What are your goals for the closet? That might shake some posters out of the trees. Personally, I'd do double doors, maybe even split half way up, so you have upper and lower double doors. OK, while I'm dreaming, bottom half would be a laundry bin. Top half storage. The way the tile is cut is problematic. AO may be able to get you a similar color in octagon and dot. Otherwise, what about buying white octagon and dot, then painting with color-matched epoxy paint before you grout? Alternatively, a clever threshold (clever because It would have to project out a bit into the room bc of that unfortunate tile cut) could bridge the space into the closet. You could get the threshold made out of anything that looks simpatico to your overall bath; marble is common, or black granite, travertine, painted or stained wood (easier to shape and cut into place!). If you did that, no need to match tile for the closet floor. In that case I'd get floor paint and paint the closet floor a color that gets along with your tile. I have a closet in my bath and the depth makes it difficult to get full use of the space in it. We use a lot of bins and trays, so we can pull them out and get what we want, or access less frequently used items stored behind them. That tile, by the way, is a beautiful, distinctive color. It may be harder to work with than many of the white tile bathrooms you see here, but I hope you keep it. It looks great! (And best of all, it doesn't look like a million other bathrooms.)

kirkhall the north side/wall is at the top of the drawing, the south at the bottom. (the north arrow is shown to the right of the first floor). The wall facing south is the one with the front door, so its where the sun comes from most of the day. just fyi, there is about 7.5 ft ceiling height 5 ft from the south wall in the master bathroom, and there is a dormer in the center, which adds extra ceiling height (although not where the toilet is shown) (Also the dormers are not very clearly drawn...sorry about that....these are my drawings, so you know...drafting standards are lax, or rather non existent....) having the master suite upstairs in these cape style houses is tricky, in my opinion. the layouts in these houses are really constrained with the reduced ceiling height at those walls. however, the overall style has a lot of appeal for many reasons for us (appearance, energy efficiency, cost to build, etc.) the ridge runs east to west, and there is a lot of height there (entrance to master bedroom, loft overlooking below, and guest bath) I was originally advocating for the master suite on the first floor, for one floor living if necessary. DH has successfully argued for keeping all of the "public" areas downstairs, and "private areas" upstairs. Upstairs will have a cozy feel. He says we can always put an elevator in where the closet by the stairs is (1st floor) if we have too (I bet that's not cheap!). I'm with you on walking into the master bedroom facing the closet. it doesn't seem ideal for sure. I'm open to ideas. just keep in mind, that big window in the dormer on the north wall in the master bedroom looks out over the property and has views of the mountains. I don't want to block it with a closet. kelhuck re point 1) - i didn't even think about that. We toured a house with the stairs arranged just like it, and thought it was great. That's a good point though. I've thought about the stairs quite a bit, but never from that angle (odd in retrospect). They also had a little more space between the stairs and front door than I'm showing. 2)laundry - yeah, this is a big one for me. I go round and round on this:) The trade-off is to just have a laundry closet, but have the laundry upstairs, or put it in the mud-room, have more space, but have to haul laundry up and down stairs all the time. right now, i'm leaning towards not caring if the laundry clutters up the loft a bit, but there is not much room there at all, its only barely works. currently, my washer and dryer are in our garage, which is not conditioned. I bring baskets of laundry back into our bedroom, and process everything there. S, its not far fetched to have a small closet, but the appeal of a little room I can close off is strong. I swear I want a new house just for a space conditioned laundry room:) 3) pretty much, yes. the appeal of timber homes is showing off the structure, those gorgeous timbers. all timber homes I've seen have a least some two story view inside. however, there is strong sentiment on this board against it, that its loud. since I've never lived in a house like this, I'm inclined to listen. its a valid point, especially when its more than just the two of us (guests and/or kids). even just making the open to below over the foyer instead of the tv/family/living room may solve that. I dunno yet. I'll have a chat w/ dh about it later. 4) dont' worry about insulation, the entire house is going to be wrapped in SIPS. initial calcs for the efficiency we are looking for are calling for 10" SIPS, whereas almost everyone uses 6". No worries, this house will be tight (and require mechanical ventilation). we are focusing heavily on the envelope, so our budget is focused on SIPS and windows. I may even hae to sacrifice my nice kitchen initially (blasphemy!) in order to pay for it up front, but we'll see. liriodendron - that's awesome that you are using PV. the price is coming down, so its actually starting to make sense to pay for it, instead of just being for people like dh and me, who just have non-mainstream tastes and interest (energy nuts, sort of:) the property was logged 5 years before we bought it, so it doesn't have many trees (no trees anywhere near the home site) (and its an ugly mess, we've just now started re-planting). the south facing garage roof will have full sun all day. if it weren't for that, we would angle the house more, so the back faces the mountains a bit better, but we didn't want to sacrifice the front/south wall of the house with respect to facing the sun too much. we like PV just cause we think its neat, and we're trying hard to justify it, but it may be a few years down the road before we consider actually paying for it.

