The 'GBTH' is odd, and I would not recommend it.

@Mark Bischak, Architect I don't love the layout either but I think if we can widen the main portion of the house we can find room for the guest bathroom to be a more "normal" layout.

Agree with WestCoast Hopeful on all points. Depending on how you use the media room, the shape and size may not be a problem. Decide what you want in there and try different layouts. I didn't go back to your previous thread, but am wondering about the kitchen/pantry setup. If you eliminate the pantry, or at least make it smaller, the kitchen sink could have a window. And I agree with you about the master bath. There must be a better layout. Have your architect sketch a few variations which are simpler and not so cut up.

I think the media space could work if you are planning to have it be a viewing room with theater seating. I would build in a little wet bar/counter fridge around the window, place the screen against the closet wall and your media closet at the end of the space. Entrance off foyer with double pocket doors. Couches/chairs facing the screen.

For the mudroom, definitely make the door from the hall a pocket door.

Decide how big your media room needs to be. Try laying out some furniture in it. Then decide if the media room needs windows or not. The leftover space can be apportioned to a proper powder room and an actual hall. Designing a house is not like playing tetras-- "empty" space is necessary for proper usability. If you have no hallways, then your rooms become less usable because they become de-facto hallways.

The J&J guest bath seems like it would be a good idea. But I suspect that it will suffer from the same problems as all J&Js-- whichever door is convenient to where you are will be the one that got left locked.

The reach-in closet beside the garage/mudroom entry will be a continual irritation if it has bifold doors. Guaranteed, people will forget to close them properly (or the cat will open them) and you won't be able to open the door from the garage properly. This almost always happens when you're carrying 2 bags of groceries and a kid while the phone is ringing and you desperately need to go pee. (Ask me how I know!)

Definitely no jack and jill type guest bath. And the guest room probably doesn’t need a walk in closet, so that can be rearranged. You can have a powder room at the long end of the media room and a closet in the balance of the space. Like this:

@emilyam819 thanks! The only issue I see with that layout is it guarantees you have to access the media room from the foyer.

Yes, I think that will help break up the long foyer wall, and avoid interference with family room furniture layout.

@jennifer k we need the window if we want the media room to technically qualify as a bedroom.

On second look, I see now that you probably wouldn’t have furniture there.

@emilyam819 I'm not necessarily opposed to having the door in the foyer, but with it being a narrow room I'm a little worried about doors from the foyer interfering with the back of a sectional or other furniture in the media room.

The window will provide the egress required by fire codes. But I believe that you also require a closet to qualify a room as a bedroom.

That aside... Given that you already have 2 bedrooms on the main floor and will assumably have 2 or 3 more upstairs, what is the value of being able to label a room that will be designed for media as a bedroom? Presumably it will have sound-proofing and extra wiring and all the techy stuff that makes for a good media room. So if you're doing it for resale value, it may be a false constraint.

I'm also just dying for @cpartist to come rip this plan apart. I feel like Kristin Wiig's Sue character when she's trying not to ruin a surprise.

Please don't feel obligated to comment. I'm mostly just being facetious. Mostly. :)

@jennifer K I think I mentioned that we will be adding a closet too, so it will meet all the technicalities. We often have multiple family members visit (my FIL and MIL, BIL and SIL tend to come in a group) so we would like two guest spaces to put them all in. We're also not planning on resale but if we ever did sell I would want to at least have the option to claim 6 beds.

It would help if you added some background info -- who is living there, where you are building and what the building site is like, what direction the house will face.

I'm already wondering about the 2nd floor -- it's massing and the roof.

PPF this is a follow up thread to a long one a month back. OP maybe link the original thread in this one for reference

@WestCoast Hopeful

I know, but it's simpler to repeat that info here instead of forcing people to read that long thread. And it is linked in the OP.

