My current house is "reversed" as well. It's 3-stories/five levels to maximize the ocean views. First level is the foyer/garage, half-flight up is the master facing the ocean, half up from that are two guest rooms facing the street, half up is a story-and-half great room facing the ocean (over the master bedroom footprint). Half-flight up from that is the kitchen, dining room and library, all with ocean and street views. Every morning, looking at the sunrise and dolphins in the waves I know it's worth it to carry groceries all the way up!

Thanks for the feedback everyone! A little more information, we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the local building department allows us to only have an engineers stamp, it isn't required to have an architect. Additionally, our builder (while not an architect) has a lot of experience drawing up plans, and if we could find a floor plan that only needed some modification then he could draw up the plans. Maybe we will end up going to an architect after all, however at the moment I'm just trying to collect some floor plan options to see if we can avoid it. Ideally, we are looking for a single story home that has a large great room, windows in the kitchen, 3-4 bedrooms and about 3000 square feet. We don't need a seperate dining room, or formal living room, though if a plan has a dining room we will turn it into an office, or some sort of other "flex" space. Thanks!!

Oceanna - I just got done reading the thread regarding your split. Our is only slightly different than yours. The window above the door is that 70s bubble glass. I don't like it, but ours is clear bubble glass while all the other neighbors have yellow bubble glass. I feel lucky. We also have side lights on either side of the front door, also clear bubble glass. We painted the interior side of our door sort of a deep plum shade. I liked it at the time but would rather go with a very deep green now. Actually, I want a new front door, but that's another budget item entirely, and I'm not ready to go there yet. When we bought the house, the railings were black wrought iron with little gold splotchy things. The rail separated the stairs from the living room. We needed some of that space for my piano, so DH build a half wall from the living room window wall about half way up. On the entry side of that, we've hung two shelves just made of MDF and painted white. Currently there is NO railing from where that half wall ends to the top of the stairs. I was getting on DH's case to get something built there, but the contractors have suggested waiting until they're done with the kitchen. It will give them more room hauling things up and down the stairs. On that big tall wall over the stairs heading down, we have another MDF shelf that we use for some of my larger doodads. At Christmas, we fill it with greenery and have large glass bowls with ornaments and other Christmas items. Unlike you, our kitchen doorway sits off to the right of the stairs, so when you come up our stairs you come into a wall. Oh, our house appears to be a mirror image of yours! I LOVE what you have down at the bottom of your stairs. We have two boys, ages 12 and 10, and a 100-pound dog. We use that garage door as our main family entrance and exit. For me at this point, I doubt anything nice would stay in that location very long! I'm really looking forward to the kitchen being finished. Not so much looking forward to the process. My moto is to "keep the eye on the prize." I also have a goal of having enough money left over after the kitchen to replace at least the windows on the front of the house. Unfortunately, ours are original windows, single pane, and you can see the gaps when the wind blows. We live in a part of the country where 60 mph winds are normal in the winter - slamming right into the living room window - ugh! Oh, we replaced the light in the entry with a ceiling fan with light fixture. I realize it's entirely too modern for your decor, but it suits ours. Besides, I was pretty intent on getting rid of the huge orange globe that was there when we moved in! Also, the house is not air conditioned, and it can get quite hot here in the summer. The ceiling fan helps move the air around the living room quite a bit. Bonus. So, I don't have any advice for you on the entry. Most people here have really left the entries pretty plain. I would vote for painting the wood part of your half-wall white as well. However, we have spent most of the last five years slowly working on replacing all the "wood" trim in this house with white trim. I put the wood in quotes because it was very, very dark and not good quality wood. I had no guilt painting it! Oh, in the corner by our front door, we have a 3-foot tall stuffed moose dressed for fishing. Not a "real" stuffed moose, more of a teddy-bear stuffed moose. Again, I'm guessing that's not really your style, but frankly we are a bunch of nut jobs in this household, so it suits us. It gives me a smile whenever I walk up and down the stairs, and everyone who enters the house comments on him (his name is Morty). Let us know what you decide to do with your entry!

Don't force the sectional to line up with the kitchen entry. No need for a beeline to the kitchen. The sectional overall dimensions as indicated on the plan: 108" x 108". This size allows for 44" from the back of the sectional to the kitchen entry which is more then enough room behind the sofa. Don't leave too much room between furniture or too spread out or too small and forced into an area. This a common mistake most people make and then have a room that doesn't work. 15" to 18" is the most you need from the front edge of the sofa to the edge of the coffee table. The depth of the tv unit drawn is 18" deep and you only need a bookcase depth- 12". Remember that when you look at a floor plan, the furniture is only 30" to 33" high and will not visually block off the room. If you still feel you need more access to the kitchen, eliminate the end table between the recliner and the sofa and move the recliner a little towards the fireplace. This way you can pass between the recliner and the sofa to the kitchen PLAN A - SHOWING DIMENSIONS AND CLEARANCES PLAN B - SHOWING DIMENSIONS AND CLEARANCES WITH RECLINER MOVED TOWARDS FIREPLACE AND TABLE BETWEEN SOFA AND RECLINER ELIMINATED.