Doug - the trends you talk about in terms of decreasing buying power, shrinking middle class, etc are real and truly disconcerting. The slightly paranoid side of me made sure I purchased a home that could, if needed, be a mini homestead (enough space and the right light exposure to grow veggies and raise chickens). It's simplistic, because if the economy really does fall completely apart I can't farm my way to prosperity on a mortgaged piece of land. In my local market inventory is tight for homes at or slightly below the median because the available homes have some perceived flaw (too close to the highway, schoolyard, train tracks, busy road, other houses). Or they need significant work. Homes in good condition and good locations are quickly purchased if the price is fair. People are justifiably SO afraid of a house losing value that they are unwilling to purchase something with a flaw because they fear being unable to sell in the future. It actually makes sense, but it makes it almost impossible to sell property that is flawed - even for fire sale prices. There is excess inventory at the high end, homes in the top quartile are very slow to move and people aren't listing unless they absolutely have to. This is one reason that we decided to remodel earlier this year instead of move (it was a big remodel, moving could have been less if what we wanted was available).. Now, back to this issue of potential buyers being leery of homes with flaws ... I think that is what is holding back the sale of this house. There are probably buyers who look at it and, when they see the HOA issues, think to themselves, "Gee, even if the HOA issues are fixed, how long will this taint the value of the home? How many years until the stigma falls away? What if I had to sell in that time?" Buyers can't commit to this house on a long term basis because everything about this economy feels SO unstable right now. Is there a shortage of rental property (SFH) in your area? Because that was the other thing we looked at when we bought. I would have preferred to rent but we have a dog and SFH rentals are almost impossible to find in our area for under $3k/mo. With taxes and insurance, our 15 yr mortgage is under $2500/mo ... So, worst case we could rent this place if we had to move out and we would likely cover the mortgage with the rent (or come close to it). I wonder if renting is an option for the OP? I know it's an expensive home, but still ... It may be an option, unless the HOA forbids it.

@apple_pie_order That first question is a great one... and it's one that has even my husband, a real estate appraiser, stumped. When we bought our house, it was listed as a 3BR because of the den located through the arched doorway. It technically checks off all the requirements of a bedroom (size, entrance/escape, heating/cooling), but has never functioned as one. While the new plan wouldn't add appraised value necessarily, I do think buyers would appreciate the function of the proposed layout. Once we get a better idea of what we're thinking, we're going to have our realtor give her opinion on market value. The woman who owned the house we wanted to buy bought it for $109K in 2016 and sold it for at least $244K this year with mostly cosmetic upgrades. A lot of that jump was due to overall property values increasing, but people love the historic homes in our neighborhood and I think they're willing to pay for the updates/modernized layouts. 2. We do have one quote for kitchen only at $20K (for mid-range materials and labor from contractors we know), but would definitely seek more in-depth estimates before committing to a plan. 3. He DOES use headphones and is still so loud. Adding sound absorbing materials is a great idea. If we keep the current layout, do you have any recommendations for closing off the room through the arched doorway? Thinking a custom door for this space would be beautiful, but would come with a high price tag. 4. We're definitely considering improving the utility room, but hadn't thought of a third bedroom there. The utility room leads out to a great elevated deck with stairs into our backyard. The deck is built around a huge old maple tree, which is a feature we love, but makes any expansion difficult. Will need to think about that some more! 5. Thanks for encouraging me to think through priorities! At the moment, mine are: 1) Updated kitchen, 2) More open kitchen, if feasible 3) Better use of space, which is as simple as moving the dining room table into the existing entry without any structural upgrades, and removing the existing built-ins. Blocking off the bedroom is something that only comes up when we think long-term future for us or market value when we sell. I think it's probably a necessity if we open the kitchen up to the existing "third bedroom"