That's quite the hike from the garage to the master closet when you forgot a sweater or hat. I would work on making that accessable directly from the bedroom. Also, think about the placement of the guest toilet right next to the kitchen. :(

Fair PPF

This concept give privacy to the person using any fixture in the bathroom and eliminates the entry to the Guest Bedroom from the Foyer.

The charrette with your architect is a good idea. You plan needs more work.

IMO, the idea of the media room as a potential 6th bedroom is not great. It's pretty far from the guest bath. Whoever stays in that room gets to take a walk through public areas to shower or whatever.

I would also reconsider having the study completely open. I know you wanted to eliminate halls, but if there is any chance of it being used for working from home, it needs a door. It's only me and my husband, but I will close my office door while on calls sometimes for a variety of reasons. It's also nice to be able to shut the door on Friday afternoon and not think about work. It's a psychological thing that separates my real life from my work life. A boundary is important. I'd hate to have to walk through my study/office every night before bed.

You probably mentioned this previously, but you don't need any kind of closet near the front door? With Mark's change to the guest bath, you could tuck a closet in under the stairs in the previous shower location.

@PPF. We have a family of 5, two adults, three kids (3.5y, 2y, 4 months). We also have two large dogs, a cat, and a small snake. We are building in TX on 23 acres. The house should face north/north west, and will be in the middle of a moderately heavy treed area with a meadow and pond to the rear. We're planning on a few outbuildings including a workshop and greenhouse, and have what will be a future rental house on the property already that we will be fixing up and fencing off.

@LH CO/FL fortunately this is TX and we only need sweaters and hats during snowpocalypse once a year :)

@rrah the 6th bed is basically just because we have a specific use case for it due to how our family likes to congregate. We are planning doors between the study and the great room and master bedroom, they'll just likely be open most of the time. The alternative would be to have a 14 foot hallway across one end of the study which also doesn't seem ideal...

I'm ambivalent about having a closet near the front door. This is TX and we don't have much need for coat closets. Our current house has a single closet outside of bedrooms which mostly holds camping and scuba gear. (To be fair, our current house could use more storage space.)

You know what they say about Texas - It's Like A Whole Other Country.

Could you be a bit more specific? Spent the first 40 years of my life there and I'm familiar with most of it.

What about access? Does the garage need to go where it's shown?

Knowing how much space you have it seems surprising you are constrained in anyway at all. The layout should be whatever you want.

@PPF. Mansfield/Burleson area, in Johnson county, so no city restrictions.

Garage does not have to go exactly where it is placed currently, but the way the house will be facing it will make more sense if the garage is towards the left side when you are facing the house (otherwise we'll have a lot more concrete to pour and the drive will have to cross in front of the house).

@WestCoast Hopeful I mean... we're constrained by budget. I would make the house a lot larger if that weren't the case, so we're trying to keep the square footage down. What other constraints do you mean?

Of course we all have budget. But when you say I wish this was here, or I had a window here, or things like that it seems shocking it can’t happen on a huge site.

@WestCoast Hopeful oh I'm sorry, I misunderstood. My feedback above is basically what I intend to give the design team, I was just looking for feedback on both the drawings and ALSO my proposed feedback. I'm sorry if I was unclear about that. They may be able to take my feedback and incorporate all of it, I don't know yet. I'm trying to consolidate the number of times I go back and forth with them.

I look at it as a "great idea" drawing.

I think the design is lacking good spacial concepts - the media room, the kitchen / pantry size, the "dining" which shows as 9' wide with the counter stools pushed in...

I also don't think that this layout will get you even close to the inspo pic - the inspo pic is way longer / longitudinal and this continues to be fat, fat, fat. The outside space in the inspo pic feels like an outdoor room with connections to the house. In this rendition, the HUGE BLANK WALL of the garage will detract from the space.

Maybe it's still very rough / conceptual - but there was enough time taken to put in a ton of awkward double doors - but not decent windows or much of a plan for all the other sides of the house.

