Your lot and idea sounds like it is very similar to the home we just built. We just finished a ranch with walk out basement home on 3 acres fully wooded with creek at the bottom...I have lived in both a single story and two story. I always thought the 2 story was the way to go until I owned one. With two young boys I hated having to live on 2 levels. Carrying laundry up those stairs, keeping an eye on the kids when I was doing dishes, the utilities (oh man what a difference our ranch has made!) etc. We built our ranch with 3 bedrooms on the main level approx. 2000sf on each level. We left the basement unfinished but plan to finish in the next few years. It has 9'6 high ceilings, tall double windows with transoms in every room except for the storage room and bath. It is very bright and doesn't come close to feeling like a cave. In fact there seems to be more light than the average above grade home. There are 2 bedrooms framed in the basement with a large bath, huge storage room, storm shelter(we are in OK) huge living room, pool table area and bar area. The main level spare bedrooms are on the small side, 12x12 but since we will have the huge basement bedrooms I was ok with that. It is SOOOOO nice to live on one level again. I feel like we really use the space, in the two story I felt like I never went upstairs other than to put the kiddos to bed and dust the bathroom that was never used. I feel like the space allocated on the main level is very comfortable and we were careful to use every inch possible to make the main level very functional. Overall, even with young children I wouldn't have a two story (other than the awesome views from up there, we found out after we built would have been great for a playroom or something) Another thing I hated about our 2 story was the kids being on the upper level with our master on the main level. I always thought about fires and how I would get to them. At least with them down you can access them better if the stairs are blocked. I wouldn't want my boys downstairs by themselves yet but it works out well that they can be on the main level until they are a little older. Regarding the appraisal, we did not get even close to the going rate for the basement that above grade gets. They did a net adjustment for the basement and comped us something like $20,000...not even what our 4 car garage added! Another con if you want to call it that, is the home looks smaller from the front than a 2 story would. Honestly that doesn't bother me much since you can't really see our house from the street anyway, it is about the same as any other ranch out there.

Since these joists are going to have "memories" of this sagging shape, I think it will be hard to jack it up into position. Since you want to maintain headroom in the basement I would put a main beam in the middle of the floor engineered for the span. Maybe two LVL's around a 1/2" steel flitch plate, bolted together. You would cut out a gap down the middle of all the floor joists. Insert the LVL sandwich and jack it into the height you want. Attach the individual joists to the LVL sandwich. This will require temporary support walls, jacking into position both sides of the bisected joists and a few other issues. If there's a second floor involved, it's more complicated due to the extra loads involved. Depending on the depth of sag, expect to patch walls and possible rehang doors. The size of the beam would need to be spec'ed out by someone who knows what they're doing. This is not a "best guess" project. Ron

Your bedrooms, closets and bathrooms seem to be nicely sized. You might consider scaling back your great room, 27'x27' is pretty big. That is 729 sq ft. Try putting some furniture in the layout and see what you think. Instead you could have a slightly smaller but still generous 20x20' or so (400 sq ft) great room and an additional slightly separate kids space with the remaining sq ft. The remaining 329 is enough for a 18x18' room, also quite generous. Then you could have an area for kids toys to be corralled and not out in your main living space. In my experience this needs to have sight lines to the main living space or kids won't use it. Later it can be a place for older kids to have friends over etc. Or that remaining sq ft could just be trimmed to save money or dedicated to a guest or kid's bedroom upstairs. You also might consider having the children share one one full bathroom (maybe #3) and convert the other (bath #2) to a powder room for guests and have linen storage in the extra space. Right now your main family entrance moves through back halls and then through the kitchen (sharing space with where someone might stand to wash dishes). You might move the clean up sink elsewhere and use that area as a buffet space when you have guests and a drop zone for mail, groceries etc. as people move in from the garage. You also don't have any space dedicated to dropping shoes, coats, backpacks etc. as you come in from the garage. I know that is something that I can't live without :). When the rest of the floor plan is more set I would take the kitchen layout to the kitchen forum. The house has a very irregular shape which will make your roof and foundation both more complicated and expensive. Depending on your budget this could be something to consider. Do you have an idea of what the exterior will look like? and what you want it to look like? If you can have one garage bay side entry could you have all of them side entry? Most people seem to prefer that look, up to you though. It looks like a beautiful spot and a lovely large lot. What kind of climate are you in?

So I did this as if it was my space. assumptions are all smaller appliances. Such as 18" bosch dishwasher, GE top mount stainless 28" wide refrigerator, 24" wide stainless GE electric range, 24" Recirculating stainless range hood by summit. Freestanding fridge (built in takes away valuable inches). Solid countertop surface. Single bowl undermount sink for the corner such as Kraus KBU11 (20*17). I say choose which side ismore comfortable for you during prep to determine trash. I personally would want the trash next to the dishwasher. If you want regular sized appliances (30 stove, 36 fridge, 24 dishwasher) then you will end up with no trash cabinet, a 6” space like upright pan or wine cubbies, and a bank of 12” drawers in your base. There are many kitchen carts you can choose from and closed or open storage. In this plan I would expect to put pots and pans at that cart. I dislike open due to dust, grease, and most importantly my cats (or if we had young kids). Not interested in having them in kitchen things.