Your kitchen/dining/living is the same setup as my plan! The one thing I don't like about yours is that your dining has no windows because of the office/pantry space. That's the one area I would reconsider, not just because of the light, but it feels very tacked on. I would work a pantry into the mudroom area, which gives you easier access bringing groceries into the house. Then just ask yourself if you really need a separate gaming, gym, and office area, or can a few spaces get consolidated? Seems office and gaming library could be in the same space.

Problems I see immediately with this plan:

1. The guest bath/powder room is buried in the house. Do you really want guests walking past laundry and through the mud room to use the bath? Switch the laundry and powder room locations.

2. Getting furniture into the master bedroom will be tricky with the 90 degree turn required. I would eliminate the shelf or art niche or whatever it is and extend the wall/door to meet the wall of the living room.

3. Lacks a guest closet upon entering the house.

4. I would add French doors, minimally, to the gaming room/library. Gaming can get loud and this provides some quiet space.

5. Agree that the office/pantry seems like an after thought.

What I do like is that the bedrooms have windows on two walls.

So to give you an idea of what you might have.

1. The red arrow is what you'll be doing every time you need to bring laundry to/from your bedroom/bath area to wash. That's a long way to be shlepping laundry.

2. The green line is the route your guests will need to take whenever they need to use a bathroom. Do you really want them walking past your mudroom and laundry to use the facilities?

3. The blue is showing how you have to walk across the kitchen to get to the pantry. Ideally you'd want the pantry closer to your garage.

Speaking of the pantry, why is it stuck onto what is considered some of the best real estate in a house? An exterior wall? Exterior walls should be saved for bedrooms, public rooms and things like kitchens.

Plus it blocks light into the kitchen and is practically useless considering one has to walk through the office to get to the pantry.

Same thing with the master closet. Why is it given prime real estate on an exterior corner?

Do you need a gaming/library room, an office and a gym?

Not a fan of a master bedroom sharing a wall with the living room. Noise.

Walking up the stairs and what is the first thing you're confronted with? A wall and the bathroom. It's like the staircase was an afterthought.

I'm personally not a fan of a separate room for the toilet and bath because then someone using the toilet is constantly having to touch the door after using the facilities. It's a yuck factor. The solution if you prefer that arrangement is to have a swinging door without a lock so the person doesn't have to touch a door handle after doing their business.

I know I would still need to get with my architect to come up with the elevations, the exterior style, etc, but I absolutely love this floor plan.

I would suggest that you not tie your architect's hands by making him/her tack on an exterior to this plan. Good design doesn't work that way. The exterior elevations will affect the interior and visa versa and a lot depends on the site too.

Trust me when I say a person of design talent will be able to give you something so much better than this basic generic and not very good plan.

Wow - you've really come a long way since some of the first plans you had posted - nice work !

I think the suggestion made by rrah of switching the laundry and powder bath is great - it doesn't seem like a huge distance but moving the powder bath to a more central location will improve your layout.

What would you think about incorporating some type of long narrow upper loft space overlooking the two story great room? It would disrupt the symmetry of your two upper bedrooms but it could be an interesting area.

It seems as though the master bathroom needs a little more space or further development - it's not as interesting as it could / should be yet.

I'd be very interested in seeing more detailed drawings and providing additional suggestions - I'm having trouble reading most of the room sizes. If you'd like to email me higher resolution drawings, my contact information is on my profile.

Get the pantry off that corner of you can. The kitchen design need work. The fridge and cooktop are separated by the island in between.

If you swap the gym and the library, you can add a door to the bathroom and make using the gym more convenient. Then, the library can have doors to the foyer AND to the utility side, creating circulation in a house that doesn't have any.

A lot of great advice. Thanks!

revised floor plan

Better in terms of the powder room and not having the pantry taking away from your exterior space, but the stairs are still plopped in the middle of the house and as you climb them they still lead to a wall and a bathroom. Stairs should not just be a means to an end but should be considered an important space within the house too.

