The photos didn't attach. Here you go.

Dining & island changes

This plan is designed around an L shaped stairway that fits because of some severely narrow winder treads. This is not only terrible dangerous it is not allowed by any modern residential building code so the stair will need to be at least 30" longer and you will need do a major redesign of the plan before showing it to your architect or you might give up doing it yourself and ask your architect to take over.

If you want to design a house without professional input you should first buy a copy of the applicable residential building code and read the "Building Planning" section very carefully. You need to do this even if there is no code in your area. A cod ia minimum standard for safety and it should be followed even if not enforced.

The most common residential code is the 2009 IRC which says:

"Winder treads shall have a minimum tread depth of 10 inches (254 mm) measured between the vertical planes of the foremost projection of adjacent treads at the intersections with the walkline. Winder treads shall have a minimum tread depth of 6 inches (152mm) at any point within the clear width of the stair. Within any flight of stairs, the largest winder tread depth at the walkline shall not exceed the smallest winder tread by more than 3/8 inch (9.5 mm)."

What the code won't tell you but any architect knows is that there is no winder configuration that will shorten a stairway. It is possible to add or subtract a half tread at the top flight and do the opposite at the bottom but the total length will not change.

Overall, I like it.

I prefer the first door to the covered patio rather than the corner-door. The corner door will be much more expensive and adds nothing to either function or form.

I'm not crazy about the kitchen cabinet layout. It seems disjointed. I don't care for wide islands; but, admittedly, that's colored by the fact that I can't reach across much more than a 24" island.

Love the size of your pantry, but I would consider making the mudroom /storage room /pantry all ONE BIG L-shaped storage room. With a three-car garage, you don't really need the garage storage, and it'd make the house flow well: From the garage, you could either enter the house towards the bedrooms, or towards the kitchen if you had groceries. I'd include a small workspace in the pantry for setting down grocery bags /setting bread to rise /hiding dessert before dinner /measuring out items from large containers. It'd serve any number of purposes.

Love the two entrances to the master bedroom closet -- we're doing something similar. And your master bath is spacious without being overdone.

With only two people (potentially 3-4) in the family, you have a lot of public spaces: A living room AND a study AND a covered porch AND a sunroom. Our family of four uses our den and our office -- we have two other rooms, not unlike the ones you're planning -- that are unused. Our kids call our living room "the Christmas tree room" because that's the ONLY PURPOSE it's served in 12 years of living in this house. Do you have specific purposes in mind for these rooms?

How often do you have more than just your immediate family for dinner? Your dining room is very small, and out of propotion to the size of the living room.

Thank you for the input so far.

Renovator8, we will have an architect look at this, so he will make sure everything is to code. The stairs will actually have a landing, they will not wind, but the free home plan app we have only has this option for an L staircase. We are trying to get input on the flow and layout, then have the architect check things out too. It seems like people on this forum catch things that even professionals overlook. I guess I should have waited until the architect takes a look, but we wanted to see if we were going in the right direction.

Mrspete, I was thinking about the corner door because I didn't know if the longer island would interfere with the traffic from the sunroom door. I'm trying to decide on the island dimensions. We want to be able to eat there for lunch or a snack, plus I need prep area. I make almost everything from scratch and make things in batches. I would like to put a landing zone in the pantry. Opening up those areas would be neat, but I think we are making the storage room into a steel sided safe room, which we need in OK. DH also has some shot guns we will safely lock in there. We also have lots of outdoor gear for scuba diving, backpacking, camping, rock climbing, biking, etc that we need room for. DH has lots of tools, and is always working on some project. Right now we have 3 vehicles with a 3 car tandem garage and there's hardly room to park. We can't even fit most of our outdoor gear out there, it's in a closet under the stairs and hard to access. Our current house is lacking in storage, so I'm going to make sure this one has plenty. The study will keep our books, filing cabinets, paperwork, etc and be more a place for us than a public sitting room, although it will be in public view. We dont have one in our current house and I really miss it. The sunroom is a place to keep the dogs when we are gone, and somewhere I can see myself retreating. We had one growing up and it was my favorite room. We love to grill and eat outside whenever possible, so the covered porch will get lots of use for us and guests. We tried to only include rooms we will use on a regular basis, so no living or hearth room, only the one dining room, etc. Plus we are moving to a neighborhood where a study and formal dining are still common as one enters the house, otherwise the study would be in a more private location. I couldn't figure out what else to put near the foyer besides the study, since I wanted the dining room closer to the kitchen. Wow, sorry that was a long response.

Thanks again!

I don't think your family room or kitchen are going to get much (if any) natural light. I would be inclined to rearrange things so that you could have a window in the kitchen.

You mention the sunroom being your favorite room growing up-- it seems like you might want more of your house to have abundant natural light.

You may have missed the point of my comments. Even if the winders were removed the stair would not work as intended.

An 8-0 high passage under the stair would require 14 risers up to the landing and that is 6 fewer risers than you show. So you will need 6 additional treads which means the lower run of the stair must become 5 ft. longer which means it will overlap the doors to the study. You can either push the front wall out 4 or 5 ft. or redesign the house.

It is a common amateur designer mistake to postpone the layout of the main stairway until the rest of the house is way ahead of it. After suffering the consequences of doing this a few times a professional designer learns to design the stair along with the rest of the house. This is not a casual observation; I have been an architect for 40 years. When I review a plan I check the stair first because if it is not correct it can easily cause the rest of the design to change.

The front of your house is going to be dominated by the huge garage form and the large garage doors. They will dwarf everything else on the front of your house. The covered porch on the back of your house will prevent natural light from getting into the family room and prevent (or screen) any view that you have from the family room.

The sunroom, if it is to be located on the southeast corner of the house, will get morning sun, but recessed as it is "behind" the dining room wall will get little or no direct sun after noon, when the sun moves to the west. It too will be dark.

You need to get your ideas to your architect and let her/him work these things out. You are only wasting your time, building pre-conceived ideas and causing yourself frustration when the archhitect points all of this, and more, out to you.

Oklahoma was home for a long time for me.

Good luck on your project.

How often will you use your study? My original plan was similar but I had them add a door that was closer to the kitchen, because my use of it will be on and off during the day, running to the kitchen, laundry, etc.

The extension part of the master closet will only be able to serve as a walkway as it is not wide enough for any shelves.

And I don't understand the space between the powder room and the laundry room.

Ok i know nothing about the codes or flow of the house, but i do have 2 kids ages 4 & 6 and we are building now (in Oklahoma as well)... I cant imagine having one of my kids on a separate floor. My kids have slept on their on since 2 months, but still they get sick and scared and they need you right by their side. So anyway i would do 2 bedrooms downstairs if possible (if you are planning 2 kids and this is the forever home)..Anyway good luck! We just finished our floor plan and now starting to do the design..plan to start building in March.

This post was edited by kassikolo on Mon, Jan 28, 13 at 9:53