Oops, I posted wrong...here's the second level

Mbr: 13' x 21'
bedrooms: 10' x 11' (approx)
Laundry room will be a bedroom
And ensuite will be along whole back wall, narrower, and with 2 closets in front of it on either side

We'll also be adding a bonus room over the garage

thanks!!

I thought I replied earlier, but I guess I didn't hit the submit button. Overall the plans are really hard to read, which is why I'm guessing you have gotten little input.

8 people and 3 bedrooms is tight. If you turn the laundry room into another bedroom, then where will you do laundry? You also have 6 people sharing 1 bath.

Thanks pixie_lou, I'll try to get the plans to load larger, if I can.

I hope this is easier for all to see. I'd love to hear what you have to say:)

And here's level 2 again...this is as large as I can get it. Please note, that we plan to add a bonus room over the garage for a total of 5 bedrooms: 3 older children will have their own, and the 3 youngest will share a bedroom in the large bonus room.

Nope, not any better.

Since it's so hard to read, it's hard to comment. I will say, though, that if that is a real wood burning stove, you are going to have wood mess strung between there and kingdom come. It's a long ways from the stove to the nearest outside door.

Is that a bedroom on the lower left? There's a half bath right beside it, but no tub or shower?

And I've got to ask - why is there a cloud over the kitchen/dining room?

Lots of wasted space upstairs. Half of the main bathroom and laundry room is just empty floor space. Master bedroom is massive, which is fine if you want to have a seating area/retreat in the bedroom, but the window placement forces you to have the bed smack in the middle, giving two areas on either side too narrow for a sitting space, and too wide for a walking space. With all the folks sleeping up there I would abandon the giant master suite and place the suite where the two other bedrooms are now. I would split the laundry room space in two and have a narrow laundry room next to a narrow bathroom. Where the bathroom is now there'd be a bedroom, and where the master suite is now there'd be two bedrooms, one facing the front, one facing the back, with a jack & jill bathroom in between.

Downstairs, the room off the mudroom is begging for potential as a guest suite, but the bathroom next to it has no shower.

If your formal dining room will be a library, there's no point having a doorway to the kitchen from that. Might as well rotate the island 90 degrees and fill in the wall between the kitchen and dining room/library with cabinets. That way people working at the island can interact better with the people in the family room too.

You also have a grand big foyer, but a bunch of small doorways and archways off of it. I think one of those passageways should be double width to make for a focal point and invite folks into the rest of the house.

If you are going to make bedrooms over the garage, and change your dining room into a library, can you get updated plans for us to review? Though we do read your text, most of us spend more time looking at the actual plans and comment on what we see drawn.

Thank you all so much for your comments.
I have added annotations to these drawings to hopefully make them easier to read.

Littlebug, do you have any alternate suggestions for the location of the woodstove? (the clouds just highlight where we had modified the drawing)

thebobo, I agree that the foyer was too closed in, so I have moved the closet to the bottom of the stairs, and added double glass doors to the library. I also deleted the door to the living room so that will just be an opening

I also think the island would be better facing the family area, but I still need to work out the dimensions to allow for passage around it. It was going to be 39" x 78", but now I'm thinking a square shape would work better.
Although I would like to keep the door to the library, in case we ever decide to convert it into a dining room.

PIxie_lou, here is the updated second level showing the bonus room. I'm still working on rearranging this level for better use of space, as thebobo recommended. In the meantime, here is the original plan with measurements.

Do you currently have 6 children sharing a bathroom? Two baths would be a luxury, not to mention handy for when one is "out of commission"'for any reason. Speaking of which, having the washer/dryer in the sole kids' bathroom is NOT a good idea. One, it's cramped, two, you'll be doing a lot of sorting on the floor, inconvenient for kids using the bathroom, and three, if a kid is in there and someone else needs their clean dainties, conflict arises.

You could, however, steal some space from the master suite to put in machines, but you'll need plenty of floor space around for sorting, folding, etc.

Do you, by any chance, homeschool?

In fact, in the master suite, consider the closet. 4'x12' is a long, narrow tunnel. The hanging clothes need 2' of depth, leaving you only 2' to walk in. And it's a long walk from the door to the end, siding sideways between the clothes. And when you have to bend down to retrieve shoes or fallen items, not too convenient. And with the long length of blank wall, you'll probably want to hang robes or jackets and such on hooks along there, taking up even more precious body space.

