I agree that it is a personal preference but until you have lived in houses that are both closed off and open, you may not know what your personal preferences are till its too late. Ive lived in both, very boxed off homes, with each room very seperate and compartmentalized, as well as a home with all rooms open. For the house im building, ive chosen something in between. The upstairs with bedrooms, laundry and bath, is very seperated from the downstairs. There are no valuted ceilings, lofts, etc. connecting the two spaces. Although I loved the look of vaulted ceilings, balconys, etc. the practical living piece (noise travelling up, no privacy and the cost to heat) didnt work for me. As for the downstairs, I did a combo of closed and open. I found in the house that was too closed off (seperate rooms for everything) everyone congregated in the tiny kitchen. As for the house with everything open, there was never any privacy and hence, there were times when kids were over, they were forced to play in a bedroom just so others could watch tv in the open area. As a result, ive chosen a dining/kitchen area which is one big room with french doors connecting to the covered porch. This allows room to congregate and socialize in the kitchen and also reduced the need for a formal dining room (which from a square footage space, was just not going to work as well). Off of the dining side of this room is the living room, connected by two entry ways. You can actually stand at the kitchen island and see into the living room but they are still two very distinct areas. This to me was a bit of the best of both worlds. I also agree that for those with small kids, thinking about how an open floor plan will work when these kids are teenagers might be a good idea as well. Again, I agree it is all about personal preferences but for those who have not lived in a totally open plan, but love the look (I do think open plans with valuted ceilings, balconys, etc. are beautiful) the day in and day out of living in such a space might be something to think about.

Thanks for all of the reviews. I will make sure to change the swing of the bathroom doors and will most likely make the pantry door a single outward swinging door. As for the family room, it's 18 x 18'2 including fireplace and built-ins. I'd like it a little bigger but we're tweaking an original plan and trying to only make minor changes to keep the costs down. I think since it's an open plan, I'm ok with the size. I've measured the size against our current family room and I've seen pictures of the family room in a built house and it seems large enough. lyfia, I hear what you're saying about the location of the laundry room but it doesn't really bother me. As for the front porch, I think it's 7' but that is the one last thing I have to confirm. I agree that 7' should be the minimum. Yes, we'll change the french doors to sliders. That works much better. gobruno, I hear what you're saying about the bedroom with the small dormer as the only source of natural light. Unfortunately, in order to keep the elevation the same, I don't think there's much we can do. I'm going to look at pictures of larger dormers to see if we want to make them larger. There are skylights in the playroom but I think we're going to add a large dormer instead. Thank you all for the reviews!

I had an open floor plan in the last house - no doors downstairs except to the powder/laundry room and the coat closet (across from each other so if someone was in the PR and trying to get out they'd hit someone trying to get a coat in/out of the closet - not to mention ds was always in there when I wanted to get things out of the washer/dryer!). It had cathedral ceiling in the FR behind the garage with loft above the garage (friend called it a FROG). But the small eatin area on the opposite side of the peninsula from the working part of the kitchen was halfway in front of the wide doorway into the FR. Just about 18" wall in that area was in my way when I was at the sink (back wall of the house) so I couldn't see the kids! So I designed new house with back of the house combined kitchen/FR - 37x13 space with 8ft ceilings so I can actually see the kids. TV is in the LR which is off the foyer, has 4ft wide French doors (or will, once I finish and hang them) so we can close off that room. Even with no doors on we really don't hear the TV so someone can be reading in the FR while someone else is watching TV. The FR i for relaxing and visiting with family & friends, "guests" can be there w/o getting in the way of my cooking. LR is supposed to be a retreat for me and DH, and a more formal place with leather sofa, oriental rug, drapes (yet to hang) where we can "entertain" but the kids watch TV more than we do and we haven't "entertained" anybody so it's become "the TV room" as dd calls it. Hopefully as she gets older she'll lose interest in TV and be more into books like ds. She can't read yet but maybe next year... The DR is open to the foyer which I really didn't want (would have wanted bottom 4 steps with wall along that side but builder messed up didn't see my markup) but came in handy when we moved the furniture in. The only thing I realized too late is that in my old house we had 3ft doorway near stove to get into DR. In this house we have 4ft opening directly across from the DW/sink. So when we finally finish the house and have people over for dinner in our formal DR, they'll be able to see the mess! Putting the DR where the LR is wouldn't work though - walk 11 ft from kitchen (more like 13ft from stove), hang a left past the PR before you go through the front door? So maybe I'll put bifold doors in my DR?

Benjesbride, what you say regarding dining/island makes sense, but unfortunately I have ~11'x16' space to fit in the kitchen. If I decide to rotate the kitchen the way you say it, then my kitchen island will be quite small. I too started out thinking of a longer island and thus came up with option 2, and am not able to find pictures to tell me if that would look ok or not. Secondly, currently the plan is that the Great Room will be mainly conversation area. TV will be in a separate room, so no need to consider TV-watchability. Mama Rachel, your idea of spice kitchen is great! That's the kitchen I started out "wanting". I had to abandon it halfway, however, because of space constraints. My whole house is ~2200 sqft, therefore allocating disproportionately large amount of space to the kitchen would have meant I gave up on some other priorities. Mama Rachel : regarding powder: we decided to ditch the powder because of the availability of full bath on that floor, which otherwise will be guest bath. We also wanted as much storage as possible, therefore decided on having a storage rather than powder. Anyway, here's the original plan. Note that we added ~5ft towards the courtyard and some square footage along top wall (which is facing backyard). I am working on sizing of the entry right now, because I think it's a bit too big for the house, but that space will NOT become available to the kitchen again due to the building rules.