I forgot to mention that there will be a full finished basement. The living room on the main level will be a formal area, and we will have a larger family room downstairs, as well as a playroom and extra bed/bath. The laundry room will also be downstairs because I like to fold clothes in front of the TV!

The most obvious problem is that you have to walk through the foyer to get from the kitchen to the dining room. You need to create a more direct route. Also, the pantry is kind of far from the kitchen.

You also might consider moving the kitchen sink from off the peninsular so that you could put some bar stools there.

I like that you've wasted almost no room at all on hallways. I probably wouldn't bother with the two story foyer and would use that space to make the upstairs bedrooms and closets roomier but having a "WOW" foyer is a matter of personal taste.

I do however agree with feedingfrenzy's comments above and would also add that the placement of your powder-room bothers me. While it is down a short hallway from the kitchen, if someone leaves the door open (and somehow it seems that folks ALWAYS do), you have a straight shot view of the toilet from the breakfast area and the kitchen. So, I suggest rearranging that powder room/pantry area somewhat.

Try this: Turn the powderroom 90 degrees and then move it to the location you now show as the walkway from the garage thru the mudroom. Make it a tiny bit wider so that the toilet and sink can fit side by side on the wall against the garage. IMHO, the only time a pwdr should be designed long and skinny - which forces users to squeeze around the sink to reach the toilet - if when you're having to retrofit a pwdr under a 3 foot wide stairway!

Then, wrap a pantry/mudroom around the bathroom in the remaining space. Move the door into the garage down a bit or move it around the corner to that "bumpout" space in your garage. Not sure it is absolutely necessary to separate mudroom from pantry with a wall. Why waste the space a wall requires when properly organized cabinetry can provide areas for coats/boots plus storage space for canned goods, broom and mop or whatever else you use your pantry for.

Moving the toilet a little bit away from the dining room will also mean your formal dinner guests won't be listening to flushing (and other sounds) thru a common wall!

Next, are you planning to have any kind of sidelites or doorlites in your front door and are you the kind that likes to get up and go make coffee in your jammies in the mornings? If so, depending on the window situation, you might want to consider swapping the locations of the master bedroom and master bath so that you're not walking right past the front door to leave your bedroom. Swapping them would also allow you to turn that little linen closet between the toilet and sinks into an entry way closet instead if you decide you need an entry way closet more than a linen closet.

Final thought, the space to squeeze around the edge of the sink to get to the toilet in the each of the upstairs bathrooms looks fairly cramped. I envision lots of bruised hips! You might be able to make the same overall space work better by taking the rectangle that comprises the bathtub and two toilet areas and "mirror imaging" it. That is, move the bathtub so it is against the exterior wall and the toilets so that they are just inside the doors. This would also allow you to have a window over the tub if you want. The sink vanities could then be extended from the closet to the wall beside the tub (more storage space plus possibly proving enough room above the vanity to have both a mirror and a small window.

Put sliding doors on the closets instead of the bifolds so you don't wind up with closet corners that you cannot reach into and hinge the bathroom entry doors so they swing open against the closets. Sliding closet doors will eliminate the problem of having the bathroom entry doors and the closet doors colliding with one another. And, the toilets tucked into those alcove you have, won't be in the way of the swinging doors either.

I'm defintely not an expert, but a couple of things strike me...
1. If you wanted to, I think you could configure the upstairs jack&jill bathroom to be 2 bathrooms. If you envision turning the tub, and putting 2 of them in that space, with a wall in between, it'd work. You might have to widen the space a little, but then you could use the space currently used as doorways, as bathroom space.
2. If you have a gorgeous 2 story foyer, do you also want the staircase coming down to it? That's a matter of personal preference, of course, but if you're doing a 2 story foyer anyway, then you could have a little balcony/overhang, etc.
3. Do you want a coat closet in the foyer?
4. Do you want a bathtub in the master?
5. If you moved your master br. door towards the living room, then you'd have 2 walls to play with. Right now, you have one, which is fine, but you're limited if you want one of those long dressers.

Love your breakfast room and covered porch! And I also love the fact that you don't 'waste space' with hallways.

Best of luck!

You all are awesome! I have reworked the kids' bath into two rooms, and I've reworked the mud room/bathroom downstairs. I am still trying to figure out a way to make my bedroom entrance more private, but I'm having a hard time finding something that works. Thanks for all your help!

