bird_lover, I just saw your reply in the Small Homes forum. Thank you for the reply! At the moment, it's just me and husband. We may have 0-2 kids in the next few years, and 2 is a bit more likely than 0. :) We have a very small extended family. My mother-in-law visits occasionally (once or twice a year). Other visitors don't stay overnight (under normal circumstances). So we don't plan to have a dedicated guest room. But I think we can use one of the non-master bedrooms as a guest bedroom, until we need to use it as a kid's room. We don't entertain often. (When we bought the current house with a huge backyard and pool, we thought we would entertain a lot, but that didn't happen at all.) When we get visitors, we usually just eat out, and come back to our house to sit around and chat, till the visitors are ready to head back to their place. We don't already own a lot. We've been looking around for a while.. it seems we cannot get much for less than $200k here (NJ).. This post was edited by ILoveCookie on Fri, Jul 12, 13 at 16:56

No, we are in Michigan, so the basement concrete is not poured yet. We are framing the main level and we have framed the walkout wall (that didn't matter on layout since I wanted windows to be symmetrical with mail level). We do not rough in plumbing until right before that is done. It is around 20 degrees here today. We have to wait until it warms up to pour the concrete. We are hoping to rough it in soon, hence my question about the floor plan. This is what we have so far, but I am not sure if it uses the space the most efficiently: I'd love your feedback on the floor plan though. Thank you.

have been thinking about that. How does one go about picking the RIGHT one. what if I hire someone and I hate their ideas or we just don't seem to be on the same page?

Millworkman, the ceiling height is 10ft. The land is 6 acres of flat ground. The plan is to have a walkout basement and build up the front. Our builder has been working on all the other things, he mostly just wants me to have an idea of the flow I’m looking for. But I’m having a hard time seeing it. Adjustments will happen as we continue the processes. As far as window placement, there will be many large windows all across the back wall.