I hope you have a ton of money because both will be quite expensive to build with all the angles and bump-o's (Virgil's architect term) and the complicated roofs.

What is your land like? Where are the best views?

If you're spending 6 figures to build a large custom house, why would you want a generic poorly designed plan house, vs having a house designed specifically for your needs, wants and desires? Meaning why wouldn't you use an architect or person of design talent to design a house that will fit your lifestyle, your lot, your views and work best for retaining the best solar heating and cooling?

Here are two good threads to get you started:

Architect versus online plan

Beginning Bubble Diagram

You can do much better.

First, I'm not a poster that will automatically say, "Get an architect," but in this case I think you need an architect. Both of those plans will be very, very expensive to build. Both contain a lot of unnecessary corners on the exterior. All of those corners will cost you. For example, in the first plan the library could easily line up with the master and eliminate a corner. Both plans are overblown, not thoughtful about how people live, and waste a lot of space.

Just one example, in the first plan, the trash storage area is poorly thought out. Getting trash to the area
would require going outside, turning a few corners just to put out a bag
of garbage. The kitchen is a nightmare.

The second plan contains a lot of odd interior angles which adds up to wasted and inefficient spaces. For a house of this size I would expect a proper mudroom and a closet near the foyer. Neither exists. The breakfast area borders on unusable given the my estimated size and the location. The exterior is an odd combination of styles. There is a bit of a clean, more Craftsman-like vibe, a pseudo-European style combined with a ship with the porthole windows in the study, and some odd tower, maybe Spanish-influence, in the rear.

What do you like about these plans? Why do they work for you? With that amount of space you have much better options even in online plans.

I am also not one who automatically says "get an architect", especially since the house I am building is a modified log kit plan. (It truly benefited from running the kitchen through the Kitchen Forum here, but I'd already committed to the exterior I modified prior to finding GW, and they were milling the logs... there are only two relatively minor things I'd have done differently had I gotten here first, and one of those was completely MY fault!... but I have an acceptable work-around...)

But the plans you are linking to need simplification, and either find a good architect or a great draftsperson with visual acuity. You do need to work with the lot you are builing on. I was able to make my plan work out well with the landscape and siting, which is one major reason I chose the plan I chose. I thought about how I'd be spending morning, daytime, and evening, and how that would reflect on my serious desire for a walk out basement (I want a root cellar), and solar power on the roof. Your needs will differ, and discussions with experts will help you avoid mistakes.

Thank you all for your suggestions.

One devoted Dame and cpartist, thanks for your suggestions. My intention is definitely not to splurge on dollars. I am trying to find something that works within my budget. I agree both are fat plans and hence I am soliciting feedback.

Rrah, you definitely have provided some good insights. I never thought corners will add to the expense, on the first one I agree and I didnt like that trash storage and the angled garage. I didn't realize that on second plan, it's missing mud room, closet and also the small breakfast area.

I will start looking for other plans. The reasons why I liked these plans are, master bedroom on 1st floor, Mbr away from kitchen and family room with a living room separating mbr and kitchen/family area. And both have garages walking into kitchen. These for me are some of the basics I need. And an extra bedroom on 1st floor.

If any of you know any good plans that meet above criteria and within 4500-5000 sq ft range, please don't hesitate to post the links or send me a private message.

Artemis_ma, good feedback and the lot I have is also a walkout basement lot and I am not thinking of basement plan yet. That will be an additional project after the build out. Anyways, I will start looking for architect or draft persons.

Why are you insisting on using a plan factory? Why not at least explore using an architect or person of design talent?

Cpartist, I will definitely work with an architect. Only thing I am trying to get to is, find best plan to start with and then use that as baseline

As JDS says, you wouldn't bring a sandwich to a five star restaurant, so why bring a lousy plan to an architect?

Instead of bringing a plan and hamstringing the architect from the start, bring a list of your must haves, wants, needs and lots of photos. Do a bubble diagram showing how you'd like rooms to relate to one another. Then go with an open mind.

Stop spending time on the Internet looking at canned house designs from plan factories, and spend your time researching and selecting an architect whom you trust and with whom you can share your ideas, needs and wants so that progress may be matched with your family, budget and site. All of the plan factory plans have to be tailored to family, site and budget anyway. You're simply spending your time going in the wrong direction.

In my old neighborhood, my neighbor built the first house you linked. I don't know what your budget is but I know he probably spent 1.5 to 2 million. Very expensive home to build.

If you are in NC look at this architect. I love his work.

http://www.sullivandesigncompany.com/

I think you've already been dissuaded from these two house plans, but here are my thoughts on them:

First house:

- Extremely complicated exterior and roofline that'll be very expensive to build ... also expensive to keep with a two-story living room. Fireplaces are far from cheap ... would you really use three of them?

- Both houses have a curved staircase. Is this something you're looking for? If so, know that this is a very, very expensive option.

- I do like the location of the library ... open to both the foyer and the master.

- Note that the dining room is very far from the kitchen; you'd have to walk down the hall, past the half-bath multiple times to get the dishes and food to this area ... I fear that the reality is that you'd never use this room.

- The kitchen is very poorly laid out, and for the size of the house it's rather small. Why a rather large desk, given that a library is included elsewhere?

- The half bath is so tiny ... could you go into the room and close the door?

- The breakfast area is nice and large, and I like its proximity to the kitchen.

- The living room and the breakfast room, which are side by side, each have a special window layout ... but who'd want two different, special window layouts side by side? They'd compete.

- The laundry is not convenient to the master.

- Note that the master suite is larger than either the living room or the family room. Is this really how you'd want to use your space?

- Typical overblown master bathroom.

- Upstairs, two nice-sized bedroom ... and then a 25' bedroom. To put this into perspective, my family room and breakfast room together are 27' in length. Do you really need /want this much space in a bedroom?

Second house:

- Again, complicated exterior, expensive build, no function from any of this.

- Same problem with the dining room: It's far from the kitchen and probably won't get much use ... however, this plan has a much smaller breakfast room; it'll be cute, but that area'll be tight.

- This kitchen might be a little better than the other one, but it seems quite tight ... as if it has a little too much cabinetry.

- Again, the laundry room is very poorly placed ... you'll have to wind your way through the kitchen carrying baskets.

- The upstairs bedrooms are all nice without being overblown, though the bathrooms are all complicated (read, expensive to build).

- The game room isn't large. What do you plan to put in that room?

I will start looking for other plans. The reasons why I liked these
plans are, master bedroom on 1st floor, Mbr away from kitchen and family
room with a living room separating mbr and kitchen/family area. And
both have garages walking into kitchen. These for me are some of the
basics I need. And an extra bedroom on 1st floor.

If any of you know any good plans that meet above criteria and within
4500-5000 sq ft range, please don't hesitate to post the links or send
me a private message.

Your wish list isn't particularly difficult to fulfill, but the two plans you brought up had many other similarities ... I think you have other wants that you're not clarifying here.

You're looking at more than double the size of a typical American's house. How many people are going to live here?

Mr. Sullivan appears to be a building designer, not an architect.

Mrspete, thanks for the detailed feed on both plans. It's going to be us, 3kids and in-laws so 7 people. Even we thought our wishlist is simple enough, that's why I started exploring these plans.

Other than what I stated above, everything else is nice to have based on the budget.

up until this forum, I didn't even realize curved staircase and more corners add to the cost. Very insightful.