"I’m giving it one more shot - I’m taking everyone’s advice here and removing the balcony. We will do a pitched or taller ceiling in the living room and are going to have to rearrange the upstairs as a result."

As long as he is not charging you more money, he is free to do the exercise. But earlier upthread you made up your mind to drop him. Now he is feeding you more BS since you caught him and now you want to give him one more chance?

Yes you need to get it in writing that his changes will not be an additional fee

Please make sure the Mud room doors do not hit each other and also if you are feeling comfortable with going from garage to mud room and then to the rest of the house with doors opening in different directions. And hope your construction will go smooth!

Thank you! That’s a good point. We will change that door.

Hopefully there will be A LOT more changes than that.

Ok, so received an updated floor plan today (still waiting on the elevation). We removed the balcony upstairs and made it a pitched ceiling in the family room. It will go from 20' down to 16' in the back. Hoping to put floor to ceiling windows there.

He provided two variations of the upstairs floorplan, but I think it still needs some rearranging to get it just right. Here is what we see:

1. We are wasting our fantastic view on a closet with no windows. I’d like to shift the master closet over to the left so it shares a wall with the bathroom, and then would have to rework a combined master bath/closet layout. We don’t need such a large shower.

2. Need a built in cabinet in the master bathroom (~12” deep) water closet for basic toiletries. We have this now and it is important to us to have again.

3. No separation between bedroom #3 and ours. Ideally we would have something in between like a closet.

4. Bed 3 has an awkward closet layout.

5. I think the stair layout can be optimized.

I see a few red flags to be honest:

- your bedroom level will be so loud if he living space is open to it above.

- the entry and stairs occupy a ton of space, I would shrink the staircase substantially and do a scissor stair instead.

- I am probably not going to describe this well but in order to eliminate wall sharing with bedroom three change the hallway and make the closet on the shared wall with bedroom three, shrink the hallway too

- do you need his and hers closets? The hers closet seems like a complete waste of space, if you have to have that bump out why not make it a lovely sitting area in your master or something full of windows that lets all the beautiful light and view in

- pocket door on the full bath is less than ideal, hard to tell in photo but I would rejig that so you had a proper door there, it is fine to pocket between the parts of the bathroom but not the main door

- what kind of door is on your mudroom?

The upstairs is worse than before.

His closet is useless as a walk in. In fact you can't walk in it. It's not wide enough. You'd be better off with a reach in.

Now her closet is taking up outside walls on three corners and stuck onto the end? Gee I can't wait to see that elevation.

A pocket door or barn door on the master bath does not keep out noise or light.

How will the person in bedroom 3 ever get to the clothes inside the closet? It's not wide enough to get to any clothes except those right in front of the door.

The laundry room is 5'6" wide? That's a total of 66". A full size machine sticks out 30" from the wall. That means you barely have 3' of space to stand inside that small room to do laundry.

And why is the staircase taking up so much room in this house? A switchback staircase would take up less room.

The mudroom is still way too tight to walk through with more than a single person at a time.

Your kitchen will still be dark even during the day and the layout is quite poor when you consider one has to walk past the stove to get from the other spaces to the home office and exercise room.

Does the ADU kitchen not have a sink?

How will you lay out furniture in the ADU?

This design is not an improvement. It's worse.

Again, cut your losses and find a qualified person who can design a good house. This person is not it.

Might I suggest again you get in touch with architectrunnerguy.

CP I agree with much of what you said but not all.

ADU - whoever rents it will decide how to lay out furniture. It is a small little apartment and it will be limited in what can happen but hardly impossible.

Kitchen will not be dark. The entire wall to the north of it is windows. It will be just fine.

The rest I do agree with to be honest.

ADU - whoever rents it will decide how to lay out furniture. It is a small little apartment and it will be limited in what can happen but hardly impossible.

Of course furniture can go in there but where does a TV go? Table? Etc?

Kitchen will not be dark. The entire wall to the north of it is windows. It will be just fine

If that is facing north, that will absolutely be dark. Even if it's not north it will be dark. Again I'll repeat my story. In my condo, with FLOOR TO CEILING sliders in my dining room, my kitchen was a dark hole. My dining room windows were only 11' from my kitchen. My windows faced west (overlooking the water) with a 7' deep balcony on the 8th floor of a condo. Even late afternoon the sun never penetrated into my kitchen.

Yep. We replaced a window and solid door with a full patio door/transom light/glass door combo, my kitchen is maybe 8’ or so away and it is dark. We also have side windows but they face a brick wall, about 3’ away, so they do add light, and ventilation, but the kitchen needs supplemental lighting almost any time you use it.

I simply don't see how a kitchen in an open concept layout will be a dark hole as you all put it.

Jeremy perhaps go to some open houses around you and spy on layouts? WE did this before we committed to a design and it was super fun and educational.

