I'm not an expert on dimensions, but here are a few things that caught my eye: - Maybe move the MBR closet door a bit toward the front of the house, and use a pocket door. That would allow you to have a hanging rod or shelves on the other short wall in the closet and you wouldn't have to work around the open door when you're in the closet. - If you're planning a masonry fireplace/chimney, you're not going to be able to have the window where you've placed it in the Master Bath. - You might want two windows on the long wall in the MBR, so there is one on either side of the bed (assuming the bed goes on that wall). - if the Bonus Room is meant to be a media room, you could stub in plumbing for a bar sink in the corner behind the main bath. - if the main floor office is meant to serve as a guest room at some point, you might consider making the powder room at least a 3/4 bath. I'm not sure how to do that in the space you have, but it's a consideration. (Maybe cede the coat closet space back to the powder room and rob some space from the office closet for a new hall closet?) - You don't have a way to close off the laundry room from the rest of the house. Maybe there is enough distance and drywall between the laundry room and the LR to make the noise not an issue, but maybe not. - You're definitely going to be floating furniture in the LR, so consider ample floor outlets in your electrical plan.

Thanks for your input Renovator8. Are all of the major spaces awkward? Which ones in particular look the worst? Do you have any suggestions on how I could make this flow better? We've looked at how we live on a day to day basis and how we would like our home to function. This plan seems to be the best flow for our lifestyle, but some help from GW may help us change it for the better. If you were to provide some more feedback I may understand why it is so awkward. I'm definetly an amateur so I would love some input on how to make things flow better. I do recognize that some aspects of our plan is not traditional in the way most houses are being built: i.e. stairs are by the entrance, not accessed easily from the interior of the home. Living room is at the back of the home and not accessed through an entry to the home. There are some reasons why we chose to do this. On the east coast of Canada we have a much more informal way of living. We entertain in the kitchen/ dining room (kitchen parties) rather than the living room. We will have a covered deck off the kitchen since we do have so many kitchen parties. Sometimes women and children gather in the kitchen/ dining and the men will go to the living room or the garage. Many people including us do not use their basements other than storage and utilities such as hot water heater, furnace etc. The stairs are usually only accessed to store seldom used things such as extra supplies, seasonal wear and seasonal decorations. Our lot is set up so that all of the outdoor living and access to the home is on the south side. The north side is 100 acres of family woodland that won't be accessed. I hope these extra details of our lifestyle and how we would like our home to function will help you provide us with some input.

Columbus and Jennifer, thank you for your insight. It has really been helpful! I considered letting the kids have their own bathroom so they would stop arguing in the bathroom on school days. I never thought a 9 year old boy and a 7 year old girl would argue over stuff like a toothpaste cap. Hopefully, they will figure it out. I was thinking to have a second door from the toilet to tub in case someone needed to use the toilet in the middle of bathing and someone else was at the vanity. The second door does now seem pointless since they can just wrap a towel around themselves. That would give me better options for a laundry hamper and a small corner table where they can set their clean clothes. I would use the hallway for storing sports equipment, sewing machine, over sized hair dyer, Christmas decorations the kids made that I do not want to store in the attic, pet food and supplies, etc. I guess I could remove the bottom hallway single closet door and keep the bedroom the original 16’ x 13’ to maintain 6 ft between the footboard and corner walls instead of reducing it to 3 ft’. I’ll still have plenty of hallway closet space. And hopefully make the bedroom layout less awkward. For the master bedroom, I was planning to put our chest of drawers along the top wall. We have a queen sized bed (with headboard and footboard) that measures 5’4’’ x 9’0’’. Our current bedroom is 15’ x 16’ and honestly, I wish it were a little smaller. We have a bed, chest of drawers, night stand, chair, hope chest, and treadmill in our current bedroom and still have room for another chest of drawers or dresser, which we do not need since my husband built storage shelves and drawers for the closets. Somehow on the floor plan I overlooked the square that sits between the dining room, foyer, walkway, and great room. Perhaps removing that will help with size reduction? I still want to be able to have a table that seats 6 or 8 people in the dining room. We have not purchased the plans, but will be working with Mascord on the revisions. The entire garage will be used as a wood workshop and the cars will be parked in the driveway. We currently have a courtyard garage and my husband also does not like having the cars and boat on the front driveway blocking the view of the house. It would be better to have the bays on the other side. I can’t believe I forgot about the boat. floor plan draft 2

1. The closet backing up to the study is pretty big for a guest coat closet. Perhaps carve out a section for a linen closet for the powder room and master bed/bath. 2. I don't care for toilet closets, with or without a window, but that's me. 3. Try planning furniture arrangement in the Great Room. The french doors take more room than sliders plus you've got the unusual location for the stairs and will have to allow space for the traffic. It might make the Great Room smaller than you think (once the traffic space is taken out) and/or make furniture arrangement difficult. 4. I don't care for closets you get to from the bathroom. 5. The master is long and narrow. Make sure you'll use a sitting area on one end and try planning furniture arrangement now. 6. The middle dormer has a 'plant shelf' - for what, an artificial plant/dust catcher? You'd need a ladder to water a real plant. 7. Take out the door to the boy's bathroom from the playroom. 8. I'd rather make the 2 upstairs bedrooms bigger and scrap the 2 story foyer. 9. The 2 upstairs bathrooms are tunnel like and with all the fixtures in a row. Take some attic space for the bathrooms/rearrange.