THANKS for your thoughts!! (Hope this isn't going to weigh you down with information, but, here goes:) EXTENDING MASTER WING: We can bump out the end wall 4 feet max, improving (from 12' L) to 16' L (a bit longer on the deck side) x 20' W. (The opposite wing is 22' L x 20.5' W). SYMMETRY: To help reference the driveway approach towards the house: take the floor plan and literally rotate it about 45 degrees clockwise: that's the direction the driveway comes from (imagine an imaginary line continuing out from that 12' master bath sink/counter and shower). Essentially it will be like driving on the driveway towards the house, then veering a little left once you get to the house (like on the plan the words: "FIRST FLOOR/Scale 1/4"); then for a parking space: backing up onto what's left of the land outside the master wing bump out. (gosh I hope I'm explaining this ok) I am hoping the symmetry issue will be overlooked because one never really looks straight at the front door. (what d'ya think?) BED SIZE/PLACEMENT: King size bed(even though it takes up most of the space I know). We're hoping we have our choice of placing the bed either on that end wall or the bathroom wall, but probably the end wall. I am thinking that's a great idea to change the casement unit on the end wall to a horizontal band of rectangular/square windows along the top of the wall as you suggest! Sure would help with layout, huh? MBR DOOR: Never thought of moving a door over towards the exterior wall! It's an interesting thought. I WAS wondering, from a professionals point of view, if the MBR door was sort of TOO ~ not hidden enough? but figured the FP sorta blocks it a little. My only concern with this idea is that a desk area is one of those important requirements we have & don't necessarily want it in a bedroom. This will be a vacation home but I want a space for a computer and writing desk. I'll definitely consider moving it inward (towards the stairs) but need to also keep an aisle that's not too narrow. STAIRCASE PLACEMENT: We experimented with stairway placement everywhere it seems! We concluded that if the stairs weren't right there in the middle of the "Y", WHAT would be there then? Ultimately, we decided the staircase with the stone of the fireplace (FP) could maybe be a sort of "feature", with interesting, open, spindle/railings all the way around instead of it taking up space on the wing sides. Kind of "embrace" it! STAIRCASE ISSUES: Problems we hope to address with the stairway is to make them wider (currently 36") and, we want a landing instead of winder style treads so that the stone work from the FP can end at that landing. That means we also have to push the FP into the great room some. Does anyone think the great room space will be too much infringed upon? CLEAR VIEW: One idea was to build a FP with a sort of "column" look on each side (where a chimney would go up one of the sides), essentially creating a "U" shape where one could see straight through from the front door to the great room window wall. That was using a gas FP. Since then we're leaning towards an energy efficient wood burning FP where we're pretty sure the chimney would have to be straight up (vs. offset). Because of this we're imagining rocking all around the FP, all the way down to the staircase landing, and then putting some sort of neat artwork or waterfall or ? on the rock wall facing the front door. (NOTE: there's only LP or electric available on this particular bluff) FIREPLACE PLACEMENT: We're in Wisconsin and the winter's can be super, duper cold, so the 2-sided FP idea is really cool sounding, but, unfortunately, probably not a possibility in this case (Also, no way can we deepen the deck or we'd go over a 600' cliff! haha). I also don't want to really block the view at all (from our living space that is ~ obviously we ARE blocking the view from the entrance). We have considered putting the FP on the far right corner in the Great Room (GR) but that's where we think the TV should go. As much as I like the idea of putting a TV above a FP, in this case I don't think we have the space to do that and sit far enough away so not wrenching our necks to look UP at a TV (+ the heat problem). That wall of windows in the GR is also facing NorthWest so #1: we're trying to avoid sunset glare on the TV and #2 we want seating to face the river. FP will be for warmth (and viewed w/swivel chairs). Ultimately, we went back to the FP centered in the house, as shown. (Also trying to honor the Frank Lloyd Wright trademark with a wide, stone chimney in the middle of a house). Any thoughts or ideas with these things in mind? DOWNSTAIRS: Is going to be pretty open and used as a rec room (nice pool table, foose, game table, etc) and some additional sleeping space. (We originally were only going to have one BR upstairs and a carport where the 2nd BR is now. All the other sleeping was going to be downstairs!) We decided though, if WE'RE old, then our friends would probably be OLD too and would need to stay on the main floor maybe too! haha) Here's the current Basement Plan: KITCHEN: We aren't going to keep that U-shaped kitchen as shown. We'd much prefer eliminating that breakfast bar section and instead having an island. As you can probably see, that right, master wing side, with needing the wider staircase & bumping out the MBR end wall,is what's causing us the most difficulty rearranging to make the best use of space. We'd still like to keep a foyer coat closet & a desk area. Also trying to figure a better designed master bath w/a longer shower w/seat and better linen closet design. Could have a pocket door vs. swinging. (Would like opinions on pocket doors!) Lastly, the master closet is dumb and of course should have either bi-fold doors or? Any and all ideas are very welcome. PS: Here's a home in Madison, Wisconsin that is one of my "Inspiration" pictures! Love the wide horizontal, dark brown siding and typical (for FLW and WI) stone! (also, notice the typical FLW centered chimney!) mmmmmm : ) (SMILE)

Ya'll are making me blush! lol!! Seriously, I really do appreciate all your kind words. It makes me smile. Cotehele, my sunroom is not heated either. I did isulate it well though, so I can keep it comfortable with baseboard heaters in the winter and ceiling fans in the summer. The window is a standard exterior window with insulated glass. It is 4' wide and 3' high, a slider. It can be used as a pass-thru to the sunroom. The window has built-in J-channel trim on the outside (like you'd use for vinyl siding and we installed the drywall into that channel. The whole sunroom is drywalled. I can take a picture of how the window looks from the sunroom side this evening, if you'd like more details. If I had it to do again, I'd get a taller window that went all the way down to the granite countertops. I LOVE the way that looks and it would have been easier to pass things through there at a lower height. Cindy

The house we'll build next year will be our last house. I did look to buy instead of build but we really just want what we want--and don't want to compromise as much as we'd have to if we buy and remodel. Completely agree ... we also looked for something existing that we might update a bit, but found that the non-negotiable items on our list just couldn't be found in an existing home. So glad we built. We've been in the house for almost 3 months now and we're really happy with how it turned out and how it works for us. There are always some bumps in the road, but knowing our budget and what our priorities were (plus a really good contractor) helped to make this build a fairly smooth process. Hope things go well for you. It seems the consensus here is previous experience does make a big difference.

Thanks for all your ideas and info! It does look a lot like pebbledash! The undersides of the big chunks I can pull off the foundation are black. It's pulling away from the foundation blocks but not the brick. It's all over every brick on every side of the house and the foundation. In coming up with a palette, there is nothing to work with. Just cheap windows, a paved driveway and this asphalt shingle roof. You can see here the coating has come off the grout here and is just on the bricks. You can see some original bare brick at the top corner of this window, where there had been an awning. The porch has to go! I like the idea of doing something two-toned, but does that work if it's all just brick? Would shakes help?