kats - thanks for your suggestions. Nope, we're no where near finalizing anything, unfortunately. I've actually told my designer that I'm taking a break for a few weeks to reconsider everything. This plan just does not wow me at all and if I'm going to spend a bunch of money building my 'dream home' I want to really LOVE it, kwim? I have been rethinking the steps to the master, and I think I am going to nix them. I love the idea of something different like that, but I think it probably should be eliminated for practical reasons (I really hate being practical though!) I don't really care too much about resale at this point, because we plan to be here for at least the next 15ish years. And we're on 10 acres of land where land in our area is a definite premium and highly sought after. But even so, I'm not going to build something totally undesirable for the next person. chisue, we are building in central IL. weedyacres, thanks for your thoughts about the bathroom. I do like your suggestions about rotating the shower. I'm still undecided on a j&j bath. Some people love them and others hate them. So I'm not sure... I definitely agree with you on the storage issue! I need to add LOTS of closets and built-ins. Unfortunately, we can't dig the foundation lower since we're so swampy around here. We're not in flood plain, but our sumps run CONSTANTLY in our current house. So we were thinking of other ideas on how to still have a basement (we need one due to tornadoes) but possibly not going down as far. any other ideas? My dilemma is what to do with the center of the home. Most all plans I've seen have the great room in the middle of the home, but we want ours bumped off the back with lots of windows. We don't need 2 great rooms, so what do we put in the middle? I also need to have my kitchen on an ext. wall because I want lots of windows above my sink. I do agree with you on the choppiness though, so I'm probably going to nix this plan and start over. ugh. the e-space is more of a homework/blogging space for my 3 kiddos and I. I don't want them to have computers in their bedrooms, so I need for this space to be centrally located so I can keep an eye on their computer use :) thanks again for all the input! I keep surfing house plan sites hoping I'll stumble upon the perfect plan, but after 3-4 years of searching I'm not very hopeful...

I've been on board with the idea of wall-mounted toilets for a while now -- simplicity in cleaning is one of the cornerstones of my plans! However, I hadn't considered that it would mean less space is needed for the powder room. This could be the difference in whether this idea works or not! No, we're not particularly short on storage. Our plan has a modest walk-in closet in the bedroom . . . and we're adjusting things in the center of the house for the laundry and pantry; it'll be a large L-shaped area. Upstairs we'll have a large linen closet and a walk-in attic. We're planning built-ins for storage in the master bedroom, the living room, and the den/office . . . currently being renamed the Library . . . but that hasn't stuck yet. Admittedly, I didn't draw the built-ins on the plans I shared, and that could've been misleading. Anyway, right now our plan has a powder room and an under-stair closet. If we move the powder room INTO the under-stair closet, we gain the current powder room as closet. It's kind of like a balloon -- if we push on one end, the other pops up, but it's all the same quantity regardless of which end we push. If we move the powder room to the under-stair area, we save a bit of money because it'd be "back to back" with the kitchen plumbing . . . and because it would eliminate one door.

I used to follow a blog (Willscasa...or something like that! Totally recommend it, BTW), but they initially had a similar plan. However, they ended up having to finish the second floor because they were unable to obtain financing without the second level complete. Something to consider....

We did it in our old Victorian house for pennies. We turned a closet in the bathroom that was behind the tub (!!!) into a laundry closet with a stackable. Complete DIY job and I would definitely do it again. Our only "problem" was that the pipes up there couldn't handle the flow of water as fast as it came out of the washer. So the draining washer water backed up into the bathtub, which filled with about 6 inches of dirty water during a load until draining out. It never caused the tub to look dirty or left a ring or anything. We just lived with it as a quirk and I absolutely LOVED not having to lug clothes up and down to the yucky old basement via the yucky old non-standard basement stairs. The draining is something to really understand before you start demolishing your setup. We had no problem selling that house--everyone wants convenient laundry access and no one cared about the draining into the tub thing in this Victorian town. The hardest part was getting the stackable up the curving Victorian stairs. My husband and his friend almost toppled and killed themselves doing that. Just make sure you have a disaster plan in place--as for any 2nd floor laundry-- if something breaks or overflows, you don't want water all over going into the ceiling of the floor below. Use the best fittings that last (no plastic), the tray, etc..