Are you in a flood plain? Or is that setback the flood plain line? Very important issue to understand for you, your family, your lender, your insurance company, etc.!

A simple and functional plan--congratulations! The roof plan suggests you will have a gracious welcoming front porch, as well as on the back porch for what I assume is a lovely lot, but neither porches are shown on the floor plan.

How will access be achieved for the bonus space on the second floor? And how will that large open area at the top of the stairs be made functional?

Good luck on your project.

Do you need a 4 car attached garage? The split placement of that layout gives the dual garages a LOT of your exterior wall space, dwarfing and dominating the availability of windows, views and natural light. It looks like you have a small buildable envelope on your lot. Could you line up the garages and do a side entry so that it takes up less mass and less exterior perimeter?

And that's a pretty complicated roofline...

Virgil, the set back is to accommodate a hundred year old flood plain. The plan is still kind of a work in progress, so we still need to add in the porches and plan out the bonus room and hallway space upstairs. Thank you!

Jannicone, I should of mentioned that the aerial view-site plan is not the exact house we are planning on. It has the same general shape though. We are just going to do gable roofs. My husband is pretty committed to having all 4 cars attached. Having all 4 bays be side-entry would make the house a lot deeper and we don't have enough room for that.

The stairs coming down into the foyer look awkward and like a bit of a trip hazard. With kids, I prefer stairs in an L with a landing partway up, but that would change other areas of your design.

For the office and the master bedroom, with the double doors, consider where you'll put light switches so they're not covered by the doors when opened. For the bedroom, I'd switch to a single door. I think the closet in br3 would function better as a reach in with one long bar/shelf across the back, than a walk in. Not sure of the dimensions, but remember that hanging clothes take up about 2 feet. (Check the perpendicular hanging spaces in the master closet too, for the same issue.)

Are the garages meant to be single or double? I'm asking because the doors are double, but you show just one car in each. If double, another foot or two would be great to allow for door swing (see below.) If they'll always be single, then you have plenty of space. I like that you have separated the garages to avoid a huge mass.

I like that you have planned for a front hall closet and a mudroom. Post on the kitchens forum too for great layout advice there.

Looks like a very nice lot and what an exciting project!

The staircase is awful, coming out into the walk space. Looks like you had to push the back of the house inwards and thus thrusting the stairs out into the hall. Not a feature I want high lighted from a side view upon entering my home.

There are a few things I feel could be better.

First what do the elevations look like?

Secondly, your house will be dark because your main rooms face north and your living room faces NE meaning it will only get sun in the morning. I realize you have setbacks but I'm wondering if another arrangement would work better to help more light and better passive solar heating/cooling might work better. You don't say where you are, but if you're in a cold weather climate, keeping those back rooms warm in the winter will be tough.

The kitchen and entry from the garage. I would move the whole kitchen area against the garage wall and have the entry from the garage closer to the staircase so you are not walking through your kitchen/dining area constantly. This would also create a direct path to the other rooms in the house.

That straight stair run is a hazard plus as zookeeper mentioned, it coming into the hallway is not very attractive.

What is that wasted hallway space upstairs that is the size of a bedroom?

Double doors into a bedroom are not a good feature. Where do you put light switches?

Some of your doorways look too narrow. What is the width of the one into the kids bathroom for example?

Toilet room doors should never open in.

Hmm...I've never seen a toilet room where the door didn't open into it!

Yes, the stair is ill placed with regard to the foyer and on the top side, I like to get an open space like that's light filled. Totally different house with different criteria but here's an example. "12" is the open space.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I believe the entryway hallway is 9’ and the front door with side lights is 64”. I agree that it would be more pleasing to the eye if the staircase was more tucked away. I’ll post an update next week. If you see anything else that would be better changed please let me know. Thanks!

What happened to THIS IDEA that Nick was working on for you? And what does the elevations on this plan look like?

There were some elements of Nicks plan that I really liked and I am almost certain that if we had started from scratch working with Nick or another architect of talent we could of created a great house. Unfortunately my husband feels like it wouldn't be worth while to start over, and since I respect his opinion I am going to try my best to work with the draftsman. The elevations are OK, but the facade is not all the way there yet and I'd like to make some changes to it before posting.

"Unfortunately my husband feels like it wouldn't be worth while to start over"

After 41 years of doing this I know that's the exact reason unsolicited wholesale free design is a poor business model "come on". Huge effort that's ultimately subject to too many dozens of variables that are out of the control of the designer.

Unfortunately I think it's showing that your husband doesn't trust working with an architect or a person of design talent. Too bad since it's a heck of a lot of money to get wrong.

He doesn’t trust his wife’s judgement about how wrong things are either. You can’t fix a marriage equality issue with either a drafter or an architect.

Can your husband get by with a slightly smaller office in order to address the awkwardly jutting stairs?

This plan addresses that and the flaws I see in the kitchen plan. It's a bad idea to stick a tall item in the middle of a counter run. Plus you had both clean-up and prep zones in the same aisle and you have enough space to separate these 2 functions.

The bench in the entry can be built-in or free-standing, including shoe storage or not.

