Nice plan! I can't help you with retractable screens....but I made a few small changes, FWIW :)

Mrs. Pete, I really like this plan. I rarely type that! I also know how rare a nice floor plan with a front kitchen is. Good find.

Two of my pet peeves are sliding doors and having to walk around dining furniture to get outside. I would consider scooting the wall between the screen porch and the opene porch to the left two feet, put a back door to the porch directly from the kitchen entrance. The dining room window as planned would probably have to be moved to the right and or shrunk a bit.

I see that there's symmetrical design happening in that screened porch. I'm thinking if you just centered the area outlined in orange (excluding the grill area) the aesthetics should not be compromised.

Here's a version...with furniture! LOL Window seats in living room and master bedroom....and banquette for dining.

For the screened porch, would you consider a seating area (wicker?) with walkway though the middle. There's no coffee table, but I think it would still work....at least I hope so, because I think this is what we'll have to do with our tiny sunroom area :)

I can't comment on retractable screens because we don't have them but I will say that we exit our house through the back door, walk through our screened porch and through another door to get to the carport/backyard. This has not been a big deal and was very easy to get used to. I even had the screened door installed so that it swings in towards the inside of the porch and put a lever on the back door for those times that I have armloads of groceries because it is the entrance that we use from our parking area. Your porch is huge and I don't think you will be messing up any kind of seating by walking through there. JMO. Oh, and we have a grill just outside our screened porch and that also seems to work out good. DH just sits on the porch and walks in and out to check on whatever it is that he is cooking.

I wish I could hear more about retractable screens themselves, but I appreciate y'all's thoughts on layout.

BenjesBride, I'm glad you like the plan! We're making some tweaks here and there (for example, both bathrooms will change significantly, and we're not doing some of the fancy ceilings), but I think it's going to be a good retirement house for us. At 1905 sf, it's moderate in size, but I like the way the kitchen is "right there, but also tucked away", and I think the butler's pantry and utility room will make for a comfortable floor plan with good flow (and we plan to open a doorway between the utility room and what will be a single master closet).

I do not share your aversion to sliding doors. In fact, I like them: they're practical and don't require floor space to swing open. I'm going to choose the new gliders that look like French doors.

I agree with you that I don't like the idea of being required to squish around dining room furniture to reach a door ... but this dining room is 16' wide, and our dining room table will (most of the time) be minimized down to 5' (I like the idea of a small table when it's just the two of us), leaving plenty of space on each end ... and I'm planning on a banquette seating (along with a bookcase).

I can't seem to make my dining room inspiration pix "show", but here's a link:

https://www.houzz.com/s/u=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5ob3V6ei5jb20vcGhvdG9zLzU5MDc1Ni9MaXZpbmctUm9vbS10cmFuc2l0aW9uYWwtZGluaW5nLXJvb20tb3RoZXItbWV0cm8/m=8/t=77/sharedItem=

But, yes, I have considered that the dining room is going to need to accomodate walkways, and I think we'll be fine. We're in the South, so we'll do most of our entertaining outside and in good weather, so the expanded table won't be a problem the majority of the time.

We're planning a pool -- so ignore that curved patio and spa; our actual backyard thoughts are different.

LavendarLass, you're usually quick to grasp other people's ideas (and make them better), but in this case you've flip-flopped my thoughts:

I'm thinking that the smaller, covered-but-not-screened portion of the porch will be a walkway ... while the larger portion on the left will be for seating.

As for keeping things "centered", I can't say I'm overly fussy about that. The plan shows a cathedral ceiling, but we may go with a flat ceiling for the porch ... not sure about that.

I'm thinking about the idea of a second door from the living room, but I'm not sure I want to devote space to a second door (doors do require more space than windows because they swing open and affect furniture placement). I'm thinking about it ... but I still lean towards the idea of just one door.

Thanks for your thoughts, please keep 'em coming. And I'd especially like to hear about retractable screens!

I flipped the porches, because I thought you were in Alabama(?) and needed the screened porch off the bedroom. But maybe those mosquitoes were worse in Arkansas...and it's been a long time since I lived there. I was five (LOL)

It also might be nice to leave the dining room and bedroom sliders open...without bugs coming into the house. And you gain a nice seating area off the bedroom this way. I guess I'm confused about the 'walking outside to get to the screened porch' idea.

