Here is the pathways and/or wasted space in the house in red. Not much room for actual living.

And that doesn't even point out the fact that you have to walk past the person at the sink just to get from the garage to the rest of the house, etc.

I can't see measurements though. It looks like your master closet is as big if not bigger than your master suite.

In the middle of the night, I would not want to walk around the tub just to get to the toilet.

Pity the child in bedroom 3 if someone in bedroom 2 needs to flush the toilet in the middle of the night. Plus I wouldn't want to open the door in a bathroom to open it onto the toilet.

Looks like those hall closets are at most 42" wide? How do you propose to get into those closets if they're so narrow? The back will become the place stuff goes to die.

How long is your vanity in the master bath?

Do you need a coat closet in the front of the house?

I notice there is no door on the j and j bath vanity area. Somehow that just reminds me of cheap motels.

Ideally pantries and fridges should be near one another so when cooking you can easily go from one to the other. Conversely they should be near one another so when putting away groceries you're not trekking clear across the kitchen to put away items.

Additionally, I'd ideally want my pantry closer to the garage.

What do the elevations look like and how is the house sited on the property?

What direction does the rear of the house face and how big is your property?

My thoughts are along cpartist too so I will only add some additional thoughts.

Do you want to be able to hear the cars going to the garage and the garage door opening from the master. Ours is side entry and there is a master bath and closet between and my bed is not on the wall that is by the driveway and the driveway is at least 40 ft away. The wall on that side doesn't have any windows and I hear all of this without a problem. May or may not be an issue for you.

The other thing I don't like (but you may) is the double gables on the front of houses. It adds cost and doesn't really add anything to make the house look better. I would just straighten those out. Have a little more space for less money.

I avoid:

1. Designs that do not relate to the site.

2. Closets where hanging clothes turn corners.

3. Windowless walk-in closets.

4. Large expanses of exterior wall without windows.

5. Masonry only on one exterior elevation

6. Hallways less than four feet wide.

7. Freestanding tubs that do not have sufficient space to clean around.

8. Closets with doors that insufficiently provide full access to the closet's content.

9. Exterior doors in living rooms that effect furniture layouts.

10. Bedrooms next to a bathroom without a sound barrier.

11. Clothes closets accessible from a bathroom.

12. Views from living rooms into bedrooms.

13. Pocket doors in spaces that need a door that are heavily used.

14. Gas chambers without windows.

15. Gas chambers.

16. Barn doors.

17. Looking through a screened porch from a living room to any view.

18. Jack & Jill bathrooms.

19. Corner bedrooms with windows on only one wall.

20. No coat closet at exterior entrances.

21. Door swings that impede into laundry room work space.

22. Doors that swing open and hit something before fully open.

23. Different ceilings in an open space that do not transition well.

24. Purposeless nested gables.

25. Overly large and open showers.

26. Having to walk through a bathroom to get to a clothes closet.

27. Narrow useless front porches.

Do you want to be able to hear the cars going to the garage and the garage door opening from the master.

Well, for me? Yes I do want to hear it! First of all, if it's me or DH coming and going, we are both likely to be awake. And if it's at night, I do want to hear DH or the teen/college kids coming home.

In the Jack-n-Jill, you have solved the problem of doors to the tub/toilet never being closed: They HAVE to be closed to use the vanities. But, how will you get the tub in there?

If you turn the hall closet into a reach-in closet for bedroom 3 (it already has the dimensions of a generous reach-in), you could maybe reconfigure the Jack-n-Jill.

The master bath is bigger than the kids' bedrooms. Seems like the bathroom doesn't need as much empty floor space...unless you use it as an exercise room?

cpartist's plan showing circulation paths is a little unfair. I would bet if you did a similar diagram for almost any house plan you would find almost as much circulation space. And so are the comments about hearing the garage door from the bedroom - the garage sits way back on the site and is adjacent to the closet, far away from the bedroom.

Having said that, there seems to be a great deal of wasted space in this plan, particularly the master bedroom suite. The closet, master bath and even the bedroom could be downsized significantly without much loss of efficiency. If this wing was shortened at each end you would save a lot of square footage and money, plus the path from garage to kitchen could be straightened out.

On the three bedroom side, I would eliminate the opening from living room to bedroom 4 and create a hallway behind the living room accessible from the opening adjacent to the study. Minimize the length of this hallway by pulling the doors to bedrooms 2 and 4 towards each other, creating a more private entry to each bedroom. And simplify the jack and jill bathroom while adding doors from each bedroom.

I agree with most of Mark's comments, particularly the one about windows on two sides of corner bedrooms (all corner rooms really). And the master bedroom should take advantage of its arrangement and have windows on three sides. There is no substitute for natural light. But we don't know whether or not this house relates to the site since we don't have a site plan to look at, we don't know where it is or what direction it faces. If the OP would provide more info, particularly a site plan and exterior elevations, it would be easier for us to comment intelligently.

