Gotta ask, 4.5 children??? Does that mean you have another child on the way or is that .5 child a reference to you DH? LOL! Seriously, if you're pregnant now, you're going to wind up one bedroom short by the time your house is built - unless you're planning on some of the children doubling up. Personally, I don't think having two kids share a room is that terrible a thing but if you're going to do that, you might want to make whichever room will be shared, a bit bigger than the singleton rooms. I see a lot that I like about your plan - especially based on what you've told us about your family - and I LOVE the front facade. I do have some questions/suggestions tho. One thing I notice is you seem to have an awful lot of square footage devoted to hallways. Wonder if there might be some way to reconfigure to devote some of that hallway space to uses other than just getting from point A to point B? Like, is it important to you that your upstairs craft room be a separate room that the kids don't have to walk thru all the time? If not, I'd consider taking out the north wall of that room and incorporating the hallway into the room. Also, you mentioned home-schooling your kids and it is not clear where that activity will occur. Library looks too small for workspace for 4 kids...especially with built in book cases all around. And, if your family eats all meals together, you probably won't want the kids doing schoolwork there... too much constantly having to clear away the schoolwork in order to set the table for lunch/dinner. So my guess is you're planning to use your "craft room" for a classroom anyway so it might as well be open to the kids. Alternatively, the space where your laundry room is now would probably make a great classroom area - if you could just find a different location for the laundry room. And, personally, I would look really really hard for a way to move the laundry room UPSTAIRS. With 4 kids, lugging laundry back upstairs is gonna get real old real fast! (In our current house, laundry room is downstairs and all bedrooms upstairs. Lack of a laundry chute isn't the big problem... just gather up the laundry in pillow cases and toss it downstairs! BIG problem has always been getting it all back UP the stairs! So, new home currently being built has the laundry room upstairs where 99% of laundry is generated.) Closing in the space between the two back bedrooms upstairs is a great idea. Maybe you could find a way to make that space into a laundry room? How high are your ceilings downstairs going to be? I ask because I count 22 steps and I think that is rather more than you will need even if you're planning on 10 ft ceilings. Fewer steps would mean your stair-case wouldn't need to be as wide (east to west) so you might be able to capture enough space to allow for direct access to the extra room instead of having to go thru a closet. If not, I would recommend that you at least consider moving the two A/C units back into that space between the two bedroom and put an extra washer/dryer in the space where you show the A/C units now. The front facade of your home is beautifully symmetrical so I'm wondering what you're planning to do about matching the windows in the master bath to those in the dining room. You've mentioned that you want to "take advantage of the beautiful views" from the dining room but I don't think you're going to want the world taking in the views of your master bathroom. LOL! Have you thought about what the differences in windows will do to the symmetry of your home? Have you considered using that west octagon for DH's home office instead of your master bath? With a door opening off the porch plus one (that can be closed!) going into your bedroom, it would make a great office space AND allow him to have business visitors that wouldn't have to come into your "home" at all. You could then move the master bath back to the area where DH's office is now plus take in some of that hallway space. Finally are you going to have a basement? (You show a door under the staircase downstairs so I'm guessing that leads to the basement. If it just leads to a closet, I'm thinking you might be able to reconfigure the staircase. If you used an L-shape staircase so that it passes over your office - tuck your desk under the staircase - and winds up in that space between the two bedrooms that you were going to enclose anyway, With a reconfigured staircase, you just might be able to find room for that extra powder room you want. Oh, one last thing, you don't have a closet anywhere near the front door so someone is going to ask where you plan to hang guests' coats. If you live in a warm state like I do, not having a closet near the front door really isn't a problem since folks only wears coats/sweaters about 15 days a year anyway. But, up north, I can definitely understand that having a place to stash coats of guest is important.