Imagine you are almost 2 rooms away from a singular, variable light source, turn your back to face a wall, put some obstructions over your head. Now see how well your visibility is while you chop onions with a chef knife. Imagine you were tired while cooking a meal and you let the rice burn to the bottom of the pan, or your casserole slopped over in the oven and your cooking space is filled with dense acrid smoke... where is a window to quickly clear out the kitchen? Imagine it is really hot in the house and you are working over a steamy cooktop...how do you get some fresh air into the space?

I feel like some of you are making a mountain out of a molehill! People generally do turn lights on to cook. Opening the giant slider or windows in dining would be more than sufficient in combo with a fan in the kitchen for airing it out.

Our old condo faced north and our kitchen was three rooms deep in the space. Living, dining then kitchen. It was totally fine and lovely.

What obstructions would one possible jace over their head and why would they turn and face a wall?

Here’s a house in San Fran. Looks like kitchen is about two rooms deep. Totally bright and light. And yes I see lights are on. But I doubt lights off suddenly makes a dark hole.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/255-Tingley-St-San-Francisco-CA-94112/15186353_zpid/?mmlb=g,30

Jeremy this one is a stunner! Wow.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/580-Hill-St-San-Francisco-CA-94114/15146321_zpid/

Cabinets? A windowless kitchen would not be my personal preference, but you are ok with it. You asked for opinions. And a lot of prep space will be facing a wall, presumably. If you have to turn all the lights to cook a meal in the middle of the day, your kitchen is dark.

I’m not the OP just being devils advocate lol. But I would prep on island. We have an island with sink and dishwasher too and I do almost all prep on island.

Between the sink, the dishwasher and the seating, the island would be a difficult place to do prep. For me. We all cook differently. I wouldn’t want to roll out a pie crust next to a sink, or over a hot dishwasher, for example. Sinks get used to wash out the cat bowls and catch potato peels. if I were counting on the island to prep, sink would have to go elsewhere. That is just me, tho.

That’s the great thing about these forums. Your plan works for you, mine for me, Jeremy gets to hear about options from both of us and think what works for him and so on

i make my kitchen work, it is definitely not the light filled kitchen of my dreams, and storage options are minimal, stuff is stacked on top of each other like Russian dolls. I actually ended up buying a 2 tier cutlery drawer liner for goodness sakes. At least this kitchen has a regular sized stove and a full non head obstructed prep area that is not attached to the clean up area.

Again I guess we all use our space differently. I wash dog dishes and things like that in our laundry room sink. I wipe the counter before I prep on it and I love that the sink is there as we also have our compost bin on one side of the sink and can easily wash and then prep veggies and fruit. We only run the dishwasher once a day after dinner so it is never warm. For our family of five the island is the best thing in our kitchen and it works for all.

I don’t have the luxury of a laundry sink, and that would mean going down to the basement anyway. I have a very small house. The kitchen gets put through a lot here. In a larger house, maybe it would be a different story.

For the exterior, in lieu of just a front stoop/portico, I'd want an actual front porch a bit deeper -- the front of which would be even with the front exterior wall of the garage -- and then at least consider having a door from the garage to the front porch rather than into the front foyer. You could then put the door from the garage into the interior of the home so you're entering into the exercise room where you have a closet across from the pantry, perhaps putting a half/half dutch door between that exercise room and the kitchen.

Jeremy which is the upper floor plan? There are two in your most recent post and they are not the same.

I think it was mentioned that adding to the porch would take away from interior space.

I can't get past this closet . . .

Maybe put the master toilet where bedroom three's closet is, and then rotate that closet on its bottom right corner into the bedroom. The closet will buffer between the water closet and bedroom, and the clothes will be accessible in the closet.

Can the coat closet go under the stairs instead of eating into the powder room?

Also, having trouble reading what's across from the pantry, but not sure why you'd want a door between the kitchen and pantry. Maybe move that door to the other side of the pantry, so it's on the exercise room side?

Also, be aware that there might be sight lines between the dining room window and ADU living sliding door ... you might want to double check that.

Mark that's the one I was talking about. Like I said there's no way to access anything but what's in front of the door.

The bottom line is the "designer" (note the quotes) is not doing his job and instead Jeremy is hoping we can help his plan. We can't because it is not a good plan.

If you got rid of the 2nd sink and flipped the closet so it was between the bathroom and bedroom, I wonder if you could get a better function...

There is also the closet that bumps out on the back wall.

Do any of the bathrooms have windows upstairs?

AS - I was provided two different options. Similar, with differences in the laundry room. Neither will be great.

I'm hiring a new designer to redo some of the layout.

I think the one with laundry by your room is quite a bit better than the other one.

I would ditch the hers closet location and find a way to shift the master bath toward that area and allow your to but the hers closet, if you really need it, by bedroom three as a buffer.

Bedroom 3 closet should just be a reach in. Kids don’t need more.

The full bath in this layout is identical to our girls bath and it works beautifully.

I'm hiring a new designer to redo some of the layout.

Hire an architect to start from scratch and get it right.

