Yan, ok, I'm back, with more information than you probably want to think about! Some of this is in addition to my other post, some is in place of it. Since you seem open to lots of ideas, I'm going to suggest many things since several aspects of your plan are similar to ours (although our lot is wide, and your east side is our front, with our entrance where your stair landing is). Lots of detail, but you can obviously choose to ignore it all if it doesn't suit how you live. Energy efficiency-- 1--You have 12" energy heel trusses, nice deep roof overhangs, and 2x6 exterior walls. You might want to consider doing the garage walls in 2x6s also. We did a thicker (ICF) wall for our house and garage here in Michigan, and even when the temperature outside was zero, our unheated garage never got below 50! The 2x6s won't do that well, but every little bit helps. 2--Regarding fireplaces, the most energy efficient place to put it would be between two interior walls. We put a 2-sided Heat N Glo between our living room and dining room and have really enjoyed it from both sides. (I'd put yours in place of the west half-wall--you did say that you think of it as a hearth room!--and shorten or eliminate the other short wall). The other night when the power was off for 5 hours, we used some sort of built in override system and were able to heat both rooms with the fireplace, although we were not able to adjust its heat as we can when there is electricity. 3--An HRV (or maybe ERV; not sure which in Wisconsin) should distribute the heat from whatever sun comes in your west and south windows. Our library has exterior walls on the SE and SW, and our living room's walls are SW and NW. I love the sun coming in in the winter, and both rooms are always comfortable. Now if I'm actually sitting where the sun is, it is warmer, but I designed both rooms to have walls blocking part of the sun so I'd have places to sit and enjoy the rooms. It really helps to plan your furniture arrangements as you decide where windows and doors go. 4--Suntunnels (Solatubes, etc.) are much better for energy efficiency than skylights. We used Suntunnels by Velux; the rigid ones give more light than the flexible ones, and the TGR type looks better on the roof if it matters to you. We put one in the stairwell, one in the 2nd floor bathroom which has no windows, and two in the kitchen, since it has a 10'x20' porch across the front of it that blocks the light. I LOVE the light they bring in, and so does everyone who sees them. DH would rather not have ANY holes in the roof, but I insisted on these because light is so important! Symmetry (or, when do you give up form for function?)-- 1--A lot of architects and homeowners like symmetry. By putting the fireplace where I did, I removed the symmetry from 2 rooms. Since you have a Craftsman style house, you can have a more informal style without symmetry if you choose as long as there is balance. 2--If the exterior door now goes out from what is now apparently the screened porch, I would change the symmetry of the French doors, since it makes it difficult to place furniture. If you want to keep the symmetry, you could put two 6-foot sets of French doors and have the two doors in the middle fixed, and the two end ones open. Then you could put a love seat in front of the fixed parts. Or you could just have one door operable at one end. Laundry/powder/mud/pantry/office suggestions-- 1--Move the pantry to the powder room location. Move the refrigerator to the west so there is room to cut a door through from the kitchen to the new pantry; make it a pocket door. Move the desk functions into the pantry under the window or into the new office, since it would just probably pile up with stuff where it was. Cut a counter- height 20"w x 36"h pass thru in the pantry wall on the mudroom side instead of a door. Extend the left wall of the new pantry to the mudroom wall, and move the laundry door onto the mudroom wall. Put a shallow cleaning closet on the laundry wall facing the kitchen wall. Move the cubbies to the back of the kitchen wall. Change the mudroom/garage door so it opens to the right. 2--Move the 12'7" (new) office wall west 1'. Move the toilet and wash basin to the garage wall where the closet was, and make the powder room 5'x5' with the door on the south wall, opening into the powder room onto the back of the office wall. Move the closet opposite the powder room wall that has the door in it, so that the back of the closet is on the dining room wall. Have the door to the new office be between the closet and the powder room, and wall off the door into the dining room, if you want the office private from the rest of the house. 3--Kitchen--Are you having a cooktop and separate oven, or will there be a range? Where will the microwave be? Some things to consider when planting trees as a screen, especially since you are so close to your neighbors-- 1--How big will the trees get? The sizes listed by nurseries are usually the height and width after TEN YEARS, and they don't stop growing! They will get much larger than you expect. 2--The roots will get at least as wide as the tree canopy, so they will extend into any cracks that might occur at any time in your basement wall, and they will extend onto your neighbor's property where they may decide to plant something. 3--The evergreens will make the rooms darker as they grow larger and block more of the sun. 4--Most evergreens need full sun to look good. Yews will be about your only choice if there's a house on the east or west side blocking the sun and you only get full sun for 6-8 hours. I would definitely keep the windows in the master walk-in closet. Before we built our house, I visited LOTS of builders' homes in the Detroit 3-county area Parade of Homes, etc. I always disliked the larger WIC closets without a window, and liked the ones having a small window. Ours is 28" w x 42"h and 4' above the floor (9' ceiling). It's opposite the closet door as I walk in, and I LOVE not having to turn on the light during the day, seeing the sky and trees, having the light spill into the bathroom and bedroom, but still having privacy. A 4 in 12 slope for the roof seems shallow for Wisconsin since you get more snow than we do. My draftsman said the least he'd recommend was 6/12. Maybe it doesn't matter if the roof is in smaller sections, and their are no large trees around for leaves to collect. I designed our house from scratch, and had no previous experience. I bought and looked at lots of books, but two that I kept finding myself going back to for major concepts and practical applications were Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design by Max Jacobson, and Not So Big Solutions by Sarah Susanka. These might be helpful to you at this stage. IMO, your architect has done a very good job with your very limiting factors. One thing I found while designing our house was that every time I moved a wall even a couple of inches, it could have a huge impact on everything around it, which then had to be changed. I used a 3D Home Architect program. I assume from your print, that your architect can show you the 3-dimensional views of each room? If he hasn't, see if he can show you each room from the various entry points, so you can decide if that's how you want it. Also, there are online programs that will let you draw your plan and place your furniture. I don't know what they are, but maybe someone else can give you a link. Then you can see if the room sizes are ok, what you will be seeing when you are sitting down, etc. Anne Here is a link that might be useful: TGR style SunTunnels

