Love your mudroom area...that is awesome! The one thing that might become annoying to you is the location of your MB door right there by your bar. I kind of like keeping the MB area very private...in the house we are building, it is separated by a little hall, then the the door, so you can't see the door from the living areas. If there isn't room for a hall or vestibule(sp?), maybe you can move the door further down the wall, away from the kitchen area? Just a thought! It is a very cool plan!

Nice plan--I really like the kitchen "U" with a wall at the top of the "U"--I know islands are all the rage right now, but I have had this style in two houses and love it.

I do suggest taking a detail of your kitchen plan to the kitchen forum. I might consider moving the refrigerator and possibly the ovens to the right wall--depending on how you were planning on using the space on the wall.

What is the clearance from the end of the peninsula to the wall?

For the upstairs, I'd suggest opening the left bedroom door the other way, and extending the closet further to the right--it is smaller than the other closets (and I love closets).

Where are you going to keep your linens in the master bathroom/closet?

Just a couple of things... opinion really, so take it or leave it.

1. Front door seems to be in akward location, perhaps swap with the window on the porch so you can see the family room upon entering. It appears that the front hall is fairly narrow (5' or so) so it in itself may not be very welcoming.

2. Master bathroom - perhaps swap location of shower and toilet, turning toilet room by 90 degrees, so that you can extend the vanity more. My current bathroom is similar in shape, and our vanity is 7' long - any shorter and we would not have room for our stuff and ourselves.

3. Love the mudroom - If this house will ever be occupied in the the master br only, consider a pass-through hamper from your closet to the mudroom. Saves lots of steps over a lifetime. :) Either a door or a hinged box so that you can open from laundry and pull out your hampers for washing.

4. I agree with pp that it may be better to have the fridge or stove on other wall - mainly so you will have plenty of prep space around each. I use the 3 ft on either side of my stove and wish I had a little more room to spread into.

Other things that may help us give good advice is a little info on your situation... kids, ages, lifestyle, entertaining priorities, etc.

Beautiful plan! Would love to see the exterior.

BTW - When I read umstead runner - I thought you might be in Raleigh. I am, too!

Thanks for the great feedback. We are a family of 5, with kids of 6, 9, and 11. We will entertain occasionally 5-10 times/year. This will be our 3rd house and hopefully the final. We bought the land seven years ago and have looked forward to building since then. I've posted the kitchen layout to the kitchen forum and got educated on the additional details they require. We're working on the kitchen questionnaire. We don't yet have the exterior elevation drawings but will provide when they're available. We're very thankful for the suggestions and will make a list and review. I especially like the laundry pass-through idea.

I think Momto3 makes some good points. The entry is a little awkward, have you thought about moving the stairs? Here's an idea (sorry about my awful paint skills) but hopefully, you can tell the bendback stairs, with window, are now to the right of the entry.

The kitchen is very nice, but it's a long walk from the kitchen to the living room/office. What about putting a doorway, opposite the entry?

I love the way your rooms are laid out to take best advantage of all the views! Best of luck with your new home :)

{{gwi:1414092}}

The master bedroom seems epic in size relative to the common rooms of the house. IMO, I would sacrifice MBR sqft. for Living/Kitchen/Dining -- especially for a family of 5 that entertains on regular basis.

Hi umstead,
Just wondering...with 3 kids, who will soon be teens, would there be any utility to having 2 bathrooms upstairs? We have 3 kids, and the bedrooms are pretty small, but we wanted at least 2 bathrooms (would have loved 3 of them, but couldn't squeeze them in), so the front bedroom will get its own bathroom (small, but useable), and we'll make that into the ad hoc guest suite when we have guests stay with us.
I see that you'll have a suite in the basement when it's finished, but for now, the last kid to wake up would have to go downstairs to your master to shower.

umsteadrunner,

I love all the windows, I assume being on 2 acres you won't have neighbors very close. We are building a house and have 1 acre that overlooks woods to the back. In the master bedroom I would look at getting a large fixed picture window with open and close windows on each side.

I would also add a pantry next to the closet off the mudroom, taking the space from the walk in closet.

If this is a final house, you will live in it many more years without the kids being there (hopefully). So I like the 1 bathroom upstairs (less for you to clean in the future).

Will the washer and dryer be in the basment utility room? I can't tell if those are it or if they are in the mudroom. If in the basement, that seems like a long haul to and from the laundry room, especially from the 2nd floor. Would laundry shoots work?