ARG's concept is better. Don't eschew hallways - in a house that looks like the inspo - you WILL GET HALLWAYS - they can be done with intention and in a way that adds to the design. You need to stretch out your plan more to get what you are going for and on 23 acres your designer shoud stop designing for a cul-de-sac

I was wondering what the use of your study is? Working, reading, meditation? We have a room, i will call an office. Our family finances that I handle are kept there. My husband does accounting for a nonprofit in there. He and my son sometimes conduct zoom call conferences in there that can be up to 2 hours. I can’t imagine it being attached to my master bedroom, because it would make my master off limits if anyone is working in there. It is bad enough that we all three have to share it!

Agree^^^ with just_janni! And I love Doug's "great" conceptual! Kate, as I followed your building adventure the thing that jumps out at me most aside from the spatial concepts, is not considering the inside/outside connection during the conceptualization process. Maybe you have, but you haven't stressed it. It's all part of the "big idea". You live in an area with a nice climate. My brother-in-law lives in outskirts of McKinney on acreage, and we spend most of our time outside when visiting whether it's eating, having morning coffee, working outside during the day, or evening relaxation. Your outside entertainment space is accessible only through the great room. What about the kids outdoor space? Right now yours are very young. If you reveal more about your site plan and location of out buildings, as well as proposed play spaces, it will help define your movement patterns. You live in the country. The kids will play outside and now will be a good idea to define where the playground/pool goes as well as open spaces for baseball, soccer, etc. and how they relate to site lines and access to the house. Imagine your outside activities throughout the day and how you will access the house depending on what you are doing. Kids will constantly be in and out. And bring dirt with them. Do you currently live in a two story? Are you currently on acreage? I ask because the kids will want to play downstairs and that is where the toys will end up. They want to be where the adults are when they are young. With the playroom upstairs, you will spend your time on the 2nd floor or be dragging the toys downstairs. It doesn't hurt to have the playroom as an additional play/storage space and can be teen hangout space later, although I would still prefer that within earshot. Where will the train villages be setup? The lego creations? On the great room floor. And as they get older they need to keep them setup as they work on them over time. You need an area on the main floor for play containment that is near the action (cooking or whatever you do during the time at home) but can also be neat and tidy with storage. Your media room could be that space while they are young if it's designed with that in mind. How about equipment storage? Kids stuff takes up a lot of space. I don't know if you have boys or girls, but they will have outside toys/sports equipment that need easy access. Your mudroom would benefit being larger and adjacent/connected to the laundry. And the outside. My daughter has a wonderfully large combination mud/laundry that is always full of clothes and dropped equipment. It's the most difficult room to keep organized and is the central room with access to the house from the side/back yard and garage. A separate but connected laundry would work better for her lifestyle. Living in the country, I believe a well-designed mudroom and logical entries that align with your outside activities is essential for your family.

What is your order of priorities? Is the 2nd set of stairs a priority over an improved layout with space you need inside the house? The second set are expensive and take up real estate that cut up the plan and take $$ from other wants. What if you find the kids run to the kitchen first thing to get a snack, or to the TV? What if they refuse to spend time upstairs (until they are pre-teens and then you'll never see them). Wouldn't it be better if they take off their shoes, drop their things in their cubbies and use the main stairs so you can have improved layout?

Doug's "parti" is a great jumping off point which captures the wants you have shared.

I can easily see how some historic fiction can be create architecturally with ARG's concept by looking at the design as having an original house and garage with stone exterior walls, and additions with wood like siding.

Your inspiration pic looks nothing, absolutely nothing like the floor plan you have here. They have a wing opening to the backyard, you have a huge wall of a garage. ARG’s concept is

Are you married to a two story? With three littles and 25 acres, I would want a ranch. Someone said this is laid out like a culdesac house, and as someone who lives in a culdesac house, what I wouldn’t give for 25 acres to spread the house out!

I'm also just dying for @cpartist to come rip this plan apart. I feel like Kristin Wiig's Sue character when she's trying not to ruin a surprise.

