So the front bedroom is accessed from the dining room? Will it be used as a bedroom or as an office or just an occasional guest room? If the primary use is as a bedroom, I'd like to see more separation from the dining room area.

Admittedly, I'm not in the right area of the country to know about safe rooms ... but I'm wondering if you could combine this with the pantry to save square footage. The pantry is a small, windowless room. If you built it to "safe code" ... but allowed the center of the room to be extra-large, you could still store your food on shelves around the edges and have the middle free for emergencies. Store your flashlights and whatever else in the pantry, and you're getting two-for-one. Bonus: You'd have bottled water and potato chips handy in case of an emergency.

I agree that entering the bedroom through the dining room is less than ideal.

The study is a step in the right direction -- a quiet, away space in a big, open house ... but it seems rather awkward. The whole thing could still use some polishing.

yes, that is the one thing I don't like about the front bedroom either. I am not sure how to fix it though. It will be used as a bedroom for one of the kids. The safe room is going to be used as overflow storage. The pantry in the kitchen is actually bigger than it looks on paper.

Should we move the study on dining room side? Granted I want separation of the dining from the family room, and if I did that it would make entering the master bedroom off the dining.

What else can I do??

The house has to maintain the shape of a rectangle/square for roof line purposes. We want as little valley's as possible. We want the wrap around porch on 3 sides too.

The bedroom left of the kitchen has such a tiny window - depending on what direction it faces, you will get hardly any natural light in there - to say nothing of air flow. Put the closet against the laundry room, to reduce noise in the room, and stretch the bathroom out along the top wall so it can have a window.

Now that I look at it, the other bedroom by the garage has an even worse window setup - a view of the garage wall, and even less potential air flow.

I can't see the dimensions, but the master closets don't look quite big enough for clothes rods down both sides. As I type this, do I remember that you were planning shelving on one side? I would either put the doors on the ends, or use pocket doors, so yo don't have things hiding behind the door. Or make the doors outswing - but then I'd stagger them, so you don't block access to the bathroom if they are both left open.

Where will the dining table go? If it's where it says eat in kitchen, the living room area is quite awkward. There is a great deal of space by the back window/door to the right of the dining area..what will you use that area for?

I'm not sure how you plan to use your study. Is it a formal space or a home office?

If you make a few changes, you can have the kids rooms on the side (with more light) and either have the guest room in the back...or move it to the front, with a private bath.

Or if you need an informal work space/study, you might want to put that in the back (off the kitchen) by the 3/4 bath and have the guest room in the study area.

Just a few ideas :) {{gwi:1441158}}From Kitchen plans

This post was edited by lavender_lass on Tue, May 27, 14 at 13:11

Lass, this is beautiful! You've increased the finished/heated square footage, but not the roof line or foundation, so the vast improvement in livibility may be worth it.

You also added a bath (I assume to make the study a potential bedroom). I'm not sure a 6th bedroom is necessary. If that became a master closet, perhaps the MB could be shuffled enough to regain the full back porch, and bring the square footage back down.

annkh makes a good point re: the BR between the kitchen and garage. I like LL's revisions, but I'd swap the study and the bedroom that faces the garage. The current study is a much nicer spot for a bedroom, and if you have a desk etc. in the study it will be nice to have it close to the kitchen, so that (current) bedroom spot would be good for a study.

OR... can you push the garage back so the front is even with the lower wall of the mudroom area? That would fix the window-facing-a-wall issue with that bedroom. It doesn't change the square footage but that garage location might not work with your lot.

Thank you! It's difficult to know what the OP needs, as far as bedroom/study...but it's easy enough to take off any unwanted space.

Will the three bedrooms on the lower left side of the house be used much? All the traffic going from the garage to these bedrooms will walk right through the middle of the kitchen. That same path through the middle of the kitchen may end up being used when going from the garage to the study and master bedroom too.

WOW!!!! I love the changes so far! I love seeing others' visions for this. All the bedroom's will be in use and so will the study. We have 4 kids and we homeschool and run a business. I love the flow of the kitchen better, WOW! I'm about in tears, you don't know how much I've tried to arrange things.
Moving the garage back is so smart.
I would love to have a breakfast nook, so do you think bumping out something on the back porch would work?

I'd have to swap the master bath and closets back though...I want our view to be out back looking at the land.

I cannot find an organizing principal in this plan. The design process should return to where that elementary and essential part of good design was skipped. You should be able to draw a diagram that explains the design concept and then stick to it as the design develops. No amount of pushing and pulling of design elements can make up for a lack of organization.

Renovator8 please explain

I am not in love with this plan but my hubby is. I honestly think if we could do a 1.5 story things would flow better, but he says no second story, no hallways, not a lotf of walls...which is what we have now and with 4 kids and entertaining all theme, I HATE the openness of it all. I want separation and a place as the kids get bigger they can hang out with their friends.

Please give thoughts