First, thanks for some honest feedback while we can still make floorplan changes. We're aiming for a long-term home that suits our lifestyle but would not make future buyers say, "They can't really be serious." I had to laugh and cringe, david_cary. We seem to be walking the knife's edge. homey_bird, I'm afraid what you see here is the result of hours of stewing. We drafted the initial plan and want to work out all the specifics before we send it for bids. As everyone knows, one change affects so many things that we stay up late and our heads start spinning. We will seriously consider all feedback. At the risk of TMI, I'll attach the original elevations and floorplans. This second floor plan doesn't include the deep tub or larger shower in the master bath. Trying to fit those items has been a problem. Creek_side and alabamanicole, thank you for your feedback and your interest in the bigger picture. We've also been thinking about how we use the master bath. My dh likes to spend an hour locked in the bathroom each morning (?) so I would really enjoy a vanity in the hall dressing area. I don't think we would use two sinks in the master concurrently. I was hoping a vanity would help resale too if we put only one sink in the master. So what is the room between the master bedroom and bath? Good question. A vanity which could also function as a seat for dressing, an east-facing window (view of the wetlands behind us), a small triangular closet, a longer reach-in closet, and some built in shelving. I've looked at our wardrobe and realized that we need half our closet space for hanging and half for shelved items (folded clothes, shoes, purses). The previous walk-in closet plan seemed too tight for a seat or vanity and the window was small in order to minimize damage to clothes. We are open to any suggestions to get an attractive, functional, reasonably priced dressing area. The one foot deep storage in the bathroom is our attempt to get as much storage as possible in there for soaps, shampoos, toilet paper, towels, cleaning supplies etc. We could give the bathroom a foot from the closet area for deeper storage in the bath. We assumed that the shower door would be 2-3 feet wide (out of five) so the bench could wrap around and we could still open the shower door. I'll attach a rough view from our home planning software that requires a lot of imagination. The tub is just 40 inches in diameter and would be positioned near the window with the internal seat facing toward the east window/view. The rest of the deck would be tiled so we could step on the bench, sit on the tile deck, and swing our legs over into the tub. That's the theory, anyhow. We put in a pedestal sink to give us more room near the bath and to approximate art deco style. The window above it is a transom for more light at the sink. There is a mirrored medicine cabinet directly in front of the sink. We have been partial to east facing windows (top of floor plan) because that is our view of a wetlands. The master bedroom also has transoms to the south (right of plan) because we have 1.5 story neighbors on that side and would like as much sunlight as possible. Thanks for the comment about the toilet area and corner windows, creek_side. We can cut adjust those. Please feel free to throw us a comment about anything else on the plan as well. Now's our chance to fix it. Liz

No pics, since we haven't broken ground yet, but I've devoted a scary amount of thought to this issue. The entire design process for me has been one of confronting the truth about who I really am, not who I'd like to pretend to be: though I love a tidy house, I need to be very careful to make keeping it that way as easy as possible. Otherwise, I tend to let things pile up until setting them to rights is difficult and depressing. Clothes are the only thing that ever messes up my bedroom, so I don't want any clothes storage there: I want a closet big enough to hold EVERYTHING. I only need a tiny bit of 'full height' hanging space, so all the rest can have upper and lower rods. For sweaters [I'm a cashmere/dale of norway junky] I want open shelves, spaced close enough together that I'm not tempted to pile one atop another[I always make a mess if they are]. One [or two] of those trouser hanger assemblies made up of multiple horizontal rods on a vertical axis. Not only hold more for the space they take up, but less mess since you don't have seperate hangers for each pair. Just a few drawers for 'small clothes', but some kind of multi-basket system for dirty laundry so I can tell at a glance not just when I need to wash, but what. A bench of course, and some wall hooks for stuff like robes. And no doors: though those fully fitted closets look very nice, I know that I'd almost never bother to close them. Oh, and one of those lights that turn themselves on when you walk in. Natural light would be nice as well.

Lindsay- No, we are not working with an architect. That is not in the budget. The state I live in doesn’t require a licensed architect to build. We found a plan that we liked online and worked with a drafter to amend it some to connect the laundry to the closet. The Positions of the rooms haven’t changed from the original plan. The window in the closet is a transom not a full window. We actually had a window in the middle of the wall in our last walk in and it was just fine. We had more than enough room. There really is no way to make the plan perfect without working with an architect, but that’s not going to happen. :( My last house also didn’t have the laundry on an outside wall. I would love to have worked with an architect, unfortunately we didn’t. Thank u and please if u see anything else let me know. I have a list to take to the builder for tweaks. Hoping to break ground soon. A S - that is my issue with this plan. No full wall for the bed. I’m open for layout changes as we haven’t started the build yet. This was the best that we found that worked for us after I squashed the two story that we liked, but I didn’t like the flow of the interior. This plan is very similar to the house we just sold, but the laundry was on the other side of the house on that one and I really think that’s whats making the master weird. bpath- I will take a look at that idea. Here is what the original plan looked like.

Thanks for the clarification and if we decide to send everything to an architect I will be sure to upload. At this point the builder has told us we have to put down a $5,000 deposit on the lot and $5,000 deposit to send the rough sketches to an architect. With the market being crazy, we are trying to compare what we would be able to afford with a new build vs. what we've been seeing come (and go) on the market. So we are trying to get a general sketch/layout idea of our build to see if the estimated costs are going to work in our budget.