Congratulations on your plans! I really like them alot. Elevation is beautiful. Inside is nicely laid out for the most part. There were just a handful of things that stood out to me as needing some tweaking: -The roof height change between the left wing of the house and the garage bothers me. It also appears that the roof of the left wing is higher that the roof of the right wing--is it? We encountered a similar challenge with our exterior plans. We opted to raise the height of the roof on the garage so the rooflines would match up. -Is the family room big enough? I see you have furniture placed in there on the drawings--is it based on your actual furniture? If not, it needs to be. Based on the furniture layout & the required walkways around it, your family room effectively shrinks from 19'2" x 15'4" to 13'2" x 9'4". I would definitely revisit this space. -There is ALOT of square footage dedicated to play/toy area. That's really enough space for a full on guest suite/in-law suite. Do you really need all of it? What are your plans for it once the kids are grown? -There is not a full bath on the main level. Not necessary but nice to have should have need of one (i.e. injury that doesn't lend well to navigating stairs, in-laws need to move in either temporarily or permanently, overnight guests who may bunk in the playroom or library, etc) -Are you planning any island/peninsula seating? If so, how many seats? In many of today's plans, there is a plethora of seating for meals where all family members fit--4(+) seats @ island/peninsula, nook off kitchen and a formal dining room--total overkill. If you have enough room for everyone in the immediate family to sit at the island, you could pull the nook wall back and make it part of the kitchen allowing more cabinetry for storage, more counter space, more light into the main room itself & you'll knock a nice chunk of square footage off that you say you need. -I see you've already posted the kitchen in the kitchen forum--that was my suggestion as well. -I'm not wild about the layout of the 2nd floor shared bath layout--alot of wasted space, IMO. Have you thought about flipping the vanity to the opposite wall and put the tub in the alcove where the vanity was originally, then put the toilet on the opposite wall where the tub was originally offering some privacy for whoever may be using it. You could make a toilet closet there if you want or just leave the short wall in place. You could also place a window in that area too for natural light. The linen closet could also be made larger in this scenario as well. A compact stacked washer/dryer may even be able to be accomodated. If desired, you could make the bath accessible from one of the bedrooms as well. -Love the big closet in bedroom 2, however, the door eats up valuable wall space (for furniture placement options) and puts 2 doors side by side. Have you considered moving the entry to the bedroom back into the hall just far enough to accommodate a closet door on the right as you enter the room? (looks like we're only talking about inches needed to accomodate this) That would give you back the precious wall space in the main part of the room, make use of the dead space currently not used, & take care of the door by door visual issue. -Do you need a linen closet in the ensuite bath for bedroom 2? How big is it drawn? It looks really tiny. What linens were you planning for that space (I'm guessing towels, soap, toilet paper, etc). Could the space under the sink be used for storing those items and remove the linen closet altogether allowing for more space in the main closet? Or maybe some shelves inset 1/2 way up the bath wall allowing for storage in both the bath and the closet. -Love the shower in the master bath, however, I'm not sure the rest of the bath feels as well laid out--almost as if everything was set in place based on the shower placement & layout. The space between the tub and the walls/windows does not seem very wide and will make entering/exiting the tub a challenge. There's a door collision issue between the bathroom entry and the toilet room which also makes getting to the toilet room awkward--think morning sickness/tummy bug/etc as worst case scenarios that happen on a somewhat regular basis not to mention one person trying to enter the bathroom when another is trying to exit the toilet room. Typically the purpose of the toilet room is to free up the rest of the bathroom for use by another when the toilet is in use. Currently, both doors will be closed anytime someone is in the toilet room which somewhat defeats the purpose and if someone does enter the bathroom while the other is in the toilet room odds are they will leave the bathroom door open causing a collision when the person in the toilet room tries to exit. I'll look at the master suite some more and see if I come up with any ideas on how to make the space more efficient. I don't like identifying a "problem" without offering a solution, but non are coming to mind right off. Overall, I think this is an excellent first draft and it won't be long before you get your finals. Hope this helps!

Daderini-thanks for info. I'll be using half-gutters and you seem to understand my dilemma with the soffit and fascia. I found a nice composite wood soffit that Georgia Pacific makes that comes in 16 foot lengths and seems like it would hold paint pretty well so that seems to be the best I can ask for regarding the soffit. As far as the fascia and cornices', I agree that the AZEK will stand out next to wood, so trying to mix is probably a bad idea. I did see a website that used AZEK to construct the return cornices and it looked pretty good, so it is an option. I haven't priced out the AZEK against the aluminum which was originally in the specs and part of the current budget. I think if it prices out reasonably close its feasible that I could use AZEK for fascia, return cornices and the remainder of the roof trim (frieze, crown, and I think a peice of stock). I'm even willing to simplify the trim a little bit as I its a tad too fancy for me, probably just changing or removing the 2 peices crown would be closer to what I like. The paint color is the same for all the exterior trim. I will be painting my own house, people seemed shocked when I tell them I'm choosing wood over vinyl(but I cant stand vinyl). I'm still young and follow a good peice of advice I was told: "Take the time to paint just ONE side of the house every year, by the time you get all the way around, it'll be time to start over again, but the idea of painting the house won't seem so daunting and overwhelming."

Here's what I'd do. 1) Increase the post diameter slightly to make more substantial posts. 2) Paint porch eave white (natural wood presently it looks like) and add arched fascia trim between posts to make porch more visually substantial 3) Add white cornice trim to upper story to balance lower porch fascia - make the width of the cornice board wide enough to bring it down to the top edge of the windows 4) Increase the width of the upper window shutters (not the middle window) to be correctly proportional to the windows, they are too narrow now. 5) Add matching shutters to main floor windows flanking front door 6) Change the house color slightly darker and away from pinkish toward one of the reddish brown tones in the stones from the main level. 7) Add some fypon gable trim in the triangle 8) Possibly paint the front door an accent color. This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Wed, May 21, 14 at 8:55

As far as some of the stiffness of the house, it seems a bit staged and cleaned out, to me. It probably looks more alive (or did) when the couple fully live(d) there. As the furniture being "colonial revival R us" eh, maybe. But some of it is probably real, it's on the market here enough. And it's better quality furniture than I'll ever be likely to own. These are people that don't get "bored" with things and have to "change up", there is something to be said for that. They probably have neighbors that have had 5 cheap sofas to their one in 40 years. They like what they have always liked, obviously. And I admire that.