It's a nice plan for what seems like a modest amount of square footage.

We could give better informed opinions if we knew who was going to live in the house. Two parents and two kids? Retired couple?

Here's a few thoughts, anyway. You won't have very much room for furniture in the living room because you are going to need three lanes for traffic. :) The walkway near the back exterior wall, the walkway by the stairs, and the walkway by the kitchen wall all become major traffic areas. And if you have young children in the front bedrooms, you may be walking along the fireplace wall to get to their bedrooms during the night.

Your breakfast nook is very small, especially considering that it is the only way through to the laundry room and garage. I would make every attempt to enlarge the nook. As it stands now, there is no way you could really use the bar for seating because of lack of space. Your whole living area would feel a lot more spacious if you could add a few feet to the back of the breakfast nook.

I would also add more windows for cross ventilation and natural light to the bedrooms. Windows overlooking the porch in the master bedroom would be nice.

Good luck!

Post the kitchen on the kitchen forum.

Thanks Bird_lover. Our home is for me, the wife, and our 9 year old. The first floor square feet is 2239. Furniture placement in the living room is a concern. But at almost 20X22, I think we can fit something in there and still allow for walking paths. I'm going to look more into the breakfast nook. Based on the software I'm using the distance between the kitchen cabinets and the chair at the breakfast nook is 4 ft. I was hoping that would be enough but I will look into that more.
As for the Windows, this brings up a interesting point. With modern day design, you usually see windows that are 2 feet off the floor and are around 5 ft tall. This makes it hard to place furniture, because you would not want to put a bed, dresser, couch, etc. in front of a window. How do you add window to multiple walls without limiting your furniture placement? I know I could make shorter, higher window, but I don't want all my windows all different sizes. What do you all think?

Overall, I like it. Simple, traditional set-up. Classics are classics because they work. Your rooms are good sized, and the house seems to have a good flow.

A few things I'd change:

- You have the opportunity to have windows on both walls of every bedroom. I'd not pass this up!

- You have a plethora of doors in the master-bedroom entry area. Since they're likely to remain open all the time anyway, I'd eliminate the one into the actual bedroom. This'll make the greatroom /hall door your bedroom door, and you'd walk through that little turn-y hallway to the bathroom.

- The breakfast room isn't too small, but it is minimal. I'd consider building in a banquette seat on the back wall, which would allow you to move the table (which I assume is small) closer to the window/wall. A curved seat is expensive, so you might consider a box bay instead of a standard bay window. I believe they're also better about not leaking.

- A middle-of-the-house kitchen tends to be dark. In fact, with the bedrooms on one side and the garage on the other side, none of your living spaces will be particularly light-filled. I'd add another window to the great room.

- You have ample space, so I would not squeeze the sink, one of the hardest working items in your kitchen, into a corner.

- The great room is big enough -- not oversized, but not undersized either. You could reduce the size of the fireplace hearth sticking out into the room. That would allow more floorspace.

- I would flatten off the garage wall, meaning I'd do away with the little indent and the box bay in the actual garage -- just let the dining room wall continue straight to the end of the house. Once you have plantings in front of the house, these non-functional money-grabbers will "disappear" anyway.

The nook will be tight when you have people sitting in the chairs! Imagine a few friends sitting around the table having a cup of coffee (or a beer :) ) and a friend or two sitting at the bar while you're cooking. It's going to be very cramped. Just two extra feet would make a big difference, imo.

And since you don't have a second living area on this floor, if anything should cause you to use the dining room for some other purpose such as a tv room or office, you will appreciate making the breakfast nook as large as possible.

I would put a window right next to the closet in the corner bedroom. You could still put two twin beds on either side of the front facing window, if necessary.

It is a very nice plan. Even with a center living area, the bedrooms should be fairly quiet.

Thanks MrsPete. That's 2 people who said to add more Windows. I'll have to reconsider it.

I agree that the doors to Master bed and bath will probably remain open most of the time. The only reason I left the door to the Master (and not made a 6ft opening) is to reduce the sound from the living room. Since the bedroom is off the living room I was worried about noise in the living room when someone was trying to sleep. What's your opinion on that?

I have been considering making window on the sides of the French doors in the living room larger for more light. I didn't mention this but the back porch is covered. I know that will make things even darker. Not sure how to fix that within the existing layout.

Never noticed the hearth sticking out. I think I just accepted the default depth the software used. I reduced it to 12 inches.

As for the Garage bump out, I like the differences in the face of the house. I don't like when things are flat without any relief. That particular bump out is also clad with a stone exterior. See picture. I know it is probably going to cost $6-$7k for it, but I think it adds a lot to the exterior look.

Thanks for the opinions...very constructive.