In the ensuite, where will your towel be as you step out of the shower? I don't see a place to hang it?

And back to the kids' bath, with the machines in there, where is their storage and towel hooks/bars?

Well, if it was up to me, I'd put the woodstove outside! LOL! Seriously, there's a company near me that manufactures woodstoves specifically designed for outdoors with a good system of piping the heat indoors.

Barring that, you could always create a fireplace near one of your outside doors and install some type of stove IN the fireplace.

We've had a woodstove in the middle of our house like you show - when we were young and didn't know any better. Never again! And we've also had a woodstove installed a fireplace, too, in another house. I won't do that again, either. The mess WAY outweighs any benefit for me.

All traffic coming in from the garage has to go through the kitchen. Will the cook be okay with that?

The same is true for anyone wanting to use the powder room or the sunroom.

Is the size of the garage correct? I'm not understanding the size with the corner taken out of it for the stairs and closet. It might be too small.

We have a woodstove that is burning 24/7 during the winter. I think the issue with having the woodstove so far from an exterior door is that wood is heavy. We bring our wood inside in large plastic totes, so there isn't a lot of mess (although it is very close to an exterior door)-- the totes are also helpful because where we keep our firewood doesn't perfectly shield it from snow, and the totes capture the puddles (room temperature wood burns more efficiently than frozen wood, so it's important to have room to store some wood inside.)

Having said that, I love our woodstove. We have a Progress Hybrid from Woodstock-- if we were shopping now, we'd seriously consider their Ideal Steel, but the stove we got kept our home warm through days with -40 F weather, without any help from the furnace, and even though we keep the whole house fairly warm (~68) it's nice to have an especially cozy place to sit when you come in from the cold.

That reminds me-- put your woodstove somewhere with room for a couple chairs in front. Looking at your plan, I'd put a woodstove in the family room. There's a sliding door to bring the wood in, it'll be a cozy place to sit near the fire, and it's in a part of the house where you can keep an eye on the stove fairly easily (so you know when you need to add more wood). Also, an advantage of having it in the family room over the kitchen is that if you're baking, the extra heat from the woodstove might be uncomfortable.

Aside from that, I like your plan-- at least the downstairs (I don't have time now to look at the upstairs.) I agree that you should check that your garage is large enough.

I really appreciate all this valuable advice.
bpathome, I wasn't happy with that long closet either!! What do you think of the new set up, with two smaller closets? Also, I had the measurements wrong for the bonus room and it is actually huge, so I'm thinking putting a laundry room in there...just not sure how to divide the space. And I don't homeschool:D...we just like to read a lot!!

dekeoboe, the total garage size is 19' 10" x 21' 6", and the stairs/landing reduces the width to 13' where it bumps out (for a 6' length). I drive an Odyssey, and I think you're right, it may not fit:( The only solution I can think of is cutting off the closet, which I really need...

littlebug and zone, I'm thinking of moving the woodstove to the family room, closer to the door, and away from the kitchen...I love that idea, but I'm thinking it will really limit my furniture placement. Where in the family room do you think it would fit best?

There are too many problems with this design being suited to the size of your family. I think your architect needs to start over entirely.

Hollysprings, starting over is not an option for us at this point. What do you think are the top few major problems? They may be things we can tweak to improve a bit...

I can't tell which way you drive into the garage. Is it supposed to be a 2 car garage? Or an oversized 1 car garage? The Odyssey is about 17' long. They typical recommendation is 12' wide per vehicle and 24' depth.

Since you are turning the dining room into a library, where will the family eat? Your nook only shows a table with 4 chIrs. To seat 8 you need a 10' long table. Add chairs on the end and room to maneuver around them and you need a 16' long minimum space. By about 10' in depth.

Have you laid out furniture in your living room? Or family room? Can you get enough furniture in there so your family can spend time together? The playroom in my house is about 13' square, and I can't imagine having 8 people in here. You may be better off combining the 2 rooms as one great room.

I would layout the bonus room over the garage to have an ensuite bathroom. And 3 closets. So each kid gets their own closet.

Since you removed the laundry from the upstairs bath, I'd add a second sink where the laundry was.

I'd do away with the separate linen closet in the master bath. Since the 2 closets are right there, I would just store towels etc in the master closets.

