Ok so I am getting a little smarter and think I figured out how to post the plans directly. We would love any and all feedback/ideas thanks!!!

Not bad at all for someone who claims to know nothing about house design...

When you say the exterior walls are set, does that mean you've already poured the foundation and built the shell. Kind of odd to start that before your plans are all set. But, maybe you're rebuilding on top of the foundation from a previous house or somehthing like that.

So, here are a few suggestions to help you make it better. (I'm assuming the stairs can't be moved either since they were probably set when the foundation was done.)

First thing, if you plan to hang clothing in your closets, all your reach in closets need to be two foot deep from interior wall to interior wall. The two foot measurement can't include 4 inches of wall on one side b/c then, your closet will only have 20 inches of space from wall to wall and you won't have room to hang clothes. So, bedroom #1 will need to be made a little smaller OR you need to take a few inches away from the living room or something.

Same problem with the closet in the laundry room and the reach-in closet in the master bedroom.

Next, your bathrooms are quite a bit bigger than they need to be. The bath by bedroom #1 has about 75 sq ft of floor space. Unless you are designing the bath for wheelchair access, 75 sq ft is about twice as big as a secondary bathroom needs to be. Maybe you really want huge bathrooms but, given how small that bedroom is, I'd suggest redesigning the bathroom to be smaller and giving the room that is "saved" back to the bedroom. If a bath doesn't need to have wheelchair access, you can fit a full sized tub, a toilet, and a 32" wide vanity into just 35 sq ft. 50 sq ft can be made accomodate a wheel-chair accessable bath if designed right. So, right now you have a lot of wasted space in the bathroom.

Similarly, the back powder room that you've label "Jeff's Office" (LOL) is more than big enough to hold a full sized bath. A toilet and nice sized vanity will fit into a 5' x 5' space quite nicely. 5'x6' is a spacious powder room for a 2500 sq ft or smaller house.

Then there is the size of the separate toilet room in the master bath. At 4'x 8', it is HUGE!!! Again, the only reason to do that is if you need to get a wheelchair in and out of that room. And, if that is the case, you'ld be better served not having a separated off toilet room. If it were me, I'd steal 3 feet from the side of each of the powderroom and toilet room to add to the back hallway (which I assume leads to your garage.)

An extra 3 feet of width on the back hallway would make large enough to function as a really usefully sized mudroom. At 6ft wide, it is too wide for a hallway and not wide enough to be a mudroom.

The vanity area of your master bath is also rather large. I think you could easily make it shallower - which is good since you need to make the reach-in closet wider and still have plenty of room for the hallway into the bedroom. Of course, that would probably mean that your 8' x 4' tile shower would have to be a little shorter but I don't think you realize just how BIG an 8'x4' shower is going to be. I have one that is 5' x 3.5' and I can tell you that it is PLENTY big enough for two not-so-small adults to shower together (blush).

I think your kitchen design could also use a bit of tweaking. The space allocated for kitchen is fine but....

You have nothing to block the view of your kitchen sink from the front door. I don't know about you but I almost always have at least a few dirty dishes in the sink or sitting next to it. I would not want dirty dishes to be on display the minute guests walk into the the front door. I also am not a fan of cooktops on an island. While they look good in the magazines, having people sit right across from boiling pots strikes me as a recipe for disaster...especially if those people are children! I'd rather see the cooktop against a back wall and, if possible, OUT of the way of most kitchen traffic. Which brings me to the location of the fridge. It's good that you're thinking in terms of recessing the fridge somewhat. Modern fridges are ridiculously deep and stick out beyond traditional 2 ft countertops by as much as 12 to 16 inches. But, if you can find a way to do it, try to locate the fridge so it can be accessed from the main dining area without having to walk between the sink and stove. Children and guest who aren't cooking often access the fridge (for drinks and things) WHILE the chief cook is fixing dinner. It's better if they don't have to get in the cooks way to grab a soda.

I'm also a bit concerned about the location of the pellet stove being so close to the top of the staircase. Thirty plus years ago, DH and I spent three winters in Maine living in a house heated with a woodstove and I was always thankful that it sat in a corner of the living room where we didn't have to walk next to it to get from one part of the house to another. That sucker got HOT! Maybe pellet stoves are more user friendly than our Franklin stove was but if not, I'd sure want to move that thing as far away from traffic flow patterns as possible. I certainly wouldn't want it right by the staircase.

Finally, I'm guessing that you intended to put more windows in than you've shown. I like the fact that all of your main rooms have windows on two sides. That really lets the light in nicely. But, don't you want a window in each of your bathroom and your powder room? It looks as if your laundry room backs up against the garage so you won't be able to have a window there. Too bad. Natural light in the laundry room really helps make it a pleasanter place to work. Maybe if you revamped the master bath so it took up a bit less space, you could move the powderroom over next to the stairs with the pantry between it and the kitchen and then put the laundry against the outside wall (where the powderroom is now). That way the laundry could have a window. Of course if Jeff really spends lots of time in "Jeff's office", he might really want a window in there. Me, I'd give up the window in the PR in order to be able to have one in the laundry room.

I know this looks like a lot of negative commentary but actually, most of it is just tweaking your plan a tiny bit. Hope some of this is helpful.

We have a wood stove and have had to "fence" it off to keep our young grandchildren from burning themselves on it. When they are horsing around, they forget to be careful.

I agree with almost everything bevangel says, except that I think you can do a mudroom with less than 9' in width--7' could work, depending on how you lay it out.