POSSIBLE HACK FOR DOUBLE OVEN USERS!!! Might help de-Grinch your Christmas if you need both ovens. I've been having the same double oven issues as many others. You try to start the second oven (doesn't matter which you start first), and the whole thing shuts off and reboots. First, possible solution, then background. Start one oven on bake. Then try starting the other oven on broil. If that works, shut it all off, then try bake on one, roast on the other. Experiment with the modes a little. Mine was NOT working. Now it is, but I don't know for how long. And I don't know if repeating this will work again if it fails. Just something to try. I've had multiple control board replacements like many others. Bluestar has a new control board in the pipeline, but they are having supply chain issues like everybody else. They switched suppliers from Quantem Corp, to somebody else. Quantem is a big supplier for HVAC control systems, among other things. I have a technical background and can do some very basic electronic repairs. We'll need both ovens for Christmas dinner, so I decided to see what I could do. I took the boards out to check for basic stuff like scorched components and bad solder joints. No smoking gun. I put it back together and tested it. FAIL, same as usual. The moment you select the temp on the second oven, you can hear a relay click, then the oven dies. Like a momentary overload condition. Preheating for bake or roast involves using all the oven's elements. Big load. I researched what elements activate for the various modes. I decided to try starting bake on the top oven at 200, then BROIL on the bottom on Low. Broil only uses the top element. IT WORKED! Then I did the same test, reversing top and bottom. Still worked. I flipped the breaker on and off and tried again. Still worked. After a couple more tests, I tried what would ALWAYS make it fail before, bake on the top and bake on the bottom. STILL WORKED. Something about this process seems to have slapped the control board upside the head to get it working. Hopefully, this solution is durable enough to last until the revised control board is installed. We'll see. And I hope this works for somebody besides ME! Regarding Bluestar and the oven, we do like the oven. Yeah, it's a little noisy, but we knew what we were getting into. FYI, the noise comes from a fan deep behind the control panel. All that fan does is cool the electronics. That fan doesn't need to work as hard when you use the bottom oven, so it's quieter then. Yes, it's been real nuisance to have all the failures. There have been adventures with the repair company to add to all this. But through it all I feel that Bluestar has had my back on this. They have been accessible and responsive, going beyond the call of duty at times. Huge kudos to Bluestar customer service and their management. Thank you, and I look forward to finally putting this to bed with the new, improved components!

Several years ago there was a service that allowed you to go to a place to prepare meals to take home. There were also a limited number of frozen items you could purchase. My daughter and I went several times and each time made several meals to take home and freeze. The options were wide and we had so much fun. The meals were set up at stations and you could choose which meals you wanted to make and there were lots of incentives ie for each two or three meals you prepared you received one free or received free dessert. I wish they were still around. The food was a bit more expensive but always very fresh and high quality.

Well, I received my HelloFresh box yesterday. (I canceled my subscription but I'd already paid for the first week of three choices) I haven't made any of the meals but here are a few of my first impressions.. Rory, I believe you signed up in the same week I did so I'll be curious to hear what you thought. I chose three meals-- a shrimp and asparagus risotto with meyer lemon, a spicy apricot chicken with green beans and couscous and a steak with tomato vinaigrette. Two were under 600 calories, one was at 630. That's a caloric range I am comfortable with... still, I feel the menus are wayyyy too light on veggies. Even more so when I opened one of the meal boxes. The quantity of asparagus was very small-- about the size (or even a bit less) than what I'd use for one serving. I am not completely anti-carb but I will often double up on veggies over carbs. the packaging was simple and the instruction cards were clear and seem to be complete. They are definitely worthy of saving for to make another time though I wish they were much smaller. I won't likely keep them. The quality of the proteins looks pretty good-- I'll know better when I prepare the dishes. I will say that given the initial week cost only $29, I don't think I'd have been able to shop for these meals on my own for the price... but then had I shopped on my own, I'd probably have ditched at least 1 of the carb side dishes (cheap) and added veggies/salad makings (more expensive). Petalique, I think you are right on target. I need to come up with my own ideas for "kits" and shop based on them. A number of the dishes across services are things I either already make or could easily make. I just need to be motivated to stick with the shopping. On a side note: I have decided to try the every other day fasting-- 500 calories one day, eat what you want the next day. This will require that I keep up with shopping so that I have good, fresh produce for the 500 calorie days. I am just going to have to get better about planning and going to the market. I don't plan on pigging out on the "eat what you want" days but I am going to want some variety on those days since the 500 calorie days aren't likely to have much variation.