Thank you very much for your answers and comments and thank you for posting the link. With your questions, i now noticed how much info i left out. The walls are poured, 10" thick, 9' tall, and much rebar. This, Im told, is one of the secrets to building a basement here. The quote does not include any exterior flatwork. The lot is a bit on the flat side, with regards to a walk-out basement so there is not a ton of excavation. The main floor will be approximately 3' above grade in the front. There is no fill included in the quote. The back and one side have been planned to be stick built so there would be no windows in the concrete itself. I did fail to mention the contractor mensioned a safe room area under the front porch that a door could be added to when finished. The house will be located in the country in Oklahoma and not with-in any city limits. Im originally from Wisconsin, where basements are the norm. Here in Okla. they are fairly rare. Unfortunately, there is only one contractor here that does basements only. From people i have talked with, and from what ive seen with my own eyes, they do a nice job, but they have no compitition, which is why i questioned the price. Thanks again!

I dont know if this is what you are talking about or not, sorry if I am mis-speaking, but we did a "safe room" under our garage. It is support by steel beams. It would have had a 9 ft ceiling, but I needed the entrance to my garage lowered, so I dropped the garage floor down 2 ft, which of course lowered the ceiling for the safe room by 2 ft, thinking we would only use it for storage anyways. The real purpose was for a safe room from tornadoes, so even getting storage seemed like a nice bonus. Then like the very next day after we poured it, my HVAC guy stopped by and said if we get a heater/air/dehumidifier, we can use it for anything. So I think we will use it for the weight and exercise room. We are kind of short ppl anyways, so most of it is 7 ft celing with 2 beams that are 6 ft. Right or wrong, it is done, the ceiling and garage that is, no do-overs, but I think it will be okay. Here is a picture from earlier in construction. Sorry if this is not what you were talking about. But I guess what I am getting at, and someone already mentioned, we had to plan for it from day one, with extra steel beams, extra support while the garage floor set up, extra time, not sure how much extra $ but I don't think all that much to get 400+ sq ft of space in addition to the space it frees up in the other part of the basement where the exercise room was going to be, but for us it was all about the peace of mind during a storm. We generally have several big storms a year that will make the sirens in town go off. Here is a link that might be useful: Our Build in Pictures

akkw, so sorry this is turning out like it is, but I think you are making a wise decision. Even if this means a little chaos to start with schools etc. it probably means less chaos in the long run for your family. You don't know if you would have to move out of the other house for any period of time to fix problems and re-mediate the mold so better some chaos now than a lot more later. It will most likley just seem like some chaos of moving anyways and you'll be better off long term.