Am I seeing correctly that the half bath opens directly onto the living/dining area? Agree. This is a complete no-no. I also don't understand why you'd have two half-baths. The master shower looks tiny. 3x3? You are not going to enjoy it. Agree. 3x3 is do-able, but it's a bit summer-campy. I'd give up quite a few other things in order to have a more comfortable shower. The kitchen does look "off". The kitchen is "off" because it's broken up into fragments, meaning you'd have to walk from section to section to cook a meal. The space is here ... but the kitchen needs a complete re-do. Nice pantry though. You want the southern exposure for your bedroom, right? I'd rather have the prized southern exposure for my great room -- the room where I spend most of my waking hours. In the laundry room, well, just put the machines along the outside wall and the sink on the inside wall. No, don't vent into the garage, you will have encrusted lint and moisture all over the cars, and everything else. Trust me. Experience. You could easily run a long dryer vent along the length of the garage ... but why bother /why make it more difficult to clean your dryer vent, when you could easily move the washer/dryer to the other side? General thoughts on the plan: - I like this style of house very much, but I do agree with the poster who says that proportion is key. - Imagine yourself bringing large furniture into the master bedroom. How are you going to make the turn from that small hallway? - The master bath could be so much better. It's a large room, but everything's kind of "strung out" with a bunch of empty space in the middle of the room. - If the great room were JUST a living room -- not a living plus dining room -- it'd be a nice size. But it isn't nearly big enough to house both. - I love that you have a broom closet. One of the things I anticipate with the most joy for our new house is a cleaning closet ... where I can keep all my cleaning goods in one place. Don't neglect to include an outlet in this room ... you're likely to want to keep a hand-held vac and/or a stick vac plugged in here. - You've included three eating areas ... all within a few feet of one another. Does this fit with your lifestyle? How often will you use the big dining room table? Where would your family of four eat dinner most evenings? - The whole mudroom /half-bath area seems over-done /overly complicated. So many doors inside -- more than are needed for a mudroom, and they're going to be in the way ... I also don't care for two entrance doors on the front of the house. - I do not care for the idea of a full bath near the mudroom (note that I grew up on a farm and own a working farm today -- I have never once wanted to come in and take a shower by the back door). Think it through: it's more trouble than it's worth: It's another shower to keep stocked with towels and toiletries ... and after you've showered, you're across the whole house from your closet /clean clothes. Two better options: 1) Put a foot bath outside the entry so you can take off your muddy shoes /come in with clean feet and walk to the bathroom in your bedroom. 2) Place the master bedroom near an entryway so you can go straight into your own bathroom, where you have all your stuff at the ready. Design the master suite so that you don't have to walk through the bedroom and the closet area to reach the shower.

Your mind seems wide open right now, and I think the best time to consult a professional is when your mind is somewhere between wide open and snapped shut. You want to get to the point where you have some concrete ideas of what you want but you aren't married to a specific plan. That way, you aren't constraining them so much with your ideas that they can't really do their job, but you're also not wasting a lot of money paying a professional to remind you that you might consider having a mud room or whatever. So in your shoes, I'd actually start here getting suggestions from this community rather than with an architect or a designers. Then after some time here, I'd go to an architect. If you like that idea, do this: 1) Post here a more complete floor plan to work with (drawn to-scale, with all the doors, with foyer and porches drawn in, etc.). 2) Respond carefully to everybody's suggestions/questions (not saying you aren't right now - just be sure to keep doing it) Then you'll get a whole conversation going with a lot of back and forth. The benefit of that is usually the poster gets an avalanche of suggestions, and that gives you a lot to react to. You'll have your ideas seeded, challenged, and clarified in a way that should be really helpful prep before you to turn to a professional. Questions: 1) You said you're very sold on a library. What function do you see that room serving? Do you have any object to having the library play double duty? 2) Do you intend to keep the laundry downstairs? If you're open to moving it upstairs with the bedrooms, please post a thorough second floor layout too. 3) Have you given any thought to creating the option for a downstairs bedroom? Even if you do not need a third bedroom in the foreseeable future, setting up your office or another downstairs room so it has a closet, is accessible to a full bathroom, has some privacy, etc. could give you some flexibility down the road or merely round out your house to be a three bedroom/two bath which would probably be good for resale. 4) Is there any hope of raising the ceilings in the 7 foot areas? 5) Which walls are load bearing? 6) Where do you intend to enter the house most of the time (usually a door near where you park)? 7) Given that you're rural and East Coast, do you want a mud room? 8) What is your family makeup, and what activities do you all like to do that your home would ideally support?

Do you have a Habitat for Humanity store or something similar in your area? You might consider trying a place like that and keep an eye out for nice cabinets that have been removed from another house that you could use in your remodel. Sometimes they have the counters too if they come out without breaking. Often these are removed from really large homes and there are enough cabinets for a smaller home and the extras can be used to make filler strips etc to make it look custom to your home. This is rarely an overnight exercise -- it could take quite a while and lots of searching to find something that could work, but it would be more budget friendly than all new. With your current budget you'll be choosing from the bottom end of the cabinet market. Also with your budget you should be considering that you might need to do some of the work yourself which is going to be tough with small children. You mentioned you can save $1000/month. Even if you waited a year to add to your savings that would make a significant difference to what you can afford as well as a contingency for other things that will definitely come up, its not an "if" but "when" when you start renovating and taking out walls. Plumbing or electrical or both could give you issues or pipes might need moving, venting moved etc. Plan carefully and come up with a "must have" list, then a "nice to have" list. Work with someone you can trust and work through what you can get from your must have list with your current budget. Good luck and congratulations on the new home.

If you already have an idea of what you want, a design-build firm would be able to answer most questions and, if needed, bring in the required personnel. Sometimes they might do free consultations or estimates. An architect would be expensive, and you could get the job done with less money. I've heard stories of architects designing a house that's 2x budget. I remodeled my house two years ago, and I worked with https://www.boutiquehomeplans.com/the-process. They helped me out with everything, and it turned out looking fantastic. I hope this helped, and good luck with the build!