to put a small fridge, sink and coffee maker for the guest suite. We want that to have a feeling of being a self contained enclave where a house guest will feel comfortable and not as if they are intruding. (Hint: Want DD and future SIL to be willing to stay with the old folks for longer than they might be inclined if they were stuffed into a tiny guest room.) Thanks again for the responses. I'm glad to know that so many of you like your cozy MBR sitting areas. - Jo Ann

Love the bed. Is that from Crate and Barrel? (If so, I was eyeing that for years before my significant other voted for wood instead of upholstered.) I think you could go either dark stained furniture for some contrast or you could go with something light to keep the overall color scheme very neutral and light. It really depends on what you want the overall room to look like. I personally love dramatic dark wood with lighter paint and upholstery, but what have now also looks very neutral and soothing. I am always for additional storage in a master bedroom. If I had a seating area to eliminate to expand my closet, I would. I would not eliminate storage or lose a window in order to have a seating area. Your proposed layout seems to take up quite a bit of floor space. Will there even be enough space to walk past the bed to access the proposed sitting area and closet door?

Thanks for the feedback. I have spoken to a handful of agent friends who work in the area - there really is no consensus. Some are more old school and think number of bedrooms trumps all, while others are more in line with my thinking that my target buyer is the newlywed or newborn crowd. I could *technically* still list the house as four bedrooms as that basement bonus room has a closet and is adjacent to a bathroom. I also thought about just converting that into a master suite, but I think that adds a ton of livable space as a second living room for a relatively small house and 5 bedrooms would be overkill. The whole thing has raised another question - is having a large master with a big bathroom/closet going to be important to my target buyer? Sure, it would be nice, but there are two bathrooms upstairs right next to each other and I don’t see it being much of an inconvenience for a married couple.

Thanks for the clarification and if we decide to send everything to an architect I will be sure to upload. At this point the builder has told us we have to put down a $5,000 deposit on the lot and $5,000 deposit to send the rough sketches to an architect. With the market being crazy, we are trying to compare what we would be able to afford with a new build vs. what we've been seeing come (and go) on the market. So we are trying to get a general sketch/layout idea of our build to see if the estimated costs are going to work in our budget.