I agree that it's quite a trip from the kitchen to the dining room.

I'm not sure I understand the staircases to the second floor.

Also, for the second and third bedrooms, I would prefer that the closets open to the bedrooms, not the bath. This may be a code issue as well.

Finally, the pantry. It's a long way from the kitchen.

Just trying to help!

Not sure what Kangell's point is about code issues with closets opening to the bath. I personally prefer closets that open to the bedroom myself but these days everybody has their master bedroom closets opening off their bath. I can't see why it should be any more of a code problem to do the same thing in secondary bedrooms than it is to do it in the master. Maybe kangell knows something I don't?

As for master bedroom privacy, as I said before, if it were me, I would swap the master bedroom and bath and have my bedroom door way at the back of the house. If you don't like that idea however, try this:

Extend the back wall of the dining room over to the master bedroom so that it separates the foyer from the living room. Then open up the wall you just created with an 8 foot wide dramatic arched or columned opening. Don't know what your plan is for the roof-line but you could probably even have a second "window" opening at the second floor level so that, if you have a fancy chandelier in the foyer, it is visible from the living room thru the "window". Depending on your roof-line plans, round or triangular might work. What you want to do is to visually separate your foyer from the living area while keeping it open enough to maintain the drama of an expansive space. I would use the same kinds of columns (or whatever) on the opening into the dining room and your foyer will really elicit a WOW!.

Then, move the master bedroom door so that it is tucked behind the foyer/living room wall (i.e., opens off the living room instead of off the foyer). As guests enter your home, their focal point will be on the foyer and on the entries to your living room and dining room. As they actually enter the living room, the bedroom door will be almost immediately off to their left and, since by that point they should be looking INTO the living room at whatever focal point you have created there (fireplace? artwork?) they should hardly notice the bedroom door.

I think this will give you a much greater sense of privacy than having your master bedroom door be practically the first thing one sees upon entering the house. Plus, if/when you run to the kitchen in your pjs, being 12 feet from the front door rather than 6 feet will make you less noticeable thru any front-door lites and you'll feel a whole lot less exposed with an entire room between you and the front door. (Beside, I think you'll find your master bedroom furniture easier to arrange if you get that door away from dead center on the wall.)

What do you think?

You also really need to work out a solution to having the kitchen so far from the entrance to the dining hall but what that solution can be depends on exactly how you've changed up the powder-room/mudroom/pantry area. Why don't you post another sketch showing where you are at this point?

You've got a really great start. I'm looking forward to seeing how it progresses!

I have to assume that the second story landing is that area right outside of the door to bedroom 3? It's a solid wall on the drawing but I guess that's just an oversight (or the software).

Anyway, my point is that that small, closed-in landing (2 doors) is going to make going upstairs seem more like you're going up to an attic than to a second floor living space, and it is also going to make it difficult to move furniture to bedroom 2.

I would move the door down to the end of that hallway to bedroom 2, and make the closet open into the BR instead of into the bath. Then use a knee-wall (or spindles) to "open up" that landing at the top of the stairs. That will make it feel less attic-like, and more like a loft.

I'm not a big fan of 2-story foyers and living rooms, you could have soooooo many more options for the upstairs if you did away with that. But if that is a feature you want, then go for it. You should at least consider making the foyer one-story, with it opening up into the 2-story living room. That would eliminate the possiblity that guests entering the house will feel like they just stepped into a very tall box. You could then use that space for a nice sized closet for bedroom 3 and have a lot more usuable space to rework the upstairs baths. Each BR could have a private bath.

You could also put a wide opening on the dining room wall immediately opposite the stairwell. That would give you a nice flow from the kitchen to the DR, and privide a view into the living room.

Others have already pointed out the difficult placement of the MBR entry. I agree with them. Same with the powder room placement. (My town has code that prevents a toilet facility from opening into an eating space.)

I'd flip your MBR closets and bath. Why waste an outside wall on a shower -- with a *window*?

My major problem is that you say you have to keep the plan small, but you lose liveable space with a double-height foyer and LR. This concept is losing favor, at least in my area, especially where the 'height' is intended to distract from small floor space. It's a waste of money; can be difficult to HVAC; allows noise and odors to rise.