Your husband needs to be the one posting. Every sales person knows the perils of having the conversation with one half of a couple and then finding out that they were not talking to a decision maker. The decision maker HAS to be in the conversation.

And he has to be the one that wants something better. It’s too bad he doesn’t get the poor design issues. It’s only the most expensive purchase that you will ever make. Not getting it right has significant long term consequences.

"...Unfortunately my husband feels like it wouldn't be worth while to start over..."

Bob thinks this may not turn out for the best...

Bob can come sit by me, Virgil. I have an extra hard cider if he'd like.

It would be far, FAR more worthwhile to spend extra time in the design phase. Changes on paper might cost you a little bit of the hourly fee of the draftsperson. That's a pittance compared to corrections when you see it framed and go, "Oh dear, this is a mess!"

Or, as Dear Old Dad (who will probably drink Bob's cider, if he doesn't hurry up) used to say - "Things that you find a little objectionable when you move into a house will absolutely infuriate you once you've been in it for a few years."

If you have any helpful feedback about the layout I posted I would really appreciate it! Otherwise, it just kind of feels unproductive. Thanks!

It feels unproductive because it's not what you want to hear. You want to hear that it's basically a pretty plan and that all that needs to change is to move a door swing from out to in, or flip the toilet to the opposite wall.

However this is the third thread you've started and in each one we've suggested you work with a person of design talent. I believe I even messaged you privately to make a suggestion or two. It is amazing what we think we know about designing and building a house and really what the reality is.

If you think this is hard now, wait until you start the actual build and the GC comes up to you and says, Mrs L, "do you want the whatchamacallit over here, or do you think it would be better in the ceiling?" "Oh and Mrs L, there are seven thingamabobs that have to go in 8 holes. We can wait for the 8th thingamabob, which will take 2 months, or I can gerry rig something to work. What do you want to do?" And the thousands of other decisions that have to be made. Everything from the fun things like faucets to the not so fun things like how to make sure the AC ducts don't impact your closet space. It only gets harder.

And everything you don't get right now on paper will cost you a bundle more later either in change orders or like Holly said when you hate it every single time you go past whatever it is that bugs you.

Getting back to your plans. This is nothing like the other plans you first posted and even less like the plan that Nick worked up for you. First of all it's smaller and more suited for a very small lot the way it's laid out. So what happened to all those grand plans?

The house now is about 1/2 the size of what you started with. With the very compact size of the house, yet the 4 garages attached like appendages overwhelming the size of the house, it's not a house for a 1.2 acre lot. I'm not saying that a house has to be large, but it has to flow well and be well laid out and the garages shouldn't be larger than the house.

Personally I don't understand why your husband is getting HIS office and HIS 4 car garage. What exactly do YOU get from the house? He has the office and his garages. Do you even have an away space to do anything like crafts, read, or ???

Kinda looks like a garage with a house attached at first glance.

I don't like the master bedroom sitting in the NE corner of the house and not having a window opening on the east wall. I like having sunlight in the bedroom in the morning. Unless it's a powder room, kitchen or laundry, I like to have a window on each wall in a corner room

Cpartist, thats a good question! I love to cook. So, I’m looking forward to a good sized kitchen and pantry. I’m also looking forward to having a bathroom with a separate tub, walk in shower, and makeup desk. I have more clothing so I get the larger side of the WIC. As far as a reading spot...I don’t have very much time for it right now, but I do like to read. I imagine an arm chair in the corner of the master would be perfect for that. I also like to exercise, so I’m thinking one of the bonus rooms or bedrooms could hold my exercise equipment until we have more children. And the garage will hold 2 of the vehicles I drive, one family and one for fun. My husband also has a full sized truck, fun car, and motorcycle. This garage would be great to accommodate what we have, plus some of his smaller projects. This house is a little over 3,000 sq feet which I think is a great size for a family. One thing that the house doesn’t include that I wanted is a sun room with a small endless pool. I opted out of that right now, but I may consider adding it in again. I was thinking possibly the east side by the great room. It’s just a big investment and I’ve never tried an endless pool before, so I’m not convinced I’d like it.

But you've gotten lots and lots of feedback - push the stairs back, rethink the kitchen, etc. Heck, you even had Nick do up another plan for you elsewhere.

There are a lot of drawbacks to this plan. For me, the largest one would be that the garage, as it's currently placed, robs you of windows on two sides of the house on the first floor AND what windows you do have are on the sides that are going to get the least about of light. And none of the flaws in this plan are easily correctable by a simple "move this wall a foot" sort of thing. Which is why you're basically hearing "try again." You've got a large enough lot that you should be able to do better.

I would also be extremely cautious as regards that setback. We've had two floods in the last 10 years that exceeded the 100 year flood line. I'm WAY out of the way of that, and I've still had enough water problems to last a lifetime.

Mr. L. - Start over, there is a better design for this site and your needs.

SMH...Virgil is a brilliant architect and an artist. And he and Bob like your house. I'm not a brilliant architect and have not an artistic bone in my body and for what it's worth I like your house. Is it perfect? No. But neither is mine.

I don't think anyone here has any business talking about the dynamics of your marriage.

I hope you stick around.