Wow thank you all so much for all your great feedback. matt_in_ks would LOVE to see what plan you guys came up with...sounds like we are similar wave lengths. Yes we want to keep the full bath (or maybe 3/4 bath) on the lower level for dealing with really grimy people/pets that come in from outside and also we will likely make the office a guest room/office as we don't have much need for a large formal office (and also the mention if we get too crotchety to walk up stairs we could use the office as our bedroom). The laundry situation would definitely need to be rectified- it is precisely what I have now and I hate it. I don't need a palatial room but it needs to be close to an exterior wall...our run is so long now it takes 2 cycles to dry sometimes. And nowhere to fold clothes- piles everywhere. Neither DH or I are clothes horses so one of the closets can be cut way down or even used as the laundry I think. That one closet is bigger than what we have now. Or I would be open to moving it down stairs- saw the coolest laundry chute in a bungalow in this months This Old House magazine- I think it went from the top floor the basement. Though I like the idea of entering the closet from the master bath to make a wall larger enough for a king (we don't have a king bed) I have my heart set on a clawfoot tub. I don't think I would want it in the girls bathroom because I don't really care for the showers that are attached to clawfoot tubs. I do think the kitchen needs a little tweaking too- what the wonderful kitchen forum is for right? We own the land outright and were hoping to keep the house part of our mortgage around $250-300,000 (maybe not realistic with this plan). We have a 650 foot driveway to build, septic, well all that good stuff so want to keep the total mortgage under $400,000.

The rug is beautiful, but I'd get a larger one than what you have now. I think more lamps with down lighting rather than UP, if anyone likes to read in there, might help the darkness situation. It's a GORGEOUS room. My 1937 Cape with front to back LR is also long and narrow at 10' x 25'! Like you, I have a separate seating area in the back, but my fireplace is on a long wall.

You said your needs are a place for your books and a place to work from home. I completely understand why you don't use the desk in it's current place because you're looking at a wall. If you rotate your desk and place it where the sofa table is, you'll be able to look out over your room and even see outside if you keep binoculars in your drawer. :) Place your built-ins on the back wall and leave large open spaces to hang artwork in, then store office supplies like printers, scanners behind cabinet doors. My printer and other unattractive electronics are on slide out trays. Plan ahead and get sufficient electrical and/or HDMI cables to power everything before you put your bookcases in. I like Jinx' idea about wrapping the bookcases around the corner because as much as I love books, they can look like a lot of clutter and there's no way I'm turning the spines to the wall. You can group the books by color or size so they look much more tidy and keep the back wall as an attractive focal point that is also very functional. Lucky you!

Good questions. I'm the primary cook, and there is a second occasional "cook." I'm used to cooking with a high powered gas range and an electric convection oven. I do lots of multi-rack baking, occasional wok-cooking, frequent searing in cast iron, etc. I'm planning on a rangetop (not a range), a small steam oven, and a normal size convection oven. I'm interested in a second sink because me and the other people in the house (those who are here f/t and those who are here for long stays but sporadically) tend to interfere with each other's tasks, eg, I'm baking or prepping a meal, and someone else is trying to access the sink for other reasons, or in the same area using the toaster oven or filling a coffeepot or grabbing something from the dishwasher or making a snack or watering an orchid (sigh). Or someone is emptying the dishwasher (thank you!) in the middle of what is now my prep space. (In my current kitchen, there is no choice but for those things to be positioned as they are.) My thought was to have a second smaller sink on a counter-run where many of those other tasks could be funneled-- the drinking water, coffeepots, coffee grinder, toaster oven, and maybe even the microwave--to keep that stuff out of my main prep area. I had thought it would be nice to keep the kitchen partly separated from the other entertaining rooms b/c of noise/smell/mess. I will be working with a kitchen designer to try and get the layout of the kitchen itself right, but at this point I'm trying to figure out whether it would work at all to put the kitchen in that west end of the great room as opposed to where it was (or someplace else). It would be closer to the pantry space, but i wonder if it's otherwise a bad idea that creates problems.