Sorry for the hiatus. Moving and working and kids - well it's a bit inconvenient. Hahaha! Appraisal today. Now the only thing left is the health department to check the drain field and water. I hope we have a closing date soon. momtoblondie-*LOVE* my doodle. :) She by the way is having the hardest time out of everyone with all of the house showing/packing/routine changing upheaval. ;) We are not fans of that funny little angle by the front door either. We will be addressing that and the windows when we meet again on Monday. I am still trying to figure out the front laundry closet area with the windows pushed together-it is a struggle. I am also pondering the kitchen layout. The mudroom however, we like. I asked for a place for lockers, a separate closet, a small 'pocket' office and to be able to close the dog in. This is what we got and I do like it: The doorway off to the right by the closet goes outside where we will have a covered porch for grilling and also where we will let the dog in and out. The doorway by the 1/2 bath leads into the kitchen area. The square footage - hmmm. It is about 300 sq foot over what we were hoping for. So we need to look at that. Likely the mudroom is a little big because I don't feel like the actual rooms are too large. But we don't have any 'extra' rooms that I feel we could ditch. We are not including the screened porch (to be finished later) and the basement (also to be finished way later) in our sq. footage 'wants'. It's about 1700 on the main floor and 550 in the upstairs. I also need to having things figured out - this has been driving me nuts. I wouldn't say you are starting to soon but yes I concur it is overwhelming and sanity breaks are needed (chocolate also helps). We didn't think our house would sell so early. Happy it did so we can start this fall BUT the plans aren't ready and so now I feel rushed which is not what I wanted at this stage. :/ I too like watching every size build. It sometimes causes my eyes (dreams) to be larger than our budget but it is exciting to watch nonetheless! I can't wait to watch your build progress as well. When are you hoping to list your home? It kind of sneaks up on you so hang on to your hat! Thank you for your kind words and blessings - right back at you. There are a few kindred police/fire spirits on here. :)

These are the most common Closet Lights. Most everyone chooses these for closets and laundry rooms. They take 2 bulbs, but the just larger version (15") takes 3 bulbs. If you put CFL's in them, they should put out plenty of light.

We remodeled (a smaller house than yours) and moved laundry to upstairs. We don't have a dedicated laundry room (didn't have one before either). But, we have more than a stackable-size only closet for laundry. My laundry closet that is convenient to bedrooms is 3 1/2 feet deep by about 9 feet long with 8' of bifolding doors that make the "closet" open into a room-size when those doors are open to the hallway. It feels room-like to me. And, there is plenty of room for utility type stuff--a counter top, space to put the laundry baskets, laundry detergent, etc. What you show in those images, I see no practical space for laundry detergent, hang-drying, etc. So, does it need to be a dedicated room? No. But, more space than a tower closet for a family house (2900sq ft is larger than my family sized house).

Our budget right now is $30k. I am not quite sure how much that’ll get me. I have never undertaken anything like this. This will absolutely be something we take on in stages. This space is what we’d like to tackle first and is the largest. In our kitchen at some point we will replace countertops and in our other bathroom we will swap out the toilet, tub and vanity. Luckily the rest of the house is functional for us. I lack the vision and knowledge that a lot of people on here have of being able to see a functional layout in disaster zones lol. My intuition tells me all these spaces can somehow be rearranged to give us what we need. I’m completely wrong, please help. Im also completely fine and understand if it’s impossible, financially or practically to have it all. I do have a consultation with a designer scheduled for this week (so excited), and I’m praying that she’ll have time to take us on as clients but I got excited and wanted to ask the Houzz community first. Thank you !!