Oh, that's wonderful Summerfield! I wish I could just build that almost as you have drawn it! Unfortunately, I've got some restrictions I have to work within due to the lot I have and city setbacks. I've been reading "The Not So Big House" book (loving it, thanks for the recommendation minneapolisite) and was looking at some new ideas from my original layout. **This is pretty rough** and there's a bunch I really don't like on it just yet, but I wanted to give an update. What I like most about my latest update is more windows in the main living area on the south side of the house and all three living areas having direct windows instead of the dining room being sandwiched into the middle of the house. I also like the shared entry so that the 'nice' entry doesn't end up being for guests only. I hate the way I have the pantry laid out, but I do like the idea of a good sized pantry with room for the chest freezer (currently in the basement in our house today). Also, this opens up the living room for a bit more space. My favorite things about the plan you've drawn, Summerfield, are both of the bathrooms, laundry and master closet. Those are the areas I'm struggling the most with. (as well as the whole bedrooms side of the house...) We may have a small television in the kitchen, and temporarily in the living room, but once the basement is finished we would only have the kitchen tv. So no need to build a dedicated spot for it on the first floor. Site Plan:

Agie9597- Did you build the Kousa Creek house? How was your experience? We purchased the plans several years ago but never built. I love the exterior and many parts of the interior. I was disappointed that the plans did not include all three levels of the home. As it was featured in Southern Living, only the top two floors were shown, but you could tell by some of the photos, especially the photo of the back elevation, that it is a 3 story home. We live in east Texas and may consider this home again.

They newer photos of your paint look pretty close to my kitchen and family room walls. :-) Don't worry about the mini-novel. It's the cheapest therapy there is, and if you can get a laugh in here or there, pretty good medicine too. You're doin' good!

I had the very similar issues to @seb225. The service tech made multiple visits and ended up replacing pretty much every electronic component in the oven. After being unable to fix it, and at least 15 phone calls on my part, Bosch finally authorized a replacement oven. When the new oven arrived, the model number had a either a /1 or /2 at the end, indicating an update from the original. After using it for a while, it was time to descale the appliance again. Running the cycle, Bosch had actually changed how it worked (removing one step, IIRC), but the end result was the same, and the oven never properly finished it's descaling cycle. On both the original and replacement, this manifested itself with a strange behavior. When you were using the oven in any of the steam modes, and you opened and closed the oven door, the display would return to the clock, as if it were off. The reality was that the oven was still running, but there was no indication on the display. The only way to fix this would be to go to the breaker panel, turn the oven off and then back on, and it would work fine (while still prompting you to descale it), until you ran the next clean or descale cycle, when the behavior would reappear. After a couple of months of this, and the oven believing that it had not been descaled, it entered a steam lock-out mode, which disabled all steam modes (including clean and descale) until you descaled the oven, rendering it pretty useless. After a few more tech visits and multiple phone calls, Bosch authorized a refund, I replaced both Bosch ovens with the Wolf E series convection and convection steam ovens, and couldn't be happier. One nice bonus is that the Bosch had to be descaled after every ~4-6 hours or so of use, and the Wolf is ~36-42 hours of use.