There simply isn't enough room in the public spaces for a family of your size. Not enough bathrooms either. Not by a long shot. And there is disproportionately too much space devoted to the master. There is overall poor traffic flow through the whole space, and the rooms don't transition well between functions with the proper adjacency.

This is a marginally adequate home designed for 2 children, and cannot really be tweaked enough to work well for 6 without magnifying the existing deficiencies. Making a poor plan bigger never makes it better.

Another option? Does anyone think this rearrangement of rooms will be better suited to a family of 8??

I think you know better than I do how much space your family needs. If you aren't sure the rooms are big enough, I'd recommend measuring your furniture and experimenting with placing it in the spaces you place to use it in the house, to see how well it will fit.

I'd also think about how much stuff you have, and where that will go. A couple changes you could make to the bathroom that might make it work better for more kids would be to add another sink, and to have the sinks in a separate room from the tub and toilet, so a couple kids can be brushing teeth while another is on the pot or showering.

I like this better with a coupe tweeks.

I'd change the entry from the mudroom to be adjacent to the dining room wall. Traffic is then routed into a natural aisle as opposed to through the middle of the kitchen.

I'd also open up the wall between the dining and kitchen - to be a framed double door opening. Either no doors or if you insist, pocket doors. This would be the place your family eats together.

The nook area - I'd probably consider a window seat or small reading nook/conversation nook.

With this configuration, you have some nice family space. Mom can be cooking in the kitchen and still interact with kids in the family room or dining room. You still have some quiet space in the library. You don't say how old the kids are - but I think about homework. Younger ones need some parental,supervision. Older ones need a quiet space.

The sunroom - is this heated space? How do you intend to use this space?

Here's another bathroom and an additional morning prep area added to the primary kids' bathroom.

You could also do a standup corner shower in the additional bathroom and add a narrow storage unit -- might be good. As drawn this won't have much storage space.

Soony- First of all, it would be very nice to have more room...but my husband grew up in a MUCH smaller home (with one bathroom) and a family of 9. It can be done! It can just be done more comfortably, in a larger space :)

What is your "parti" or story? Is this a farmhouse design? Sorry if I missed this info, but it looks like a farmhouse, so I'm working off that assumption....

For the first floor, I made the space bigger, by making the plan a true rectangle. If your budget can survive it, this would give you much more space. I like the separate dining room and big family kitchen. I think the living room will be important, perhaps as a quieter area? If you use it for holiday gatherings, the french doors between the two areas will be nice. If not, a smaller 'away room' might be a better choice. For example, a small living room for listening to music, reading, etc.

The sunroom...I always love sunrooms and I believe they should be big enough for everyone to be in there, because on nice snowy days or cool spring mornings...they will be! LOL Do you plan to have seating here? Growing plants? Dining? Play area?

The kitchen needs to be bigger (IMHO) and a second sink would really help. I've included a kitchen plan for another post, which if flipped, might work for you. The fridge and ovens can be placed (as is or swapped) for whatever works best for your situation.

I'd also add a big window seat in the breakfast area! It would be a great place to sit and read a book or look out at the view (very farmhouse) and it would give you more seating, if you need to expand the table for holidays.

I also added a bench/cubbies in the mudroom (moving the closet over) and gave the first floor bath a shower. Great if you ever have someone sleeping on the first floor with extended family...or even illness or injury.

The second floor could also be brought out to a full rectangle. I would make the master with larger walk-in closets then bath...as you have them in your latest design, but with a bit more room.

The back bedrooms are nice, but I would add a fourth bedroom over the dining room. This would be more 'farmhouse' and also give you more space! The second bathroom over the foyer I like...and a third bathroom could be added (along with hall to bonus space) with the larger footprint.

The laundry upstairs is probably a good idea, but I would add it into the bonus space, along with a homework/reading area for the kids. There's nothing like short bookcases with tons of books, wrapped around a bright space, with comfy chairs and floor pillows! Have fun with your design!

First floor... {{gwi:1505071}}From Kitchen plans

Kitchen idea... {{gwi:1505072}}From Kitchen plans

Oh, and for anyone, who doesn't know....Control key and the + key held down together, will make the plan larger. I learned this on GW :)

This post was edited by lavender_lass on Fri, Oct 10, 14 at 16:50

Thanks everyone...I'm so, so glad I came here!

Pixie-lou and Lavender, what a fantabulous idea for a window seat! I think I may be permanently glued there:) Moving the garage door would make much more sense, but I'm trying to figure out how to access the powder room/sunroom. And you're right, it would be nice to open up the kitchen and dining room. The sunroom is heated and will be a quiet place to relax:) And the kids are 18, 16, 14, 8, 6 and 1 :D

Robotropolis, thanks for your idea for bathroom access!!

Lavender-lass, the house is colonial-style, and that extra space would be nice...that kitchen looks amazing..., but unfortunately we couldn't make the house any deeper due to lot restrictions. I do like the idea of cubbies in the mudroom though, and your description of books and floor pillows makes me dreamy:)

I'm going to tinker with these plans some more and try to incorporate as many improvements as I can...

I made the back of the house even with the breakfast bump out. Can you do that with the setbacks and budget?

I'm glad you like the window seat...and I always love any ideas that make reading more fun...and comfortable :)

Well, the lot is not very big, so the house is sandwiched between the setback line and the septic mound in back. The rear corner (where the kitchen is) is as close to the septic tank as we can get. And the family room side can't be pushed out because there's a deck off the master upstairs. So we can't really add more space, but that's ok...all 8 of us are moving out of 1500 sq ft, so for us this is huge:) although that kitchen would have been really nice if we had the space....

Soony- How much do you like that master deck?

What if you flipped the plan? You could have a bigger kitchen (with more natural light) a corner pantry...and access to the deck. Think BBQ! LOL

Also, there's more space for that fourth bedroom upstairs and if you want a bonus space over the garage, you could access it from the sunroom. Just a few ideas :) {{gwi:1505074}}From Kitchen plans
{{gwi:1505076}}From Kitchen plans

This post was edited by lavender_lass on Mon, Oct 13, 14 at 13:58

Lavender, Thanks so much for drawing that out for me! You're full of great ideas:) I do love that upper deck though... but then again, without the deck more light, I think, would enter the house. It's really amazing what a difference a few feet can make. This definitely got me thinking outside of the box that I was in. I really appreciate that!

That's the difficult part...thinking outside the box. We all have ideas of what we want (or think we need) and it's important to constantly re-evaluate what we really want and need in a home, as plans are finalized.

With six kids (three of them already teens) do you really need to keep an eye on all of them, while you cook? It would probably be better to have an area for the older kids to 'hang out' and another area for the younger kids to be closer to you.

The living room in front gives you a place for seating around a fireplace...or you could put the sofa on that wall and have great seating for the TV, against the stair wall. At the same time, the smaller 'keeping room' by the breakfast table could be for the little ones to play.

If you add the bonus room upstairs, it would give you a place for laundry (if you keep the master on the right side) and a study/TV area for the kids.

If you really like the upstairs deck...what about flipping the bedroom and closet/bath and having a LARGE deck over the main deck. This would allow you to possibly screen the downstairs deck or just have part of it covered/shaded. Just a few ideas :) {{gwi:1505078}}From Kitchen plans

Another option...a smaller bonus room (possible bedroom) with a third upstairs bath :)

You could add skylights to the laundry and bath...or just good lighting and ventilation. I don't know how tall your 'head room' would be with the garage, but you could change the bathroom to sink/toilet on one side and shower on the other. The laundry could be washer/dryer on one side with folding table on the other.

If you need this extra space...then the closets could be moved to the area on the bottom of the plan (by the skylights over the sunroom) so you could still have the window in the bedroom/bonus space. {{gwi:1505079}}From Kitchen plans

This post was edited by lavender_lass on Tue, Oct 14, 14 at 18:15

This is wonderful to have so many options now. I do like the idea of having the master ensuite at the front, that way the deck is off the bedroom instead of the washroom. The only trade-off is that the two large windows at the front will now be in the washroom...but instead there will be a nice view at the back...maybe I'll replace the door with a patio door.
And I will definitely be dividing the bonus room in the way that you showed me. That room was overly large and this is a much more efficient use of space. I also love that this set up allows access to the bonus room from upstairs.
The large upper deck sounds lovely, but I'm afraid it will darken the rooms below. I was already concerned about the shadow that deck will cast...I love oodles of sunshine:)
I really can't express my gratitude to everyone (especially lavender) for sharing your time and expertise. I feel like our home will be so much nicer now thanks to all of you, and now I really can't wait to move in! I'll keep you updated as to our progress:D