Please don't feel obligated to comment. I'm mostly just being facetious. Mostly. :)

I know you keep saying this is a licensed architect and you did a sit down like ARG does, but this certainly doesn't show it. Especially since there's no second floor or beginning elevation. In fact this is more how a draftsman creates a plan versus a talented architect.

You're on 25 acres?

I'm busy right now, but will try and get to this later.

ARG's rough arrangement is 100x better than what your "architect" came up with.

I would add a hallway to the master. That way you can close it off if you ever need to use it as a bedroom. It doesnt have to be a wall and a door. You could do french doors, glass doors, etc.

It’s a long hike to the w/d. Will you be putting one in the master closet?

Would something like this work? If you still want the tub bumped out, you could push it out, giving a little bigger bath. I know some people don’t like the w/d in the closet but I love it. I also had the laundry plumbed for a second w/d. My parents have had one in their master closet for 20 years and have had no issues.

Not to pile on, but this revised floor plan is really bad. The architect seems to have just taken a dozen rectangular blocks, joined them together, and haphazardly labeled them as "media", "study", "master" and so on. There is no excuse for this when building a custom house on 20+ acres.

My serious advice...stop working with your current architect immediately and hire Architectrunnerguy.

^^^However if you do hire architectrunnerguy, you'll need to trust him and be willing to think somewhat outside your "box" so that you get what you truly need and want and not what you think you want.

For some reason, when I read the description of what you want in your house, I thought of this one; architect Gil Schafer's Maine house. Maybe because it has a sweet study tucked behind the main space. Maybe because the way he divided his kitchen, living and dining in one rectangular space still allows light from more than one side and lets the outdoors become part and parcel of inside living. Anyway, here's the link:

https://gpschafer.com/featured-projects/house-by-the-sea-in-maine

this may be 100% irrelevant, but as I was looking at your plan I saw a lot of similarities to ours, so I’m posting what we ended up with in case it gives you any additional ideas. We kept tweaking our mudroom panty area, so it’s not labeled but the pantry is the room directly behind the kitchen and our mudroom is right behind that. I think you are on good track but not there yet. We had a lot of issues with that guest bath. And honestly there’s probably much better option than where we ended up, but we ended up closing off the entrance to the kitchen and adding a powder room.

Two things I would say: even if you leave your kitchen where it is, I would prioritize making sure you get a window over your sink.

secondly, if I had a master closet that big, I would for sure add a washer/dryer!

If you change the pantry entry, you could move the clean-up sink farther right (as you face it), to make a scullery, m/l, then use a prep sink on the island. That would allow you have a larger window over the sink, with no wall to block the light into the kitchen. I shortened the pantry/range wall and island, to leave more space in the new clean-up aisle.

While I was at it, I also removed the second entry to the guest bathroom, and added a powder room and closet to the media room space.

If you want symmetry, the sink could move even more to the right, to center the window on the exterior, but it would then be in the corner:

You have plumbing on exterior walls, and that is generally not a great idea, even if freezing pipes is not an issue.

Can you discuss this with the architect?

Any arrangement with a sink under a window has "plumbing on exterior walls". There are millions of houses like this. The plumbing is in the cabinet, not in the wall. Same for bathroom toilets and tubs. If the house is insulated properly there will never be a problem.

Have you considered combining your utility sink and dog wash? There are lots of examples online. I realize the “dogs” may sometimes be dirty children, there are options that can work for that. That would make more room for cubbies or another entrance in whatever layout you land on.

@OhNat our dogs are close to 100lb so I really need a floor level wash. And yes, I also have children that will likely be put through the dog wash :)

Gotcha! Well, it looks like you have cubbies and a bench on the right behind the doors. Is that where you wanted an exterior door? Can’t you add a door in the garage right outside the mudroom? Another way to optimize space in there is to use front loaders and put a countertop over them. I would try to make that space work rather than widening it. However, I do agree with the good folks who have said this plan isn’t ideal, so maybe we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.