Well, I started out with a lovely new craft room in our new house. My husband built shelves for my clear plastic bins that I have for each colour fabric. I wash all my fabric as soon as I purchase it and iron it before putting it into it's correct bin. Everything was going along smoothly and orderly - until I had to have both my feet operated on last Oct. My craft room is downstairs! I wouldn't be able to go downstairs for at least 6 months, so I brought all my sewing things up into a bedroom upstairs - no shelves or cupboards! So there's bins all around the room on the floor, plus the ironing board, queensize bed in the middle, table with my sewing machine against one wall, boxes and bags with projects all over the bed and behind the door. It's an effort to get around to the ironing board! Re scraps though - when I finish cutting out something, I cut the small scraps into 2" or 2 1/2" squares and have plastic bags for matching colours of each size. Have a great pattern for a quilt that uses 2 1/2" squares, so am saving them, need quite a lot. Kristene

Totally agree with you on the form factor of the futon. I am not loving it either. But we have it and until I find some thing better in my price range. It is very comfortable to nap on left in the couch position. Also to sit on and read. I pull the desk /sewing table chair over for feet up position. It is a small cheerful room that makes me happy to be in. Our company said the futon is great for a few days. He usually spends 4 or 5 nights with us at a time. I added a foam topper on it. Drawbacks on other sleeping options. Twin love seat sleeper will not be long enough for our friend. He sleeps cross wise on the full sized futon. The click clack couches are darling but also too short. We have cats that will claw so air bed is out of the question. LOL The nicer looking couch futons are so uncomfortable. Fold out beds usually have the bars in them in the center of your back unless you can get the ones with springs all around the edges and a mat to hold the mattress. AND the fold out beds take up more floor space when open if that is an issue for you. You should be fine in a 10 by 10 room though. I would think my best option should I ditch the futon would be a murphy. But then I do go in there and nap on the futon some times so that would be over with. Also when I am sewing I find myself sitting down on the futon to do little bits of hand work when needed. We did buy the upgraded mattress. I am not trying to talk you into a futon at all because I totally think they are ugly as sin. I did doll mine up with pretty comforter and pillows and a friends granddaughter said the guest room is very girly. LOL

Sorry, it’s been a long day. A lot of people here today, the designer and a team from the contractor and my head is spinning. As it turns out, you were all right. The designer arrived with 10ft of floor space instead of 7ft, needed by the staircase, which I was pretty frustrated about. Rebunky, I forgot to ask about the fire code but there’s no concern there, because the stairway and entry will be completely walled off from the garage. I don’t want an open stairway in the garage to the apartment. The garage will have an opener with a remote, so there should be no problem walking into the garage to access their storage. At this point, Sena, I’m feeling a little lack of trust in the figures and I’m going to have to have him confirm every measurement I’m using. I haven’t sat down to think about the layout again today. We had a lot to go over today and that was just one of many. As soon as I can, I’ll look it over again and see what I am willing to do to accommodate that. I am not going to go for part of the stairway on a second wall. I’d still like to see if I could keep the stairway in the middle and out of the bedroom and living room. Which would probably mean starting the stairway back on the North wall all the way in the corner, but I need a 5ft landing on the garage level, then 10ft of stairway and a landing at the top. So if I add 4ft so a total of 33ft in length, maybe that would get the stairway in the middle? That’s it for me tonight. Thanks for checking in with me.

While it is certainly a more practical and affordable plan than the first one, there are some things you might consider changing. Except perhaps for the master bedroom on the back left and the garage on the front left, try to make the other three walls -- back and right and front -- as straight as possible. Not a fan of the two story looking entry. You might consider creating a deep front porch, perhaps with skylights to let in more light for the front of the house and a shed roof dormer for the attic that has the same number of windows as the row of windows you end up with across the front living area ... which certainly needs more than one window as adjustments are made to the floor plan. First, consider whether you want to add a several feet to both the front and back children's bedrooms. This would enable you to put two twin beds in each room and not just in case you have more children but for sleepovers and for having room to add a large toy chest and/or toy cabinet and enough space to utilize each bedroom as a playroom -- no need for a separate room. Also, making the two wings of the home more equal width will both give the house more symmetry and enable you to have your entry more forward -- closer to the front exterior wall of the garage and more of the focal point of the home. Would rather have a larger master bedroom the full width of that wing, straightening the left exterior wall of the house except for the garage. Would NOT want a ceiling curb. There is a long interior wall along the back bedroom on the right (children's side of the house) behind the foyer and still would be with the above changes. If you put your kitchen on that right side of the house and the dining area where the kitchen is now located -- with its back wall also even with the back wall of the kitchen and back bedroom -- then the hall to the master would be off the dining area -- which would mean the entire front of the great room could be the living room and foyer.. If you move the front wall of the foyer and living room out at least even with the front wall of the front children's bedroom (several feet in front of where it now is after increasing the size of the room) , you'll make room for a pantry between the kitchen on the right and the foyer AND your foyer and living area will be closer to the front exterior wall of the garage ... making it more the focal point of the front of your home. After you move the front wall of the front bedroom and entry and what was the to have been the dining room out several feet, also Increase the depth of the garage by four feet so you can extend the width of the living and foyer area so the left wall of it is where the left wall of the pantry is now. Doing that will not only enlarge and square the left front corner of the living room, it could enable you to increase the storage in the back left corner of the garage and/or alter the steps to the ?study? in the attic above the garage to have any headroom affected by the steps be in the storage area rather than in the garage itself. Another garage option you might consider, in addition to making it deeper front to back so you can cut the back right corner of the garage short for part of the living area, might be to off set the garage. You could move the garage so no part of it is behind any part of the living room -- the right exterior wall of the garage would be in line with the left exterior wall of what is now the pantry -- what would be the left wall of the living room -- and have the left wall of the garage extend beyond the left wall of the master suite that eight feet or so, creating a privacy area behind the garage for a private side porch for the master bedroom suite. With these changes, your door from garage to house would be entering into a hall way left of the living area with steps to the attic ?study" over the garage and still enable you to access the master bath via the mudroom. If you off set the garage to create the private porch on the left side for the master bedroom suite, you could add a door from the garage to that side porch.