Just my .02

Thanks again for all of the great feedback.

I don't have the distance from the end of the peninsula to the wall. I think it's about 4'.

Moving the Master BR door into the dining room seems odd. Perhaps we can create a vestibule area at the entrance o avoid the direct view into the bedroom.

We do like U or L shaped staircases. I figure it's less likely to fall all of the way down the stairs.

We considered a 2nd bath upstairs. We plan to have the walkout level completed within a couple years which will add the 3rd full bath.

The basement laundry room is in addition to the washer/dryer in the mud room. We had this in our last home and it came in handy at times.

Attached are updates to the kitchen (moved fridge and added walk-in pantry.

We also made a change to the master bedroom entry and added a linen closet in the master bath. I'm not sure if I like the new Master Bedroom entry but I think the other changes work well.

Now that's a pantry!

Umsteadrunner- I like the idea of the big pantry, but you have no where to set things down, when you take them out of the fridge. Your ovens are at the end of your nearest counter space. Could you switch the fridge and pantry door locations, bringing the fridge closer to the peninsula counter? Think kids trying to bring milk to cereal bowl...and back, in the morning.

The master bedroom entry is a nice idea, but now when you walk in the door, it's going to be difficult to put anything on the wall in front of you. Before, you could have had a dresser or other furniture there. I think I liked your earlier idea better.

As for the entry, I still think you should move your front door. Coming in right at the top of the basement stairs is really not ideal, unless you want everyone to walk into the kitchen. If you don't want to move the stairs, what if you at least change the door and window in the entry? It's still tight, so you may want to think about bringing it back a few feet...maybe split the difference between the office and powder room depths? This would give you room for an entry bench and maybe a small table.

This would be nice for the kids, too, in case you don't always enter through the garage. Where do they come in, after playing? Is there a back door through the garage?

It's a beautiful plan, overall and I'm sure you're going to love sitting around the fireplace, enjoying those wonderful views! :)

Thanks Lavender,

The fridge location could be switched and it would be more convenient to the island but further from the oven.

We agree on the master bedroom. Getting furniture into the bedroom could be tricky as well. We've requested this to be changed back.

Regarding the front door location. I see your point. Moving the door closer to the family room brings guests into a more public family room / office area rather than the kitchen. I think we'd need to add more depth as you recommend if the door is moved to the left. I also think about moving furniture into the house and implications of front door locations. We'll have to give it some thought.

The mudroom has a non-garage entrance also on the front of the house. That or the garage will be the primary kid entrances. The garage has a regular door entrance as well.

Interesting plan, your own design or bought online and where?

This is a custom plan that we based pieces and parts of other plans we liked and then spent the past weeks finalizing. Now I could use some opinions on the elevation. We wanted to have some stone at the foundation and I thought the chimney would look good in stone as well.

For the siding, we are planning to use a mix of Hardi siding and shakes but I'm not quire sure what should go where. The goal is a craftsman style home.

Also for the windows, we're considering eliminating the grills. Here is the designers rendition:

I like to try to 'live in' house plans -- do some 'walking around'. I have some questions about this one, especially now that you've posted the exterior, showing the garage to the left of the house.

Will you pull up to the front door to unload groceries via the front door? (Then move the car to the garage?)

Will people be walking from the garage, then outdoors, then directly into the family room? Do you want the person door on the house side?

Do you mind having the refrigerator in a traffic lane? Mind the distance from fridge to sink? How many steps do you take to cross this "U"? (It looks too wide for one cook.) Conversation is difficult if people are seated all in a row (kitchen counter). Will you be carrying food to the porch? (Have to go around the peninsula?

Your MBR is very large; what will you put in it? (You have a large walk-in closet for clothing storage.)

I'd limit the exterior to two materials. I'd like more shakes and a bit less stone -- and no siding.

Thanks,

The original plans needed to be reversed. The garage is connected to the mud room. I'd expect that we'd mostly park in the garage. There is another door to the right of the garage which is why we put the person door on the left side.

We made some updates to the plans based on earlier suggestions and I'll get the latest posted soon. (We moved the porch door to the diagonal wall, moved the fridge to be closer to the peninsula, opened up the stairway area in the front) We're fine with the fridge location. There is some distance from the fridge to the sink.

When we purchased our current bedroom set, our master br was about 19x19. We have a california king bed, 2 large dressers, blanket chest, and 2 fairly large nightstands.

Updated Floorplans:

Basement:

First Floor:

Second Floor: