You need a north arrow so we know where NE is.

A good architect would solve this issue in a 1 hour meeting so why struggle with it by yourselves?

Changed the wording to upper right for clarification.
We want to figure out exactly what we want before presenting anything. We want a good architect, but if we're paying them per hour I'd like to figure out as much as we can on our own first. Also my father-in-law is a director of building code in the state we're building in, and has agreed to help us with the details once we have a basic design ready.

Something to consider - you may actually spend more money if you try to force him/her to think inside a predetermined box. We had a one hour meeting with our architect and he was able to incorporate almost everything we wanted, in the square footage we needed, after that first meeting - he just had us fill out an extensive questionnaire about our preferences first on our own time, and the meeting was just to discuss it. The first draft wasn't perfect - we are in the tweaking phase - but I actually think it would have been worse for the process had we tried to show him a floor plan first. He had license to be creative within the confines required by our lot and the list of preferences we gave him.

I don't know if it's the same, but the point of that story was you may be shooting yourself in the foot. I'm an attorney, and I know it takes me a lot more time to edit a contract someone else has written than it does for me to start from scratch from my own forms.

Thanks texas_cajun for your input. You make some very valid points. You're probably right and I need to just step away from the computer and let a professional figure it out. I think I"m just impatient to have it figured out :)

I completely understand wanting to be done! Every time I think "this is perfect" my dad (an electrical contractor) or our builder, who is great, will point something else out that has me questioning yet another detail! I thought this would be a relatively fast process, and I thought wrong. :)

As others have said, your most efficient and productive use of time may be to discuss with your spouse/significant other, and reach agreement on the following:

--A list of your essential "needs";
--A list of your desirable "wants", which is very different from the first list;
--A list of your essential furnishings and equipment to be moved into the new house, including critical dimensions;
--A list of your storage needs such as closet storage, equipment and gear storage, etc., in lineal feet

Present this list to your architect and discuss with her/him your budget and other thoughts.

Let your architect sort out all of this in a series of conceptual studies for your review and comment. This is what architects are educated, trained, licensed and experienced to do.

Presenting a stock plan (or worse, an owner developed plan) is like presenting an Internet diagnosis to a physician and asking for a prescription to treat the Internet diagnosis. It's a waste of time and money for everyone.

Spending time doing one's own plan only builds an owner's preconceived ideas and takes more time and money for the architect to demonstrate why, where and how the owner or stock plan simply doesn't work well.

Save yourself time, money and frustration--find an experienced architect with a successful record with houses of your particular type and go there for the proper services.

Good luck with your project!