Your laundry is still far from your master bedroom and still has the circutious route to get from one to the other.

The master closet is still taking up precious corner space on outside walls and considering you don't want windows in clothes closets, that's not the best place for it. Plus YMMV but I personally do not like walking through my bathroom to get to my clothes.

The master still shares a wall with a public room so if someone stays up late or gets up early, it can impact on the sleep of the other person.

Again, why are you trying to hamstring your architect before even meeting with him/her? Just because you know how to use a CAD program doesn't make you a designer or an architect anymore than my knowing how to use a stethoscope doesn't make me a doctor.

I suggest you try to make the Gym or Gaming Library room a flex space with an attached bath and small closet. This way it can be a second downstairs bedroom in a pinch. You never know when you will need one, think elderly parents, teen ager with a sprained ankle or resale to a younger family. After all, you are in the planning phase and at this point all things are possible.

At this point, it's a three bedroom house with a lot of square footage. As an appraiser, it would be considered a functional obsolescence and it would reduce the potential valuation.

I'm confused by this thread. Is this just a floor plan that hasn't been to an architect yet? Or, a floor plan that has been developed with an architect involved?

I generally like to offer minor suggestions believing that the OP has carefully thought out the plan and has good reasons for what they're doing. Homechef59 pointed out the lack of bedrooms vs square footage. Consider adding a shower to the half bath adjacent to the gym.

There is plenty of room upstairs for each bedroom to have it's own bath. You're not saving money by trying to combine the baths. I would turn bedroom 3's closet into a bath giving it exterior windows. The sink area for the bath would become the closet and the bathing compartment would become the bathroom for bed 2.

Your idea books include pictures of charming stairs. None of which are straight runs. How the stairs interact with the 3 dimensional volume of the living room will have a huge impact on this house. Hopefully when you sit down with your architect you can come up with something closer to what you have in your idea books.

You are crippling yourself and your architect by starting with a floor plan and trying to change it to meet your needs. Go out and find a good architect, show them your site, tell them how you want to live (perhaps with a list of rooms/spaces you want), tell them how much you can afford, and answer their questions. They will come back in a few weeks with floor plans and exterior elevations that will meet your needs and fit the site better than any other design you will find in plan books or on the internet. You do not have to bring them plans, they will bring you plans.

Over the next several weeks you will be refining the design with your architect. I normally occurs in three phases: Schematic design, design development, and construction documents (drawings and specifications).

Deja vu?

To plus what Mark says, the role of the architect is to understand your site and your lifestyle to create a home that interacts and enhances both. He or she will find it much easier the less you hold onto preconceived ideas.

To plus what Mark says, the role of the architect is to understand your site and your lifestyle to create a home that interacts and enhances both. He or she will find it much easier the less you hold onto preconceived ideas.

Unfortunately, too often giving the information falls on deaf ears.

How did you get a revised floor plan back from an architect inside of a few hours on a Sunday?

Mill,

I was wondering the same thing

"How did you get a revised floor plan back from an architect inside of a few hours on a Sunday?"

Yeah, normally it's two months and that's only if the scanner is working...and of course it never is.

The fact the design got changed that quickly and there are no elevations yet makes me think the OP is doing this themselves for now. If they are it's not half bad. The good news is they do plan to or have started working with an architect. I hope he or she isn't too boxed in by this plan.

Anyone else notice the weird space between bedroom 3 and open to living below?

Yes, at this time I have been making the modifications. I have not contacted the architect yet, and of course I am open to any suggestions he/she makes, even if it comes down to scrapping this plan.

While it's fun to play with ideas, your best bet is to bring your needs and wants and not this plan. Let your architect come up with something that truly works for you and your family.

And site.

Paluwasha may be in the minority here and this is pure speculation but I really think the majority of folks who post "What do you all think of this before I take it to my architect", never quite get around to hiring a real architect. Maybe they were well intentioned when they posted but never quite got around to it, maybe they just didn't want to appear cheap in an endeavor involving a healthy six figures of their hard earned money, maybe they thought they had a better chance of getting better free professional advice if the possibility of future paid professional involvement is floated out there, who knows.

