The upper floor isn't too bad, but I don't care much for the main floor layout. Among other things, that's not the best place for a laundry. Dryer lint will be blown outside the front of the house or onto the porch. The laundry should be on an outside wall, but not that one. The laundry entrance being off of the office strikes me as absurd, as does the office being off of the mud room.

There is not nearly enough closet space on the first floor for a house that size. Other than the closets off of the master bath and the pantry, you have only the closet by the stairs. You lose that if you have a basement foundation.

The window in "her" closet will result in faded clothes.

There should be a sink in the mud room. The only place to put one is where the clothes cubby is, if that is what it is.

I don't like the main kitchen sink being in the island, but that's just me.

I also don't like the front elevation. I don't find it attractive. Others will probably disagree, but that's my opinion.

Some initial observations and comments:

It's a very nice looking home. New but also looking traditional/old-fashioned and cozy.

It's hard to tell without measurements and scale, but some of the walkways and doorways look narrow...Like the hallway to the master suite, especially at that point right behind the fireplace. I'm afraid it might feel like you're going through a tunnel to your room. And is that a walkway from the mudroom to the pantry? It looks like it's only 2 ft wide.

It looks like it'll be difficult to get furniture upstairs...going through that tight walkway between 'balcony' and 'gallery'. Getting large things into bedroom 3 will be a particular challenge with tight doorways and no maneuvering room.

You have 3 equally sized bedroom suites upstairs (nice luxury to have bathrooms for each! No fighting ;-), but plan 4 children. Do you need one to be larger for sharing? It might not seem like a big deal when they're the young ages they are now, but it will become a major issue later.

I hope, when the time comes, you take the kitchen plan to the kitchen forum, because I think this one could use some help to make it work better for you. It seems that the dining areas are kind of a jaunt from the kitchen, especially the formal one.

I don't see a guest closet, and even though there's a 'mud room' that looks like it may have cubbies, I would like to see more of a closet for family gear.

Will that one closet by the powder room be enough for downstairs? Where will the vacuum and cleaning supplies live?

Where will the kids come in from outdoor play? Is it adequate to deal with wet coats and muddy boots? And is it handy to a bathroom so they're not running those muddy boots through the house? ;-)

Best wishes!

If I may:

There's a lot to like here, but some things I don't care for as well.

It bothers me that the powder room is unusable as drawn: you couldn't get in and get the door closed behind you. Makes me wonder if the plan has ever been built, or properly 'de-bugged'.

The office location strikes me as weird, unless you are going to use it as homework/craft/sewing type space.

In fact, that whole area is a little strange. I wouldn't want to travel through the coat room and office just to check on the laundry which occupies what is usually 'premium space' at the front of the house.

The master suite is grand, maybe a little too grand. despite having one closet stacked behind the other, and neither accessible accept through the bath.

I personally don't like for separate dining rooms. An eat in area in the kitchen is great, but with two complete dining areas, the 'formal' becomes walk through space used only a couple times a year.

For a large and growing family, I'd want a second downstairs bedroom. Can also be an issue if someone breaks a leg etc.

Scares me to think what those private baths for every kid would be like to clean while the kids are small, but certainly would be nice as they grow.

And the exterior [other than too much roof] is great: not too fussy, doesn't scream 'LOOK AT ME', doesn't look like 4300 ft house at first glance.

Yes, it's an attractive looking house.

Unfortunately, I don't find it convenient or comfortable for daily living, especially with several small kids in the mix.

The most obvious discombobulation is to consider having to haul all the laundry downstairs, through the foyer, through the kitchen, through the mudroon, and through the study to get to the laundry. Even if you use laundry chutes (not a real good idea with those little ones around), that is one long and awkward trip to carry everything back upstairs. Give yourself a break and change one of the upper baths into a laundry! Or access the attic to have really usable laundry.

The kitchen definitely needs to go to the forum. It surely was not designed by or for a cook. As is, you are going to wear yourself out just going around corners when fixing a meal, and it isn't good sense to have the sink so far from the stovetop. And think about the kids running from the garage to the steps... not too good for them to be passing the stove everytime, yet the most direct route is right beside the stove.

With four kids, a downstairs bathroom which is convenient to the outdoors should be a priority. There's nothing like having mud tracked through the house [times four] to bring real life inside. In this plan, a kid with gotta-go is going to use the powder room... and that means you'll have to make a constant effort to keep it clean and attractive for guests, as well as have extra traffic either through the kitchen or through the great room.

I don't see the point in having the formal dining room with a 2-story ceiling, especially with a nearly full flight on steps going up one wall. I admit I personally don't care for the noise, decorating difficulties, or general ambiance of ultra-high ceilings, so that may be influencing; but to have a 2-story ceiling only in the DR looks like an architect's afterthought which was designed to cater to fad rather than use. Definitely YMMV.

