Here are the pictures inlined in the post

MAIN FLOOR

BASEMENT

SIDE AND BACK ELEVATIONS

FRONT ELEVATION

jaymielo -- thanks for posting the actual drawings!

Steve360 -- thanks for your input. I hadn't thought about the pocket doors like that. I knew you were limited somewhat with cabinetry and anything drilled into the wall, but I wasn't thinking about electrical. What do you mean flimsy wall? I will definitely talk to my architect and builder to see what they think about each door. I want to know that electrical will still be where I want it and stuff. Glad to know you think it looks reasonable for the most part! It's hard when you start on a plan from scratch to know how it will turn out!

Nice layout! I concur with Steve's suggestion about the hip roof over the master bedroom, it might help balance the look of the exterior. You could avoid the "flimsy wall" syndrome by doing 6" walls wherever you had a pocket door.

Speaking of doors, I would suggest changing the swing on the door to the pantry, with the oven where it is, you have the pantry door swinging right into it and that might be awkward. Either make that door another pocket door, or have it swing into the pantry, instead of out. Personally, I'd opt for an in-swing, with hinges on the left, especially when carrying things in and out of the freezer.

I'm not quite sure about your kitchen layout. The fridge and the oven are not only out-of-the way, they are butted up against each other and the oven is behind the pantry door. Besides the door being an obvious obstacle, you have no ready landing space on either side of the ovens for when you remove hot food from the ovens.

Take another look and decide if you will ever really use that "pocket office" off of the kitchen. Try moving the fridge to the area where the door to the pocket office is now. This lets the fridge be more accessible to the breakfast area, and would let you move the ovens to where the fridge is now. You could have counter-height worksurfaces on each side of the ovens. Surrender the "pocket office" space to the bedroom as a sitting/reading nook.

If you need a "mail center" and a workspace, there might be some room near where the cleanig closet and laundry are now.

I'm also leery of having so many pocket doors. The wall construction is less sturdy than you get with 2x4 stud walls, and decent pocket doors with decent quality hardware are fairly costly. Having so many will add up quickly.

I'm also not a big fan of layouts that make you go through the bathroom to get to the closet, but this is strictly a matter of personal preference. If you are happy with that, then it's fine.

Overall I think you're off to a good start.

It is a nice lay out.
My personnal preferences:
A bigger master bedroom
And more cabinets in the kitchen. it seems that you do not have enough counter space. The big pantry helps.

I really like your plan alot. In fact, the kitchen/Great room is set up almost identical to ours. We have plenty of cabinet/counter space. I have some cabinets and drawers that are empty. Is that a microwave oven next to your fridge? If so, ours are reversed and gives us alot of counter space over there. Our double ovens are below the cooktop. I like the size of your other rooms too. If I'm reading it right, your Master is 17'x almost 17'. That's plenty big for me.

I love this layout! Okay, one small thing I just noticed...I would rather have the Master bedroom at the back of the house. Could you flip flop the bedroom and the bath?

Here's a pic of my kitchen so you can see the layout is very similar.

Thanks everyone! I enjoy all your criticisms because I want to get any of these details that I find ironed out before we break ground.

chapnc -- I have thought of that with the frig and oven and I'm still trying to come up with a solution. I also thought to either create a pocket door to the pantry or swing in door. But it doesn't give me good counter space beside the oven so i will have to work something out.

I don't want to get rid of the pocket office as I will plan to use that alot. I have always had an open area desk in my kitchen and i hate it because we use it alot and it's always cluttered. So I wanted a "hidden" space for that stuff. My husband will run his business out of our Study in a couple of years so I don't want to have to use that space and mix our personal stuff with business stuff. I don't want to put this area in the mudroom because I have all that space ear-marked for something. I will have a built in bench and coat hooks as you come in the rear foyer door and I like my cleaning closet for storage of vacuum, brooms, and cleaning products. I also may put my deep freezer in there instead of the pantry so i want to save that space.

Keep the comments coming!

I would love to have more cabinet space and I've tried to do the best I can with this layout. Our ceilings will be 11 ft throughout the main floor so I do plan to do two sets of upper cabinets with the upper set being for seldom used things as I will likely need a stool to reach them. And I worked a bigger pantry in to accommodate as much storage as possible. Also, I plan to do a built in buffet style hutch along side one short wall in the breaskfast area so that will hold an extra set of dishes.

lindybarts -- thanks for posting your picture! It is so similar to our layout. I am saving it for reference later. Our island is around 10 feet. Do you know what your island length is?