Regarding traffic flow, pretty much all traffic flows around the kitchen island, like a roundabout. While that's fine in a kitchen, it's an awful lot for an entire household. The circulation point for the household shouldn't also be a work area.

Note that there is only one way to get from one place to another (without passing through a bathroom, i.e. the Jack-n-Jill and the master bath/closet), and the most common traffic point is in front of the kitchen island.

bpath - I think it is a good thing that I can hear it too, but I don't have the driveway passing right by where the head of the bed would be and I can still hear it just fine. There is just something about hearing it and something about having it right by your head. You can hear it without having it right on top of you with a different design.

Having windows on 2 sides in the master would in this case be good, but 3 sides means looking out on the driveway and add more noise from the driveway.

cpartist's plan showing circulation paths is a little unfair. I would bet if you did a similar diagram for almost any house plan you would find almost as much circulation space. And so are the comments about hearing the garage door from the bedroom - the garage sits way back on the site and is adjacent to the closet, far away from the bedroom.

I show the circulation paths to show how one will need to be aware when arranging furniture. No other reason. I do include that with the wasted space. Maybe I need to highlight that separately in another color for the future?

That’s an astonishingly-large master closet. I’d whack off the top 3-4 feet - whatever would make that wall flush with the top wall of the half bath - and leave all that space added the mud room. (Mud rooms can’t be too large, especially for a family with multiple members.) Or move the half bath into that vacated space.

And figure out a way to get all traffic in and out of the house away from the kitchen sink. The way it is now is really inconvenient.

Well...the design does have a lot of space devoted to circulatIon. The overall area, including circulation is often called the "gross" area. The usable area, less circulation, is often called the "net" area. A measure of efficiency of a design is the comparison of the percentage of the net usable space to the overall gross space.

This plan will not be the most efficient plan we'be ever seen.

That said, there may be a number of good reasons for this plan as designed. It would be helpful if the OP gave more information about family need, lifestyle, site conditions, etc.

I agree with most of the critiques above. And I find both of the entry areas problematic. The one by the kitchen is a terrible bottleneck, and the main entry opens right into the dining/kitchen area.

Is this an online plan, or are you working with someone like a draftsperson?

Depending on your particular needs, as Virgil mentions, you may need a person with more design talent than is evidenced in the plan above. Not necessarily an architect, but someone who is able to consider the house as a whole, including the exterior, its siting on the lot, and how the rooms relate to each other.

you might consider swapping kitchen and dining. The distance from the garage may be a factor but the living spaces would improve

might also make bedroom 4 the one with the full bath and close off opening above fireplace. Just have a hall with entry below fireplace leading to all 3 rooms.. j&j between bedrooms 2 and 3. If u reverse the roles of bedrooms 2 and 4 the hall won’t be too long.

Do you 'really' want the master bedroom facing the front street? Personally, I would only want it facing the backyard.

"Please critique our rough plans."

Well, they are rough. What do the elevations look like as a home should never be developed in a vacuum, the elevations and floor plans should be developed together.

The plan shares many similarities to mine (that we finished up in Jan) so I mostly like it.

The master suite generally is a bit big - the bathroom especially. No easy fix. We have the same features including the shower walkin behind the tub but ours overall is smaller - less wasted space.

The WIC is pretty big - and as it relates to the overall house size. I have had a similar size one but in a much bigger house. We downsized this time. It is an awfully big room without a window.

The laundry room is a little cramped. Is that a freezer in there?

No door to master bath - I find that unusual.

Do you watch TV? Where does it go.

We had a study about that size in our last house - deleted this time. No need for one that big but everyone's needs are different. It is on full display when you walk in the front door.

Generally, you could use a few more windows.

cpartist's plan showing circulation paths is a little unfair.

I think it's a tad unfair in that the spaces between the kitchen cabinet runs are really "kitchen space", not "circulation space". Same thing for the bathroom interiors -- space in front of the vanity really is "bathroom space", not "circulation space. Everything in red is not wasted space.

However, the overall concept is solid fact. This is a split-bedroom plan, and that means that a lot of the "middle" isn't true living space -- it's hallway space. The living room is an ideal example: it looks like a large room, but a good portion of it must be devoted to "circulation space" on both sides.

I would bet if you did a similar diagram for almost any house plan you would find almost as much circulation space.

Every house must have "circulation space", but this house seems to have an excessive amount in the form of bitty hallways to the spread-out bedrooms, a hallway to the mudroom, and more.

Having said that, there seems to be a great deal of wasted space in this plan, particularly the master bedroom suite.

Agree.

And simplify the jack and jill bathroom while adding doors from each bedroom.

Yes, I like J&Js, but they're so seldom well designed. This one is particularly odd.

And the master bedroom should take advantage of its arrangement and have windows on three sides. There is no substitute for natural light.