I have been working on the plan a little more. I think it is getting there! Thanks again for the ideas. I do like the two story foyer and living room - one, because I just do, and two, because it allows me to have a two story without all the square footage! Oh, and I didn't want to switch the master bed/bath because I actually want the windows (even a frosted one in the shower) as well as a skylight in the shower. And, we do not want a tub at all in the master bath - just a huge custom shower!


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Definite improvement on the upstairs bathroom area!

If I was going to have a 20 foot ceiling in my living room, I'd definitely want a balcony to view it from above and I think there might be a way that you could do a little more rearranging up there and get things so that you could have open railings on that hallway section instead of it being part of bedroom 2. Here is what I'm thinking:

First, 3'6" is too shallow for a walk-in and too deep for a reach-in closet. If you were to make the closet for Bedroom 1 just 2'6" inches deep (which is still deeper than the average reach-in closet), you could move everything else in that bathroom plus the wall between the two bathrooms, and the toilet, vanity and tub for bathroom one foot closer to the front of the house. That would give you about 5 feet from the edge of the vanity to the bedroom wall. Replace the long closet you have now with a 5' x 5' corner closet with one point cut off to make an angled edge large enough for a 28" bi-fold closet door.

Beside the closet, you could then fit a door from the bathroom to the bedroom which would allow you to get rid of the other bathroom door. Now, move the bedroom entry door down to the end of the hallway.

Since the hallway would no longer be part of bedroom 2, you could use open railings. VOILA! - a view from above.

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Downstairs, I like the way you opened up the Dining Room to solve the issue regarding how far it was from the kitchen. I think that will also visually pull the dining room space into your living area which will help to balance the tall ceilings in the living room and foyer.

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I think your pantry/mudroom/powder-room rearrangement is an improvement over your first plan but now I'm concerned that you haven't allowed quite enough space in your powder-room for someone to stand in front of the toilet. Building codes may have a minimum required distance but my guess is any guy would want at least 24 inches of standing room from bowl to wall. You might need to tinker with this area some more.

Have you considered incorporating that little bump out from the garage into the pantry/mudroom in some way? Right now, I don't see that that space is very useful plus having some light from a window in your mudroom/pantry might be nice.

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I'm afraid your master bedroom revisions are kind of problematic though because now you have way too many doors opening up into much too confined a space plus the various doors block one another. Imagine trying to leave the bedroom while someone else is in the bathroom with the door closed... Where is your BODY going to be while you swing the door open??? Or, you're leaving the toilet at just the same moment your significant other decides to walk into the bathroom....BAM!

I played around some with your space and wish I could figure out how to post pictures on this forum so I could show you the solution I came up with but I'll try my best to describe it.

Try putting the toilet room up next to the shower by shortening your closet about 4 feet. Then, widen the closet out into what you now show as a hall. Then, so you have room to get around the linen closet, lop a triangular corner off the closet and put the closet door in the angled wall that results.

Where your toilet room and that little entry space used to be, you now have about a 4 foot wide hallway that makes a 45 degree jog to the left to get around the linen closet. Put the opening to the living room along the straight portion of the hallway. Having a 32" or 36" door open across a 4 foot hallway is still a bit crowded so I would probably use two 18" to 24" inch doors instead. You could even put an art-niche into the closet wall across from the two doors so that, when you throw them both open, there is something pretty to look at from the living room. See if that works for you?

BTW, I spent the better part of two years arranging and rearranging my floor plan before I got it the way I wanted. I got totally frustrated at times because it seemed like solving one problem created three more but I learned a whole lot along the way about things like not having doors opening up into each other or across narrow hallways, etc! When I finally took my plan to an architect, he said "great plan... not sure why you really need me" and I felt like a million bucks. We're in the process of building my dream plan now and so far, knock wood, everything is turning out just as I had imagined!

So, have fun with the planning process and don't be too surprised if you find yourself going out to purchase a $500 semi-professional CAD program b/c you just HAVE to have something that will let you see how X would look and this "cheap piece of %$&X!*! software just won't do the trick." LOL.

I am having trouble seeing what you are describing for the master bed/bath. I'm trying to keep the entrance at least 16' from the back of the house so that I can use that living room wall. The way I posted the pictures was by taking a Printscreen of the image, copy/paste to Paint, then uploading that file to Photobucket. I would really love to see what you are thinking!

Here ya go Kelbrad7. This is really rough b/c done while at work on Paint using your original image but it should give you a better idea about what I meant.

And thanks for the info on how to post a picture! That was a huge gaping hole in my computer knowledge.