I think our greatroom is around 19x17--I am hoping that is enough space. You have any more pictures of your greatroom or other kitchen views you could share, I would love them!

What is a "hip roof" that you all mention? The architect put one in our house? I am pretty clueless on this exterior stuff but we would like more input on the exterior so hubby would appreciate this advice. Do you have any pictures of what a hip roof looks like on the outside?

Thanks

Shelly, a hip roof is a gable roof with the ends brought together at the same pitch as the rest of the roof. Your house (as currently designed) has a lot of gables with a hip over the great room and kitchen.

Hip roof
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Gable roof
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A really like your plan. The pocket office seems like a great idea to me. I wish I had thought of it for my own home. One observation about the door swing. You might want to reverse the swing of the door from the garage into the "back hall".

Very nice plan. Good luck! Jaymie

Well, we know I think walk-in closets are inefficient space-wasters; and that I don't like kitchen islands [although an island that doesn't demand constant walk-arounds is okay]. Nonetheless, it's your space so hold firm to what you like.

However, I am concerned that many of the doorways look very narrow, which means great difficulty if anyone is ever on crutches (and broken ankles can happen!). A 32" door is pretty narrow, and 34" is minimal for accommodating crutches. In fact, I doubt that the freezer can be installed in the pantry because it looks as though it literally won't fit through the door. I'm also not sure that the W/D can be installed (and is there enough space to remove clothes from the dryer without butting your butt on the opposite wall?). I also doubt any sizeable furniture will fit through some of those doorways -- remember that box springs don't fold or bend.

I like the idea of a pocket office, especially near the kitchen, however, I don't think you've actually experienced being in a 60" square closet. If you have a 24" deep countertop, there won't be enough space to scoot the chair to get to the desk OR the chair will have to scoot back into the kitchen to allow access. I suggest you make a mock-up of the 60" space (use cardboard or posterboard) with a desktop and chair to see whether it suits. Also mock-up the shower entrance because 29" is very, very narrow.

I can't decipher the true width of the kitchen, but be sure that you have a minimum of 4' between the stove and whatever is opposite. This is basic safety to minimize accidental nudges of whoever may be using the stove/oven. Having counter space to either side of stove and sink is excellent, but don't forget to have at least 18" countertop beside both the microwave and the regular oven.

Personally, I wouldn't want to climb steps every time I brought in groceries or took out trash, but that may a constraint of the design that you don't mind. OTOH, I do climb steps in my present house (and I hate them).

Shelly...here's a couple more pics for you. Our island is 11' x 4'3". We love it and it's where we eat every meal, do homework, read the paper etc. We never use the kitchen nook at all but it's nice to have when company comes. We can seat 5 at the counter, 4 in the nook and 6-8 in the dining room.

Our Great room is 20'6" x 19'. Yours sounds like it will be a good size too. Here's a few more pics:

Looking from the Kitchen to the Great Room

Great Room back to the Kitchen

Nook

The island has two large banks of drawers on each end, a garbage pullout, under sink area and dishwasher. Lots of room.

The other bank of cabinets with fridge, microwave and counter space

Range area has upper and lower cabinets with a pull out spice rack and pull out divider for cookie sheets and cutting boards.

Lindybarts,
I love your house. Did you post your floor plan here? I would like to see it. Somehow is similar to mine. Thanks

Shelly,

I like your house plan. I would agree what the others have said about pocket doors in general. However, the one area you may want to put in a pocket door is between the pantry and the kitchen. With a regular swinging door there it seems like it would block off the ovens if it were open, and if the oven door was open you wouldn't be able to get into the pantry. With a pocket door that shouldn't be a problem.

Lindybarts -- thanks for the pics. They are great! I too love your house and finishings. I would love to see the floor plan if you are able to post it.

meldy_nva -- I believe most of the door openings are 36" which I thought was pretty standard. I will double check with my architect to make sure. We plan to have 8 foot doors so I definitely don't want them to be too narrow as that would look silly.
I did measure out the pocket office as you suggested and I believe that it will be enough room to slide the chair out. Currently I have that much space between my open desk area in my kitchen and the island and it is fine. Plenty of room to slide out the chair. (My current desk is 22 inches deep). The laundry room is 6 feet deep which is the depth of my current laundry area which is also adequate to remove clothes from the dryer. I have done alot of measuring in my own home to make sure space is ok, but at the same time, space on a ranch level home is at a premium cost wise, so we've tried to be adequate in space, but not excessive. Thanks for the input.

steve360 -- Like the hip roof! Thanks for the info. I will show it to our architect! We dislike a ranch roof line that looks too flat, so this seems like a nice way to add some "depth" the roof.