Again, pure speculation on my part and I'm sure there are a few folks who actually follow through, no doubt. Hopefully Paluwasha is one.

And as Mark noted, how does this thing relate to the site? I've always said that design should stop at the property lines, not at the exterior walls.

"If they are it's not half bad"

But that still leaves the other half. And in reality the tougher half as the elevations tie the entire home together.

"The good news is they do plan to or have started working with an architect."

They do/did? Sounds to me like IF they use anyone it will be a drafter, call me crazy but just a gut feeling...................

"just a gut feeling..................." Agree. I think most owner generated designs that have ceiling grids all figured out probably never see the inside of an architects office. But again, pure speculation on my part....just a gut feeling too!

I would say floor plans are not nearly half of the conceptual design. Conceptual design is at most 25% of what Paluwasha will need to get to the building department. Optimistically this represents maybe 10% or less of the architectural work.

I like ARG's comment about "design should stop at the property lines" but would amend it to say "beyond the property lines".

How can we design beyond the property lines? Maybe you mean "influenced"? Being influenced by what's beyond the property lines, and I agree there, if that's what you mean, but that's not the same thing as designing beyond the property lines, at least that's what I would think.

We do have the little zone in the right of way between the edge of pavement and the property line. :)

Actually I did give this some thought. We are being influenced by the area surrounding the site and having an impact on it. I'm thinking about my neighbors whose lights burn all night.

"We are being influenced by the area surrounding and having an impact on it." Or the weather for that matter.

I would call going beyond the property line, Sense of Place. Very important.

It’s mentioned earlier in this thread, but if any house plan poster had read even a dozen previous “hows my house plan look” threads....it’s deja vu all over again. I love lurking but this is painful to read over and over again, maybe it’s the human condition.

Although...if one has ever lived in a very well designed space, it’s really a different level of experience. Maybe for some folks “saving” money on the costs of building, in conjunction with not feeling the value that an architect adds...well. huh. Good design is not for everyone, and it’s not a requirement.

i keep thinking there’s a great analogy out there...one wouldn’t cut one’s own hair after watching you tube videos (well, maybe they would, you tube can be awesome)... or do surgery “because I slept in a motel 6 last night”... building a house is a crazy huge amount of money. Huh.

If you go to an architect with a house plan, what exactly are you expecting them to do? Give you the go-ahead? I don't mean to sound harsh, but to analogize, this is like giving a chef a heat-and-eat meal to work from, or giving a tailor a generic store-bought garment. To create something from nothing, according to requirements and restrictions, will give you something optimal, not average.

Although...if one has ever lived in a very well designed space, it’s really a different level of experience. Maybe for some folks “saving” money on the costs of building, in conjunction with not feeling the value that an architect adds...well. huh. Good design is not for everyone, and it’s not a requirement.

So true. My better half thinks he would be happy with four walls, a boob light overhead, a comfy lounge chair, a big screen tv, a place for a bed, a fridge with water and ice in the door, a cooktop and microwave.

He doesn't understand my stressing over every single detail. That is until we wound up living in a poorly designed apartment. Now he can literally can see and feel the difference between our former well designed condo and this place.

The problem is most people don't realize how important good design is until it's too late. And even then, they learn to adapt and decide it's not so bad, never realizing it could be so much better.

Your kitchen "work triangle" is blocked by the island. You will want clear paths from the cooking, the sink and the refrigerator.... If you have to dodge around an island while preparing meals it will eventually drive you nuts

Now he can literally can see and feel the difference between our former well designed condo and this place.

Unfortunately true. Bad design knocks on the door, screams in your face and is there at every turn. Good design blends in, and is only fully noticed and appreciated by designers. You don't notice it because it works well and calls no attention to itself.

I think you are onto something.