Our second home was similar and was a wondeful home for us. My suggestion would be to enter the master area, where the current shower is located. Close off the doorway in the corner of the living room....you will gain so much space and have a better living room without needing to walk,through and around that back wall and corner. You could also move the exterior door closer to the nook.

A main item on my list of must haves was to not have a laundry room that people walked through. I understand this might not be the case for you....I now do laundry for a family of 8.

Thats all the time I have for now. Best of everything for you & your new home.

If you're not going to make use of the exterior walls in the master bedroom for windows (we don't all have million dollar views, heh? ), you might consider swapping locations of the master bedroom and bath/closet and enter the bedroom where the current shower is placed as "mommy" above recommended. The fireplace would aid in soundproofing that wall, and you'd still have a fair bit of privacy with the placement of the hall bath. By eliminating the current master bedroom door, your house will have much better flow and more floor space to work with in the family room. Just another option to consider. :)

Yes, that is definitely something to consider. I'm going to swap that out and see how I like it. Like I mentioned this was adapted from a plan I found online. I'm guessing the bathrooms were back to back to share plumbing runs. Not sure how much this saves on expense. Thanks.

No, I would not be concerned about sound floating into the master bedroom from the living room. If the two shared a wall, yes, I'd be concerned, but your master is a "bump out", and, therefore, a bit more removed from the living room. I'd definitely use the door on the "fireplace wall" as the door into the master and eliminate the second door, which would always be in the way.

I also like the idea of switching the bathroom around and entering through what is now the shower, but that would make the bedroom "closer to" the secondary bedrooms and less private.

As for the garage bump-out, I agree that it looks nice on the mock-up pix you've posted . . . but do you have the ability to pop in a crepe myrtle or two and some shrubbery in front of the garage using your computer program? If you do, I suspect they will become the focus instead of that bump-out. You can still use the stone as an accent without having a bump. You expect 6-7K for the bump-out? If you have a typical 1-2 acre lot, that would be your landscaping.

I can't give you a number, but back-to-back plumbing is a big money saver. Very much worth your attention. Also note that any wall that carries water must be 6" thick rather than 4"; thus, if you have a whole bunch of walls carrying water, you're losing a bit of square footage. And in the future, if you have shorter plumbing runs, you have fewer feet of potential leaks. Consolidation of plumbing is pretty important in my book. In the house we're planning, ALL the plumbing is kind of consolidated into one quarter of the house, every bit of it back-to-back.

After reading a couple more people's thoughts, I am convinced that you need a few more feet in the breakfast nook. I still think you should ALSO use my suggestion and build in banquette seating for the back side, but I think you need the extra space too. UNLESS you want to bump the kitchen all the way to the back and enlarge the dining room so that you have only one eating area. That too is an option.

As for windows in the great room, I'd lean towards a bank of windows across . . . and one glass door on the end towards the breakfast room. You get just as much light, but this is more secure than a set of French doors (which are super-easy to kick in, says my cop uncle).

From experience, I would leave both doors to the master. Then again, I'm a light sleeper. The OP's bedroom is fairly far from the living room, but mine is too; I can't hear sounds through the walls, but I can hear them through the (solid) door areas. I often wish I had added a second door into my master area like the OP has designed to help further hinder noise transmission.

Well, I tried swapping out the Master bed and bath and it is proving hard to do and still have the windows facing the back yard. I wouldn't look right to not have any windows on that exterior wall. I am still going to try to keep moving this around. I really like the idea of having the entry in the other hallway.

I will try to give the breakfast nook a little more space, but the table is the actual dimensions of my table and the chairs are position if someone would be sitting in them. I still see 4 ft there.

Thanks again

I think the issue with the nook is that you couldn't actually place the table where you have it and expect to use the chair that backs to the windows, because there isn't room to pull the chair out and sit down. You'll need to move the table a good foot towards the kitchen, and then you have 3 feet, and anyone getting up from the table or sitting further back from it than you're expecting is encroaching on that. It's not totally unworkable, but it is tight.

It's a perfect size!

The kitchen and part of the living room have a lovely view of....the bathroom. If you swap the plumbing, even more so. I can't quite see what to do about it, though. But thinking that, if you have guests in the evening and DS heads in there for a shower, give him a handsome bathrobe.

Re the master, do you need a tub and a shower? If you replace the tub with a big shower, you have room to put the entry hall to the MBR there as Mommyto4boys suggested. That would also give you added space in the LR for furniture placement, since you don't have to allow for passage into the corner MBR door.

Do you think you'd like another window in the master to enjoy the patio?

If you do the dormer, I don't think stone would be appropriate, especially with siding directly below it. How would a shed dormer look?