I very much agree that the scale and measurements should be visible on the plan. Most of those doorways look uncomfortably narrow, which is all the more distressing in a plan that has mostly generously sized rooms.

I like the bones of this plan very much. In fact, it was almost the inspiration for our floor plan, but then we ended up going with something else. I don't know anything about your family or the way you live, but this is how I was planning on reconfiguring the plan:

1. turn the formal dining room into a study w/ french door off of foyer, and add coat closet wall formed when closing off study
   2)Lose about half of the laundry, and make the other half along with the office a large laundry room, adding closet (although we did end up choosing a plan with an upstairs laundry room for the same reason you mentioned), and extend front porch
2. Enlarge family dining room by bumping out that exterior wall to be in line with exterior great room wall
3. Make that part of the Outdoor living area porch that is adjacent to the garage a screened in porch
4. Make powder room bigger and hallway going to master bedroom by losing master bath linen closet and adding linen storage in vanities instead

Ok, those were the things that I thought of when we considered this plan. Not sure if that helps you.

My thanks to all for your responses -- I'll admit that you've given me many more things that consider than I'd first imagined.

As many have noted, the office/laundry area is indeed strange. I'm leaning towards finding a way to put it upstairs, since that's where the bedrooms are to begin with.

I also appreciate the comments about having a bathroom available right inside the entry. I think I've taken for granted the powder room we have just inside our garage door now -- there have been many times where kids have barely made it there, let alone all the way across the house.

Great comment about basement access....hadn't even thought of that, although I recall kind of subconsciously saying "now where would a basement door go."

And yes, the kitchen needs a lot of work. I can't even begin to draw a work triangle there without going crazy.

Many thanks -- but I'm also open for any other feedback that people are willing to offer!

Your plan interested me. I actually liked the whole office, laundry mud room set-up, but would have switched the office with the laundry, had the new office open from the kitchen and closed the entry between the office and laundry.

However since you said you'd rather have the laundry upstairs, I played around a little in paint. I extended the wall of the foyer to give you more cabinet space. This put the formal dining room out of reach of the kitchen, so I switched it with the family dining and put the office in the formal dining room space.

Something like this? The new family dining space would be perfect for built-in benches under the windows and a long trestle type table. I also expanded the pantry into the hall but you could also configure a half bath into this space accessible from the mud room. I eliminated the linen closet in the master bath in order to make the hall and powder room larger, but this area still seems a little awkward.

Wow, homeagain, thanks for inspiring me! I'd forgotten about the paint program and was having a pain of a time with just my sketches. I've done some more work...changed the MBR since the sitting area wasn't big enough to sit in, and found a way to fit a half bath in by the mudroom. I love the way you flipped around the dining rooms.

Now it's time to work on the MBR layout and fix the angles in the bathroom so that the closet locations can be reworked, then on to the second floor as well. Bumping out the dining area also means that the bedroom upstairs can be bumped out as well, which will be helpful in trying to figure out where to put a washer and dryer.

I don't know how to add an image so that it shows up in the post itself, so if anyone can help teach me how I'd greatly appreciate it! I tried putting HTML tags around it but that doesn't seem to do it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35084709@N03/3253891009/

Here is a link that might be useful: continuing effort as .gif in Paint

To paste an image here, use this format:
[img src=URL of image], replacing the [] with
So in this case,
[img src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3034/3253891009_b5f5c6e131_o.gif]
when the appropriate brackets are used becomes

i guess its the style, but i question a house this size with almost porthole looking windows. Perhaps its personal preference but one reason you build 10' ceilings is to give the feel of space, which in this case seems to fight the windows, which, i think, close it up. hate to do that with all that beautiful OH land.

Also, I'd get rid of that post in the middle of the front porch -it doesn't appear to be necessary- and build steps as wide as the entire porch, makes it a bit more open and welcoming, since you say you like to have the gang over, more sit-able.

Are you sure you only want 4 bedrooms if you plan on having 4 children?

Good points all -- I'm working through ideas for rearranging the upstairs. We'd planned to possibly make the game room area a fourth bedroom, and find a way to put two sinks in one of the bathrooms while reconfiguring the access to it. Bumping out the dining room downstairs means that "suite 3" could be bumped out as well, helping create some space to aid in the redesign.

I also like the idea about the front porch - that would definitely open it up a bit.

I'm not yet concerned about the natural lighting in the front of the house, because that's the side that has the most trees. The back will look out over open ground and I believe we'll be able to have plenty of windows back there.