Thanks Marthaelena and Shelly!

Our floorplan was from Mascord and then we reworked it (several times...LOL)

The Lyndale

I love the pocket office idea. I could put that to good use. Also love the toy closet, and that's awesome linen storage in the basement, although I'm not sure that's a very handy location. I really like a lot of things in your floorplan. We have a large and busy family, and I think this could work for us, which I can't say about very many house plans I see.

We have 9 pocket doors in our new house...in 4" walls. I don't find them flimsy. We got good quality sets, so maybe that helps. Obviously they do limit wiring, etc. in that area. I've seen pocket doors I didn't like before that seemed chintzy, but I think ours with solid core and 10-light doors, and heavy enough hardware are nice. In our house, where sq footage is at an absolute premium, it was very helpful to not have to add door-swing space.

I am worried about just a couple of things. The master toilet space looks very narrow...I wouldn't have it less than 3 ft, and it appears narrower to me. The other thing is in regard to a couple of the closets. I think you may want to sketch in the width of hanging clothes, which will be close to 2 ft. Once clothes are hanging in bedroom 3's closet, I don't know how you'll get in there to find things. Bedroom 4's is almost as bad, but a little better.

Best wishes. Looks like you'll have a great home.

I am so glad if all the doors are 36" -- that's excellent! I really couldn't tell by looking at the plan, but I suspect the pocket door drawing made them look much narrower. Do check the shower in the master, it really does look like the access is 2'5", which is pretty skinny.

My flag with islands is that they are so often placed in such a manner that one must be constantly walking around them even for the most basic cooking. Lindybart's is very well-done and the one in your plan has the same potential for ease of use. I think that's because although they are islands, as far as walking/use they are simply the fourth side of the kitchen area. Don't forget to make *all* shelves adjustable, and in lower cabinets the shelves should slide out, as well.

meldy_nva -- I agree about the islands that you are talking about. I've had them in two of my houses and really really hate walking around small islands to get to the other side of the kitchen. I absolutely did not want that design. But I love the design of my proposed house plan where the island is basically just another side of the kitchen and I don't need to walk around it all the time to get to things.

rhome410 -- I am glad to hear that you are happy with your pocket doors. I have heard that there is a great variance in quality of the doors and hardware. I will definitely make sure we have good ones since I don't want flimsy walls and we have alot of pockets.

Shelly,

Don't worry about the comments rhome410 made about the closets in BR 3 and 4, you've got plenty of room. Even allowing for 24" of hanging clothes, you've got 3' clearance in BR 3 and 4' clearance in BR 4 - that should be more than adequate!

Still think you need to look at oven location in relation to the pantry door, and remember to give yourself open counter top next to the oven for placement of hot oven items. You could do that by moving location of frig. further to left and dividing counter space for each side. Check on that pantry door swing, too, it's wrong for safe use.

It looked to me that hanging clothes in BR 3 would overhang the doorway by a couple inches. Sorry if I misjudged...Just wanted to throw it out there, so there wouldn't be possible disappointment later.

Some regulars here know I'm one of the people who champions the 'back hall', so of course I love this plan's roomy garage entry area!

I'm not a 'pantry' person and would prefer to have a LOT more upper cabinets right IN the kitchen. I'd store bulk stuff in the back hall closet. I'd also rather have a standing freezer in the kitchen than a chest elsewhere -- if you *need* that much freezer space. (Maybe you are far from stores.)

Someone mentioned putting slide-out shelves in lower cabinets. I've had those and much prefer deep drawers; they're a single motion instead of opening doors and then pulling shelves.

Maybe you'll take your kitchen over to the kitchen forum. Let them put 'er up on the rack and check 'er out! LOL

Shelly,
I just came from a parade of new homes. The very nicest house had a pocket office and I thought of your plan! I am actually thinking to include a pocket office somewere in my plan. Let's see

Shelly, I have posted photos of a couple of kitchens similar to your plan on your thread on the kitchens forum, and one of the houses has a space like your pocket office, too. I noticed you haven't posted in a couple days, so I hope you saw them.

Shelly, can you ask your architect if you would still be able to hang upper cabinets with the pocket door in the mini office and be able to put up clothes rod with the pocket door in the laundry area?