I really don't like the laundry room/garage entrance to enter such a critical corner of the kitchen. Granted, the kitchen could be laid out better, but this is your work triangle. The area where you are walking around with sharp knives in hand, pots of boling water, slabs of raw meat.

With five acres, you don't have to have the garage out front, where it's the first thing people see. The garage is typically the worst feature of a house, and this one's oversized -- not what you want to present first.

Since the back porch and outdoor living space are a priority for you, I'd consider deepening or eliminating the 6' portion of the back porch. a 32x6 space isn't deep enough for anything -- though the 16x14 space will be great.

I agree that the kitchen is bad. It has two major issues: First, the casual family entrance throws people right into the kitchen, which is inconvenient at best, dangerous at worst. The real problem with this kitchen is that it's an awkward size and layout. Everything's too far apart for convenience, and you'll walk extra steps -- but you can't really put in an island. This kitchen would be a deal-breaker for me.

The master bath is also an odd size -- lots of extra space in the middle, good for nothing.

However, the space is plentiful. I think you could re-do the kitchen, master bath and laundry room to make a much more efficient layout . . . without changing the house's footprint.

On the positive side, the great room, dining room and master bedroom look good.

Thanks for feedback!

The bathroom by the smaller bedroom looks rather cramped--looks like it's less than 8' long. My previous place had one with that same layout and was 9' long. I wouldn't want it any smaller.

Anne

All the traffic coming into the house through the garage goes through the middle of the kitchen. Will that bother the chef?

The dishwasher is positioned such that you cannot open it when standing at the sink.

I don't think the traffic aspect will affect me much. It's just the two of us, so there shouldn't be much, if any, traffic through that area when I'm cooking. I definitely appreciate comments about the spacing though, the work triangle is pretty far apart and I didn't think about dishwasher placement!

If you rotated the garage to the left of your home and made it side loading, you could extend your porch across the front of the house and have a wondeful sitting are as well as an auxilliary covered kitchen entry close to your parking areas. With your property, you could easily do a u- shaped drive that would accent the prettiness of your extended porch elevation.

I would definitely get that garage off the front since you have 5 acres! I also would figure out a way to get a little hallway or niche or something so that you don't walk directly from the kitchen into the MBR. That would really bug me.

I see a number of things that would bother me. One is the poor kitchen layout. Another is the lack of space in the laundry room...I'd want to have a mudroom for shoes, coats, closet, etc. I'm not a fan of large baths...this one is as big as a bedroom. I like them smaller and easier to heat. I also see no "away" space where one can get away from TV or other noise. Even though there's just 2 of us in our house, DH uses his study frequently as a quiet room.

I too would consider, if not side entrance garage, then at least setting it back so it is recessed from the front facade, so the front door can become more important.

Also, you don't say what part of the country you are in, but if the front faces northeast, then the deck will face SW and be very hot in the summer. The SE corner is actually the most desirable from an outdoor living POV so I would consider flipping the design. Also, we have a deck, but added an overhang over half of it which we get a lot of use out of for shade, for protection from rain, etc.

This is a variation of the most common plan for sale on the internet. The kitchen uses space inefficiently, has few work surfaces, too many counter interruptions, a big open space in the middle, a poor relationship to the living spaces and no windows. These issues should have the highest priority instead of the lowest.

I hate the entrance to the master bedroom from the dining room, but maybe that's just me.

In order to solve that problem and the horrible kitchen layout, I would basically run a hall right through your laundry room all the way to the master bedroom. I would then use that new wall to create a more efficient "L-shaped" kitchen with straight island across from it. I would move the washer/dryer back into the closet a bit. (The closet is huge. :) ) On one side of the entry from the garage you would have your washer and dryer, while on the other side a nice pantry or a small pantry and bench with hooks above and cubbies below since this doubles as your mud room.