The problem is that the honey will absorb water and eventually ferment leaving a sticky mess that runs down inside the walls and ceiling. Also, the bees will begin to decay in a few more days and they will stink like... well like dead bees. The only alternative I could suggest would be to access the hives from the outside instead of from the inside. This is likely to be difficult given the location of the hives.

Lots of wasted space in the laundry. It could very easily be half that size and be fine. I'd give over the room to the kitchen to be able to get rid of that corner sink. Corner sinks are a PIA and there is no way you're going to get a standard double sink like you show into a corner cabinet without scooping the sides and weakening it. Plus, it makes for a single user sink. Overall though, the rest of the kitchen is pretty functional and the prep sink is even in the right spot! I'd also straighten out the useless little jogs of the kitchen and the garage. It does nothing functionally, and only adds expense to the framing and roofing. You will only be able to have tiny windows in those angles by the time you account for framing and casings. I'm talking you're lucky if you can have 20" of glass total. Also, your "jogs" don't line up correctly from one floor to the next. If you "got" to have them, those jogs need to be much larger in order to be both decorative and functional, but that will also affect your budget. (Yes, I know it's opposite advice to eliminate them or make them larger, but one or the other needs to happen. They don't work as is.) Do you have room on the lot for a side load garage? It would look much better. Or tuck the garage even further behind the main home's face if you can't manage a side load. Do you really want to have 1/4 of your entire build devoted to a master suite? It shorts the other rooms, and is off proportionately to the size of the rest of the home. The closet is awkwardly shaped, and too large. (Yes, there IS such a thing when it will impair function.) Being over the garage, it's also likely to be poorly insulated and thus will suffer from temperature swings that will lead to mustiness in your clothes. Make sure that you insulate the garage ceiling properly as well as have both an HVAC vent and return in the close, even if it becomes smaller. If your ground floor guest room won't host guests but a couple of times a year, do a Murphy bed or sofa bed and use it as the office for the 90% of the time it will be unoccupied. It's wierd to most people to come in the front door and be confronted with a private space like a bed room. It's also uncomfortable for any guests to walk past the front door in their PJs on their way to the toilet. En suite access is a must here. That's a change I'd strive to incorporate in order to make the situation more user friendly both as an office and as a guest room. The laundry is big enough that if you want to add a powder room there to compensate for the bath becoming en suite, it's more than doable.

We are in Balto county. Our area has mixed housing - new mega mansions down the street selling for over $1 million, but not too far from condo's & tract houses. Great schools. Close to major highways & shopping. But for the area we have a very unique property - 4 wooded acres sitting on the edge of a ridge surrounded by environmental protection land with streams. We will be here at least 5 more years. And yes, I do hate our layout because it just doesn't function well. Each time we did a refinance, the appraisal came back and we were hurt by the lack of bedrooms. The only other neighbors we know of with 3 bedrooms (also recent empty nesters) are currently adding a bedroom over their garage - perhaps in preparation to sell? Most tract houses in the area have slightly larger bedrooms than we would have after the changes so that does worry me. But the new room could easily become part of a master "suite" which would put us back where we were in terms of rooms and sizes, but with more flexibility. Bottom line for me - I just hate putting any money into a bathroom remodel and all new flooring and not really improve the function or resale.

The stairs *should match the "public" area flooring (as in the main living area floors). If the upstairs is for bedrooms and games room, this would be considered "private" (for the homeowners). If the main floor is the "public" area (living room, kitchen, dining, etc) then the stairs going UP should match the main floor flooring. The reason: the stairs are visible to the public and therefore they should match the public area floors. Now for tiles in the upstairs area. This is not common but it has been done. It takes extra work (and extra materials = extra money) to get this to work over wood-joist construction. The subfloors will have to be assessed for deflection rating. I'll assume they rating isn't good enough for tile (tile is VERY HEAVY and requires very STIFF/thick subfloor). That means you'll need another layer of plywood over top. That plywood will change the height of the subfloor at the TOP of the stairs...which can mess up the stairs themselves (according to code). And then you have to add the tile which can often add as much as 3/4" height - which can again mess up the top step which messes up the stairs yet again. And then we get into the "tile is loud" concept. It is extremely loud. It transfers noise "up and down" (from upstairs to down stairs) as well as "wall to wall" (down hallways, into the bedrooms, etc). To deal with the noise and echo, you could be looking at changing the doors to solid core (expensive proposition depending on how many doors you have). And if you find the noise transfer TOO much (up to down) then you may have to rework the ceiling on the main floor (pull it down, stuff it with acoustic insulation, replace ceiling with acoustic drywall, etc). You can see the $$$$ signs flying out the window. Please look at the upstairs as a part of the whole home. Ask yourself how big your MAXIMUM budget is (once all the bills are paid = includes labor as well). And then find out if it can handle the "extras" such as new subfloor and possibly a stair case that has to be updated to allow for the extra height at the top of the stairs (rebuilding stairs is one of the most expensive projects in the building industry). Then make your decision as to whether or not tile on the second floor is a good idea FOR YOU. You are the only one who can answer that question.