Anne

I have some thoughts:

The entry way: right now, there isn't a foyer. You open the door and you're in the living room. I've lived in that sort of home, and it means anyone who comes to the door is "in" the house-and in yours, as bevangle pointed out, in your kitchen as well.

15 x 13'6" is not a very big master bedroom, although it's not tiny. If you have a king size bed and a couple of dressers you might find it rather tight. Be sure that you can arrange your furniture given the configuration of windows.

There isn't a linen space in the master bath, although there's enough space there that you could carve some out.

My tile shower is 4' x 6'. It is huge--definitely big enough for the two of us to shower together--and would be big enough for a seat if one of us reaches the point where we need to shower sitting down. From a cost point of view, if you plan on putting a door on your shower, keep the dimension to less than 6'. Ours is slightly over and that really limited our options and added to the cost of the shower doors.

And lastly, some unasked for advice: if you don't know much about house design and you're acting as GCs, I think you should consider consulting a professional somewhere in this process. This is a big undertaking even for people with experience, and you don't want to make a costly mistake because you were unwilling to pay for some professinal advice. (My advice is worth exactly what you paid for it :-)

Good luck!

Bevangel, jimandanne, and bethohio3~
Thanks for the great ideas/feedback!

We also agree about the bathrooms... they all need windows and we knew the master bath was too big. There was talk of cutting down the size of the toilet room and using a small portion of it as a closet. We have also been talking about the need for more storage space in the master bath and that the shower should be cut down. We are thinking of making it a 4x6. (and using some more of the space in the bathroom for storage. )

I don’t know much about the other sizes of the bathrooms…….this will be something we will be looking into for sure. We would like the master and the main bathroom to be wheelchair accessible. We don’t need it currently, but as this is the FOREVER house I would rather be prepared for the need rather than wish we had it later.

Question about the laundry room/ hallway area. So our thought is that we will line up the doors from the garage, hallway and master bath. This will increase the size of the laundry room. I want to turn this into a laundry and mudroom. Is that not as common? Do most people keep them separate? We had also talked about using pocket doors to close off the laundry room area…I know they don’t keep out the sound, but it would keep the doors out of the way. My thought is that when someone (muddy tired farmer husband and one day grubby children) would come in from the garage, walk straight into the laundry room and find a bench to sit and take their boots off, a big wash sink, and lots of storage space to house all those things that you don’t want in your garage. ☺ plus if it is all in a combined laundry/mud room I could shut the doors and hid the mess from the constant stream of visitors.

I also want to move the sink to a different spot in the laundry room and maximize that space a little more.

Kitchen:
I have been saying that the fridge is in the wrong spot and so many people told me it was ok that I was starting to think I was crazy. Lol. I am glad that it was noticed as well. I think even if it was swapped with the oven and pushed down that wall a foot or two it would make a world of difference.
We are putting an induction cook top on the island to hopefully alleviate the issue of burning hands or leaning over the hot counter. I never thought about the dirty dishes in the sink! Yikes! I will have to think about that one. The reason the sink is where it is (and actually the reason the house is positioned as it is…) is because it is facing a small creek that runs through the property. When you look out from the kitchen you will have a view of the property and the creek �" (beautiful ☺)

Everyone’s ideas and advice were already things we had been thinking about, or a new idea/realization that we need to consider. Boy am I glad I found this website!

So much to do but we are enjoying the process. We have a few close friends who are builders that we are consulting, but we plan on hiring someone on a consult basis to guide us through the “unknown” ☺

Wait a minute, now you are mentioning future children -- but this house has only two bedrooms. I'm confused.

It is VERY difficult to plan a house for a family (especially one you don't even have yet) AND as a forever home.

I almost didn't respond at all because this plan is so vague, and because I see so many problems with it. You can't mean to start building with just this!

The kitchen is poorly designed and won't be easy to work in. Considering this is the largest investment you will probably make don't you want your plan to be the best it can be? Hire someone to help.

Since I am a designer I will give you a few reasons why the kitchen is not great. You never want your double ovens and your fridge next to each other, why would that work for you? Your dishwasher is on the other side from the cabinets where you will keep your dishes which doesn't make any sense. You have no prep space around the sink and your Island will look a little strange with the cooktop squished to one side. This space has so much potential but as it stands it will not funtion well and will not be an asset to you and your family in the future.

Seriously, understand when you are out of your ability to design, houses can be the most welcoming places or they can just not work....

Okay, I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan. I feel like there's alot of wasted space.

Here are the issues that come to mind:

- no defined entry, although that could be fixed with furniture placement. But the bigger issue is that you walk in and see straight into the kitchen. I'm all for open floor plans, but that's a bit too open.

- You can definately fit in 3 bedrooms and I would seriously consider it. Move the staircase down a few feet and reconfigure bed #1 and the bathroom and you should definately be able to fit two smaller bedrooms there plus a hall bath.

- the kitchen design is lacking in function. I would not put the cooktop on the island. If something needs to be on the island it should be the sink. Put the fridge where the DW is. This will allow easy access from the dining area/family room without interfering with cooking. Put the cooktop where the ovens are and move the oven to the right at the end of the counter.

-I would get rid of the pellet stove, it seems to be an odd location for one.

-Are you sure the dining room is wide enough?

-What's the purpose of wrapping the counter tops to the back hallway?

-The master suite has a lot of wasted space. If you have such a large WIC then why do you have another closet in the bedroom? That shower is huge. I have a 4 x 5 shower and that feels almost too big.