You might be best served by finding a local architect to help with this.

It is a lot more complicated than you think. For me to fill the spaces with a good layout would be doing you a great disservice, and I would not do that to you. Find a local architect to design a home with you to meet your needs and fit your site.

I just looked through your post history. Fundamentally, what you're doing is saying, "please do the work of an architect for me, because I am unwilling to pay someone to do it." As Mark says, it's a lot more work than you think. While both professionals and amateurs on here are remarkably generous with their time and knowledge, what you're asking for really exceeds the scope of what most can/will provide in an online message forum. To be brutally honest, if I were a professional I'd be insulted that you were asking me to do a from-scratch design for free simply because you don't want to pay one of my peers for their services.

By far, your best option is to find and hire a local architect. If that is not an option you're willing to pursue, yours might be a case where an online plan is the next best solution. The current path, with you and your builder and his program designing something, would be my last choice. There was a LONG thread on here recently about whether an untrained homeowner could design his/her own home; there was much disagreement on the thread, but there was consensus that the only homeowner who has a chance at all is one with a combination of innate talent and willingness to do a LOT of research and reading to educate them selves with a small fraction of what professionals learn from their years of experience and training.

Well put.

I did not pay her to say that.

This what architects do for a living, same as you do something for a living.

But I will advise you to think of the house and lot as one. Don't stop designing at the exterior walls as your post suggests is your thought process. Stop the designing at the property lines.

Far too many houses are posted on this forum like they're some sort of Starship Enterprise floating in the black void of space with no context. And in design, context is everything.

But good luck with your build. Exciting times ahead!

Edit: Yeah Mark, but I'm sure you gave her some cookies.

Here's some of what we don't know: Why do you want open concept kitchen and living (other than it is what everyone on HGTV says they want)? You didn't mention dining. Do you want a dining room? The large closet - is this a master bedroom closet, or a large storage area? Maybe an office? What is the contingency? I want an office if it can fit in the footprint of my house? I want an office it it's pretty?

Not to be a dickhead - but if you want us to spend the time to give you free layouts, then be courteous enough to sit down for a few hours and write out your exact wants and needs in your new house. Every time you write "I want..." it should be followed with an explanations as to why "you want..."

I do not have a local architect. i live in a very, very small town. I thought this was a place to discuss and ask questions. I have never said I would not pay anyone. I have not been approached with that. i posted the original plan and everyone said it was a do over. I'm just trying to get a feel as to what was so wrong with it. I'm not asking anyone to sit down and spend ours working on this. just general placement. didn't mean to offend anyone by any means.

Better yet...

Seriously, here's what it looks like

Small towns are usually not that far from bigger ones. And they will surely have an architect or twos. You might even be surprised that there is one in your own town! It's not so much that we don't want to help you if not paid (an architect should absolutely expect to be paid), but that we have no context for this house or its occupants. Is it in the south, Alaska, Maine, CA? Are you going to live in it or flip it? What is your budget? What size family and ages of children, if any. As ARG said, it's not a spaceship hovering - it is on a lot, in a neighborhood, in a town, in a particular part of the country. All these things matter.

I believe you didn't mean to offend anyone - if I had I wouldn't have commented at all. That doesn't change the fact that asking someone to do for you for free what they do for a profession is often seen as insulting, intentional or not.

If you want to work with an architect there are a number of options. Some architects do remote work (architectrunnerguy is one of them). You could contact him or fine another like him who is willing to work remotely. You could also research options in the next largest town near you. Even if it's a couple hours of driving, isn't that worth it considering the investment you're making in a new, custom home? Our architect is local, but we only met in person a handful of times, as much of the back-and-forth required could be done via email and conference calls.

You also could work to find a good internet plan. This is one I've always liked. It's not perfect (among other things I'd rather have the laundry nearer the bedrooms, and I find the master bath/hall coat closet to be problematic), but it does have good things going for it. I believe you can purchase the plan with an option for them to make changes to it, if you go down that path.

https://houseplans.co/house-plans/1240/

Allison Ramsey also produces some good stock plans that might be worth a look.

https://www.allisonramseyarchitect.com/search-house-plans.cfm

let me just say, i was not aware this is a professional architecture discussion group. I'm not asking for anything for free. thanks.

Don't let a small town stop you. I have an office in Onekama, Michigan, population 402 (according to the 2017 census). I have designed homes throughout Michigan and the Midwest. This is not a solicitation for work, just to point out that architects make themselves available (depending upon their work load). Start looking for an architect close to your project and expand out from there until you find one you like.

OP - I looked at your previous threads and the message is clear and consistent. Your plan is poor, and tweaking it here and there is not going to help - you need someone with some design talent to rework the plan entirely. People here can provide advice but it's unrealistic to expect them, pros or otherwise, to do up a whole house plan in their spare time.

Incidentally, I used to live in a village of 2000 people, 200 miles from the nearest big city, and was able to locate an architect who was more or less local. At the very least, see if you can find a design and drafting firm because you really need someone better at this than your contractor

Stephanie, as someone said earlier, dont let the small town stop you. you can find an architect over the internet. they could be two thousand miles away, or 20 thousand miles away. heck you can find an architect half way across the globe to look this over for you inexpensively

Our architect is 2 hours away. We have yet to meet thanks to our lovely winter weather and road conditions but we’re hoping to finally meet in person on our build site this spring. I did a google search for architects in a 3 hour radius and then spent time going over their websites, projects, instagrams, etc (and Houzz pictures if they had any!) until I found one I thought we’d mesh well with. Contacted the office, chatted back and forth, may have sent a 4 page excel document about how we live, what we need vs want, how we entertain, who we entertain, etc etc. I’m not sure if our architect is excited about my thoroughness or terrified of it but he keeps answering my emails so I think we’re good!

If you’re not willing to do the work of setting out a program and If someone is going to have to pull teeth for every. single. important. detail. your costs just doubled. Write that 20K retainer check and put some money in the game if the effort to research and learn is too much for you.

If I send you my paypal account and you pay me, I'll do it. Otherwise. Hell no.

i do not know how to delete this thread or I would. again O am not asking anyone to work for free. thanks

OP - people are giving you the best advice they can, which is that you need to start over with someone who actually understands design. There are just too many problems with your plan as it stands to produce anything workable over the internet, and no one wants to be responsible for abetting a bad initial plan.

You are asking folks to put rooms into a box without providing the dimensions, the location and orientation of the house, how you live, and what exactly it is you want. You really need to put some work and effort into the information you're providing if you want to get meaningful feedback.