Ask your contractor if the water heater and furnace (?) can be moved into the lower right corner of the utility room. If so, I'd have him frame them in to a utility closet, leaving the rest of the room open to create a guest bedroom. That said, if this is going to be an oft-used guest space for sleeping, you're going to need another form of egress to meet code. Have him add another window in the bedroom area and make sure the window is large enough for someone to get out of in the event of a fire.

What help do you need, it's pretty easy to install that.

We didn't build new, but had our basement finished in 2018. In addition to locating the rough plumbing in now for a bathroom, you also may want to think about what else you're going to use the space for. Do you plan on putting a kitchen or kitchenette in, with a sink? Or do you want your own sports pub with a full bar? Where will your mechanical room be? (that may sound obvious but if you also plan on using it for storage, there are clearance issues you need to consider for furnaces and electrical boxes). My husband works from home a lot and we have his modem downstairs in a special dedicated closet - will you need something like that? We also added a big pantry (we call it our Costco pantry) which is one of my favorite things about the basement. As the PP said you can adjust the plan when it's actually time to finish, but having a rough idea of what you want/need ahead of time will really help.

Mini sticks is indoor hockey with small sticks. I had wondered about the same floor throughout and just adding rugs. The stairs are off our great room upstairs has poor acoustics(quite loud) which I didn’t consider when planning and designing. I am hoping carpeted stairs will maybe help that a little and reduce the noise of running up the stairs. Maybe a runner would be best? Large room is the rec room. I see I uploaded the wrong pic of the plan- the mechanical room and the two small square storage rooms switched spots so the storage rooms are at the front. I don’t like toys all over either. One storage room is a canning room. The other one is storage/seed starting room. Maybe I should consider combining them and use one for toys? Under the stairs is also a storage area. I have 1300sft attached garage and breezeway with lots of storage so I can be flexible in the use of space downstairs. Kids are almost 10, 6 & 2.5. We also have a tv upstairs so can be away from them if it’s too loud. I’m sure my husbands dream is a big tv with surround but not likely at this point. A family hangout area and space for kids to play and hang out with their friends is the goal. I hear you on the shiplap. The idea came about when we were thinking of ideas to fill this gap between the wall and the stairs.