I am no architect and can’t pretend to be, but the more I stare at the ground floor, it occurs to me that this plan looks like something that doesn’t allocate the light and ventillation it should to areas like the kitchen and bathrooms, but in fact, gives up a huge section of the exterior to things like stairs and closets. To my eye, if possible, this rough sketch below puts the stairs on an area where there Is no possibility for light except by skylight, which you could not do elsewhere, this makes more sense to me. Also, it gives the kitchen a connection to the balcony which is nice if you like eating and cooking outdoors.

I know everyone here is mentioning light as a concern, but trust me, it won’t be. The first floor will be very open with windows on all four sides of the house. We put the kitchen on the left side because we wanted it near the pantry and didn’t want the living room near the ADU bedroom.

The only way hiring a new designer to redo some of the layout will help you is if "arsonist" is on their résumé. Start over from scratch.

Jeremy why are you insisting on still working with this plan?

Why are you afraid to even give architectrunnerguy a call?

Probably because outside of Houzz this plan is more than acceptable and he’s already paid money for it. Our custom home, designed by a designer, not architect would probably get torn apart by houzz but there is not one layout thing I would change at all.

Correct. While I value everyone’s opinion and feedback here, it makes me realize that there really is no right answer. There are things we do like about the plan for our family that many others have criticized here. For example, the use of pocket doors. We have high quality pocket doors in our current home and love them. They block the same exact amount of sound and light as our swinging doors, but are more efficient on space.

I’ve definitely got some good feedback from people here that we have incorporated into our design, but we believe it’s not as bad as what some are making it to be :)

Probably because outside of Houzz this plan is more than acceptable

If you're spending 6 or 7 figures of your hard earned money, why is just "more than acceptable" the criteria? Shouldn't the criteria be the best it possibly can be for the family who is spending the money? Shouldn't the house flow well and issues be resolved before putting shovel into the ground?

Further up, Jeremy mentions he doesn't want it looking like a spec house. Except it does. So he's not getting everything or even most of what he wants and he's spending lots of money for lots of wasted space, closets that are unusable and too tight spaces where he needs more space.

Jeremy already spoke for himself CP.

For a custom house, I agree, there is much to be desired with this plan, but the owner is okay with it.

For a custom house, I agree, there is much to be desired with this plan, but the owner is okay with it.

Bottom line is this is absolutely true.

I do know that when I drive up or walk up to my house, it always puts a smile on my face because my house does not look or feel run of the mill or like a tract house, but feels like it's been part of my neighborhood for 100 years, which is what I wanted.

I smile because my interior and exterior, including the way the house and garden are sited on the lot are a cohesive whole and work together.

I know that when I walk through my house, I am constantly smiling because my layout is expansive with little wasted space and it has an excellent flow.

I smile because in every closet I can easily reach every corner.

I smile because my mudroom can easily handle multiple people entering at the same time and my staircase doesn't take up a huge amount of my floor plan.

I smile because my kitchen has windows on 2 walls and the dining area adds a third wall with windows and because of that I only have to turn lights on at night.

I smile because my kitchen is designed so that no one can walk through my work zone to get to another part of my house. Between my kitchen and dining area? Yes, but my kitchen is safely designed to be self contained.

I smile because all three of my bedrooms do not share walls with one another so there's no sharing of noises.

I smile because all three bedrooms (actually one doubles as my studio) have windows on at least 2 walls to let in lots of natural light.

And I smile because my south facing balcony into my living room and dining area is not so deep that light doesn't penetrate it. In summer yes, it only gets filtered light (but still gets light from the north windows) but in winter, the warming sun warms those rooms on cooler days.

Good for you CP. I suspect Jeremy will do a ton of smiling as he looks out on his beautiful view and enjoys his home too. Let it go.

I would start over. I don't mean to make you feel bad but the exterior looks like a disorganized mess.

The current arrangement of interior spaces create an exterior variety of mashings (massing) that reminiscent of a carnival. Rather than attempting to fix what you have so far, the redesign with a different designer would be optimal.

It's worth repeating an old, but still truism: exteriors and interiors are linked together. One directly influences the other, and vice versa.

If one dislikes the exterior of a house, chances are the floor plan must be changed. And vice versa.

This is why the common approach of house designers often results in very poorly executed exteriors: working on one thing at a time, i.e., first floor before second floor, before exterior elevations, before roof plan almost always results in disappointing compromises and poor outcomes.

If the OP really wants to improve the exterior design of the proposed house, s/he must be willing to go back and change the floor plan as needed to obtain the desired exterior results.

Anything else is simply putting lipstick on the pig.

I am curious to know how this project is progressing? I know you have put a lot of time and effort into the design, but by starting this discussion you realize it could be better. You have receive the "start over" advice from several people from different experiences and backgrounds, yet in your last post you state "we believe it’s not as bad as what some are making it to be". I for one think you can do better, and I do not say that to be hurtful or to get some architect out there more work, I say it for you, your family, anyone that enters the house, anyone that drives past the house, and the next owners of the house. Do the best you can and good luck.

Thank you Mark. We have redone much of the design/layout and are still working through it. We are trying to take a more holistic approach of designing the interior layout while also thinking of the exterior. Many of the jigs/jogs have been removed, but we still have some room to go before we get to the "aha" moment.