And you're right, I do try to take people's ideas and make them better....that's why I swapped the porches. It may not be what you like...in which case, please disregard. But we all offer suggestions that the OP might not like, which we think may work better for them :)

I was considering the retractable screens but for us a pool cage would wind up being the better option because of bugs and critters getting into the pool too.. The retractable screens are almost as expensive as a full pool cage!.

mrspete - if you build it autumn.4 will come! I love that out of the way yet open kitchen and pantry layout. I have mrspete kitchen plan envy! Nice dining room idea too. I think it will be just fine.

We also walk through the screened porch to get to the back yard. Like jdez I don't find it to be any big deal but we don't have a pool and a lot of traffic there either. I think the size of the screened portion is great. Ours is 14x12 and sometimes I wish it were a little longer for 2 different seating groups. We had 9 of us out there this weekend and it worked fine but it would be nice to have a bit more elbow room.

Sorry no help on retractables but I did bump your post up for you!

L-Lass, I'm in North Carolina, but we sure do have mosquitoes. Off-topic, but has anyone tried that new mosquito stuff that doesn't kill the mosquitoes but prevents them from breeding? We had it for the first time last summer, and wow does it work.

Yes, leaving the doors open does sound nice.

My idea was that it'd be nice to be able to walk from the dining room straight out the back door ... with the only door to open being the slider in the dining room.

I had also considered screening in the whole thing ... keep the exit door in the dining room and have another door straight ahead of it ... now I'm thinking that might be the better option.

But, no, I'm not loving the flip-flop idea.

I understand about improving other people's things. In my work, I often proofread and critique other people's creative writing /photography, and although I'm not so good at STARTING a project, no one beats me in polishing up other people's work!

Cpartist, retractable screens around a whole pool would be so expensive! And -- obviously -- we'll have a fence around the pool /back yard area, so that'll keep out big critters.

Glad you like the layout, Autumn! As I said earlier, we'll tweak it a bit here and there, but I'm sold on it, and -- yes -- the kitchen /butler's pantry, and its flow and connection to the rest of the house is kind of the "it" factor that attracted us to it. We have a garage issue, which I think I'll post in a separate thread, but I think it's do-able.

Okay, this didn't scan particularly well, but now I'm thinking that simply screening in the whole thing (with the retractable screens) is the best choice.

I drew in sliding doors for the porch-to-yard area ... but that's probably not best. If I do the retractable screens, I'm not sure what type of doors to use.

Oops! Wrong state, right area :)

I like the idea of screening in the entire porch. You can still have your walkway, but no bugs! And you can leave the sliders open in the evening....a win/win.

I think you misunderstood me MrsPete. I wouldn't have put retractables around the pool, only at the porch area. Even just having the retractables at the patio area across the back of the house, was almost as expensive as the pool cage over the patio/porch area plus pool.

When cpartist mentioned pool cage, I was thinking something like this....

Yeah, I think I'm determined to go with screen across the whole thing.

Yeah, CPartist, I misunderstood that.

I don't know pool cages; that's not a thing here. In my mind, that's a Florida thing, but I don't think I've ever seen one in person.

Mosquito treatment:

http://www.amazon.com/Summit-111-5-20-Pack-Mosquito-Dunk/dp/B0002568YA

I know ours had the name "dunk" in the title. They look like doughnuts, so I remember thinking, Duncan Doughnuts. They're for ponds, birdbaths, etc. We have a small pond, and these things work wonders.

thank you for the info on the mosquito treatment.

Yes jdez, that's the pool cage. I personally hate them but it seems in FL they are more practical. Also what swayed me was if I was behind the screen under the covered area and I wanted to go take a dip in the pool, or check on something it would mean I'd first have to raise the screens. So for us it's a pool cage. If I didn't have a pool or the pool was further from the house, I would probably do the rollups. I have seen them in action and they work great.

mrspete, did you end up going with retractable screens? If so, how do you like them? Who did you go with? We are looking at this option as well for our future back porch.