Agree ... but I'd rather rearrange the whole thing so that the living spaces (the spaces where you're awake) can have windows on 2-3 sides. Why waste the perfect window placement on rooms where you'll be asleep most of the time?

But we don't know whether or not this house relates to the site since we don't have a site plan to look at, we don't know where it is or what direction it faces.

Yes, while we're talking about "unfair", it's unfair to say this house does /doesn't work on the site. We have no idea whether it does or doesn't.

Regarding traffic flow, pretty much all traffic flows around the kitchen island,
like a roundabout.

Yes, I was going to bring that up. The sink is very poorly placed in a main traffic area. The kitchen needs some serious re-working.

bpath - I think it is a good thing that I can hear it too, but I don't have the driveway passing right by where the head of the bed would be and I can still hear it just fine.

Sometimes this type of thing sneaks up on you. Here's my house and my neighbor's house:

Blues are houses ... reds are roads /driveways. I'm on the corner, and we park on the right-side of our house. My bedroom is on the far-left, so I shouldn't hear any cars at night, right?

But in reality -- looking at the big picture -- my neighbor's driveway runs between our two houses, and he has BOTH a garage in his house (I didn't draw a connection, so pretend you can see it) AND a detached garage out behind his house.

The first night we slept in our house, I remember we heard his three teens driving in/out, and we both opened our eyes and looked at each other as if to say, "What have we done?" Within a week, we no longer heard those cars -- we learned to tune them out. (Incidentally, these are 1 - 1.5 acre lots in a subdivision.)

Agree.

Mud rooms can’t be too large, especially for a family with multiple members.

Disagree. Typically plans are limited by space and/or budget ... if an excessive mudroom takes away from the rest of the house, it'd be too big.

Overall thoughts:

- The bedrooms are choppy. You say you're not happy with the secondary bedrooms /would like more width ... at the same time, the master suite is bloated. That answer seems clear.

- The kitchen and kitchen storage need serious work.

- Natural light and traffic flow are issues.

I think we need some feed back before writing books about the plan There are many issues and to go into them with no feed back just is a waste of time.

cpartist's plan showing circulation paths is a little unfair.

I think it's a tad unfair in that the spaces between the kitchen cabinet runs are really "kitchen space",

Agreed except in this case there is one of two direct ways to get to the master from the mudroom. One is through the master closet> master bath and the other direct way is through the kitchen work space. Yes they can go around the island but human nature is to take the path of least resistance.

Same thing for the bathroom interiors -- space in front of the vanity really is "bathroom space", not "circulation space. Everything in red is not wasted space.

None of the circulation in the bathroom was to the vanity. It was to the toilets. In the middle of the night, you want to get there in the most direct path.

Agree with Patricia. I hope this isn't another one of those disappearing OPs.

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful feedback! I was out of town all last week so did not have time to carefully review each of your feedback. I will reply as soon as I can.

Most updated plan.

Your kitchen space will be very dark with this updated plan. Which direction does the front of the house face? Additionally, I don’t like the powder room that close to the kitchen, personally. Odors and sounds and...well you get the picture. I like the bedroom layout better in the updated version.

"Your kitchen space will be very dark with this updated plan."

That may be an understatement.

There are several windows along the back side of the house that should provide enough natural light to kitchen.

Two important requirements for spaces meant for human occupation is light and ventilation. Corners of houses give opportunity for spaces located there to have windows on different walls which help in natural ventilation and ability to capture light at different times of the day. In that regard, the space planning for this house more resemble the results of a Tetris game as opposed to a well thought out architectural design.

What do you suggest then? We have building setbacks on each side of the house limited at 92 feet width.

There are several windows along the back side of the house that should provide enough natural light to kitchen.

In my condo my kitchen was only 11' from the floor to ceiling sliders across the whole dining room area. My kitchen was always dark. No it won't provide enough natural light.

What do you suggest then? We have building setbacks on each side of the house limited at 92 feet width.

I suggest you engage the services of an architect who will design a house that will work well for you. This is not it.

Here are the pathways and wasted space again. Note that I did go through the kitchen which I normally don't do but think about it. You come home from a day of shopping or shuttling the kids and you badly have to use the toilet, or one of the kids does. What do you do? You take the shortest path to the closest toilet which is the one right off the kitchen.

Now let's talk natural light. I made the assumption the rear porch would be covered. If not, I can redo the lighting for it. And it also depends which direction is north which will also change the lighting.

However just as a general idea here is how the light will enter your house. Notice the house will be dark?

Here is how our house will be. Purple line is the front of the house.

Your master closet/bedroom, study, and bedroom three will get the best light in the house (spaces you are rarely in). Your main living spaces on the other hand, will be exceptionally dark with the deep house design and the covered porches and orientation of living spaces to the north. You need to start over with a plan that will orient your main living areas at the front of the house, IMO...

Sorry, I meant bedroom 2.