Notice that all traffic goes right through the middle of the working area of the kitchen. To and from the car, all laundry. You might want to reconsider that.

That's the first thing I noticed, too. I wouldn't bury the fridge so far into the kitchen, because you're going to have all the traffic from the other direction (living areas) walking through your work area to get to it.

Don't know if it is just me but I cannot make out most of the sizes. Where are the balance of the windows? What did the "architect" have that you changed?

That's my bad...I forgot to add all the windows in my plan. Here's the version from the architect after narrowing the plan.

Natural lighting is a bit of a let-down.

The master closet is massive! If that's a goal of yours, then great job. Otherwise it is a place you could cut back on.

Entry is really big also. Will feel very large and empty.

I would move the island a bot closer to the stove. It could help keep people from traveling through the kitchen.

are you going to enjoy hauling laundry from the laundry room, across the house, through the master, through the master bath and into the closet?

The den off the dining area will be nice, but consider moving the door closer to the kitchen. The reason is, once you get a dining table in, it will be easier to access the den. I spend a lot of time in a house with a similar placement, but the door is in the corner of the den at the open end of the dining area, so it is easy to use. If it were in the middle, we‘d always be walking around the table. Instead, the dining area has a console table on that wall.

The powder room is through the cased opening that leads to the master suite. That brings it too close to your private area. Reconfigure so it opens from the foyer, perhaps you can “flip” the powder room so the door is kind of where the guest closet is, make a little niche passage to it, similar to the one to the master suite.

The foyer is large, but there is no real transition from it to the rest of the house, to the living. Maybe consider a cased opening between it and the living room?

In the master bath, when you step out of the shower, where is your towel?

The kitchen, oh, it is so far from any natural light.

What is going on upstairs?

Do you have storage for seasonal, sport, etc items?

I don’t care for the entry/living. There’s lots of space but it’s not useable space. To me, that makes it wasted space.

Thanks for all the comments...most of my concerns have been mentioned already...some I can deal with others I'm worried about. The main reason I chose this plan is it provides a large open kitchen/dining/living area with a study. A requirement was to be able to put an 8 person table in the kitchen instead of a separate dining room. The dark kitchen is my largest concern, the house faces north, so I was hoping the south facing rear would provide adequate lighting.

"the house faces north, so I was hoping the south facing rear would provide adequate lighting."

Covered porch kills that. No windows on the east wall except one over the tub? That roof is going to be HUGE.

Is the person that you intent to send your drawing to for review licensed to practice architecture? If they are not, please do not refer to them as an "architect".

The house will be very dark. Yes the south facing rear might help a little big but it won't make up for the fact all the public rooms only have windows on one wall and in the case of the kitchen on no walls. The best homes have windows on 2 or more walls in all public rooms and in bedrooms.

For all the reasons mentioned, I have to say this is a pretty poor layout.

If I had to work with this footprint, I'd move the master suite and all the non public spaces (laundry room too!) in behind the gararge. I'd put the study at the front of the house next to the front door where you currently have your monster closet. The kitchen and dining area would go on the left side and the great room in the middle. The foyer closet would go in the L formed by the stairs and a powder room would be at the end of the foyer on the right side.

Unfortunately, most of the builders have pretty similar plans...and the only builder that had the kitchen against 2 exterior walls (still only windows on 1 wall) was also a smaller house that the builder refused to move exterior walls because they were so busy. The only builders really open to complete customization are also extremely expensive and require either reducing square footage or putting the house at the very top price of the neighborhood.

I made a quick attempt at moving the kitchen to the back corner of the house...I agree with swapping the laundry and powder bath, and am still attempting to convince my wife of the same. I'm not sure if the builder would even agree to this large of a change. Thanks again for everyones help!

Sometimes a smaller house that is well designed will live much better than a larger one that is poorly designed. If you haven't already read The Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka, I highly recommend it along with her other books.

Meaning while a fully custom house may be a bit smaller, it may actually live larger if you get the right person to design it.

I am dubious as to how much change you can make considering your builders are apparently leaning more towards pre-planned than semi-custom. But the foyer and entryway beyond is a lot of wasted space that you will be paying for the construction of. Rob, I hope your builder can indeed be persuaded to make the modifications you talked about in your last post.

Double doors going into your Master can look great on paper, but will be awkward to work with on a day to day basis. Not sure why the back (north?) side of the Master bedroom has to butt out like that - except to make a more expensive elevation out there.

I do like the new location you have suggested for the kitchen at the back corner of the house. This would help a lot.

I've been fiddling around with a floorplan inside the same basic footprint as your original. In this one, all the private spaces are behind the garage and all the public spaces are are off the foyer. It's by no means perfect and I still think the foyer is too large, but it may give you some ideas.

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