I'm attaching (I hope) a picture of a typical split level in my area. The entrance is in the "main part" of the house, which is usually the living room -- but you could make it the music area. Typically there's a family room "downstairs" and all the bedrooms "upstairs". Yes, it is essentially half a two-story house connected to half a one-story house -- and the stair cases are only "half staircases", meaning that they're shorty-stairs because of the way the house is joined in the middle. Several additional thoughts have occurred to me -- some very basic questions: - You say you don't have children yet. Why build a four-bedroom house, especially since budget is a concern? Build a standard three-bedroom house (good for resale), and future small children can share a bedroom without any problem. - Do you really need a separate office and music room? You say your husband works away from home, and you cannot use both rooms at once. I understand that for a large instrument like a harp, you need floor space, but could not the office be built into one space? - In one post you allude to the idea that at some point in the future you won't need to teach music anymore -- did I get that right? I'm assuming this means that at some point you'll only be performing -- not teaching? If you're working towards working your way out of this job, does it make sense to spend the money to build a custom room for teaching music? This seems, again, to indicate an office and music room could be combined. - Is a garage an actual need? I know, I know, it's something pretty much everyone wants, but you're looking at sacrificing your living area -- why not cut out keeping your car indoors? If you were to cut out some of these items, you'd be down to a smaller square footage, which might allow you to build all on one level -- and then you could have a door on the side of the house for students /a main door for your friends. Comments on other parts of the house: - I definitely like the idea of changing the island to a simple rectangle. It'd be more cost-efficient and then would provide more storage in the space. - Your master bath has some problems: the door and the linen closet door are going to knock against one another, the door will hit a person using the sink, and a bathroom this size really can't support a toilet-in-a-closet. You have plenty of space, but this particular layout isn't working well. - Closet doors need to open "out". As they're drawn, you'll have to enter the closet and close the door to access the clothes on one side. Carol, I do hate that type of entryway. Apparently so do most people. I was under the impression that she hadn't yet started building this house, and she still has the choice to build something much better. I do agree with the poster who says that when essentially EVERYONE things the same thing, sometimes you have to ask yourself if you're on the right track -- especially if it's a house that you eventually want to sell. Even if your idea is dead-on for you, yourself, it may not be popular at resale time. And a comment on considering possible handicaps when building a house: Don't neglect temporary handicaps. For example, pregnancy makes it tough to go up and down stairs. I remember clearly that in my 8th and 9th month I'd walk into the school building and stop to rest before starting up the stairs to my classroom. Many -- if not most -- people will consider a house that has some bedrooms upstairs, bedrooms that might one day become inaccessible, but ALL the essential parts of the house are upstairs, and that does cut out a large percentage of your future possible buyers.

Hi live wire oak, Thanks ever so much for your continued support. I am lucky to have found this forum and people like you. Beleive me, we will not be making any changes without seeing the effect in 3D in walk through style like you mentioned. Like you said, I want to see what the view (outside and inside) will be to the bedroom gables if we redo the garage roof/and or bump the bedroom gables forward. If we do go this route, we will be sure to investigate tying in a roof plane for a potential foyer bump out/and or porch. I am investigating as many options as possible before spending another dime on construction. The architect that we worked with is experienced in both residential and commercial, he is a fully qualified architect and he has an amazing wealth of construction knowledge. He owns his architect firm and works in his profession full time. He was recommended to us by a structural engineer. Our architect used AutoCad for the design -- I don't think that is viewable in 3D. I imagine we could have paid for someone to have taken the AutoCad file and transferred it to something like Sketch-up. We should have pursued that. I simply did not realize until now how different a 2D elevation picture would be from the 3D real life creation. Tough lesson to learn for us! Carol

Hi callen and all. I hope you guys don't mind my bumping this back to the top...and hijacking a bit.;o) My husband and I are actually also in need of a ledge for our basement. Your situation sounds very much like ours callen. While my husband may need the advice on installing the ledge, I am in desperate need of suggestions for the design of the ledge itself. We have tinkered around with certain ideas and just haven't hit on anything yet that truly excites us. I would just do an image search to get ideas, but I don't even know how I'd phrase it in order to get the results I'm after. So if anyone has any pictures/ideas I'd love to hear them....perhaps you have a mock up of the ledge you're doing callen? If so I'd love to see it if possible. Thanks for any help you guys can give me and I hope you don't mind my hijack of your thread callen.:o)

Not a “registered” designer word, but it works for me…I call what you have “wrap" walls. There is no trim separating one area from another. I would keep all the walls one color. You could paint all the trim/doors differently than the walls. Gray would work. It would give a lot of interest to the rooms.