Your closet is almost the same size as the bathroom. Is that really what you want? I'd want more area for grooming than to have that empty space in the middle of a closet.

I was worried about the shower feeling too closed in with basically 4 walls around it. I thought about doing a half wall by the vanity and then make the upper half glass, however that would mean I’d need an overhead shower head coming down from the ceiling.

We’re not too high maintenance, so the drawers in the vanity shouldn’t be an issue.

We’ve got a lot of clothes, so lots of closet space is a must!

I get that you want/need to store the clothing, but there's a lot of wasted space in the middle. JMHO.

Consider moving the closet door further into the closet, and making that whole side of the shower glass.

Consider this:

How much can you change? What is to the right and below this space and can doors be placed in different areas?

I don't like walking through a bathroom or a closet to get to the other.

If you can't change much, can you add a window over the toilet? That would allow more light into the shower.

This is the revised plan so that the shower potentially feels more open, we added a full length glass piece on the wall by the vanity.

What is your plan for keeping shower splash from the bathroom floor with a "curbless edge", and moisture from the carpeted closet?

We will be added a glass door going into the shower and a double fan in the bathroom.

Will the shower have a door?

If you kove the cloaet door into the closet, you don’t lose any storage, but more dripping room between the shower and the closet.

If you move the showerhead to the other end, you can either have more glass on the side wall, or some glass and the controls on a solid side wall, so that yiu can easily turn on the water without actually stepping in and getting wet, especially nice with an overhead rainhead.

I've had a shower that size. It's a good, simple size, BUT it's not big enough to have a built-in seat. You could opt for a teak stool.

While we're talking about the shower, consider where you'll hang your towels. I don't see an obvious space.

Sink: 5'6" is not big enough to house duplicate sinks and still have any real drawer space. Storage trumps a second sink every day ... downsize to a single well-designed sink and a good bank of drawers on each side.

I'm ambivalent about closets in bathrooms, but this one is arranged in the worst possible way -- you must walk the length of the bathroom to reach it. If you stick to this, you're missing a big opportunity by not having a door between the bathroom and the laundry.

Keep in mind that you have minimal storage in the bathroom (even with only one sink), so part of the closet will have to be used as bathroom storage.

Curbless and shower doors do not always do well with mitigating water in the bathroom. Be sure the floor is waterproofed out from the shower a good couple of feet because will will end up there. As pointed out above, traveling to a bathroom or to a closet is never a good idea thru the other. And then throw in a wide open toilet on the way to the closet for good measure..................

“I need my shirt!”

”I’m on the can!”

”I’ll be late!”

”Darn this bathroom designer! Should have read more on Houzz.”

Throw that in the trash heap, and start over.

Could the laundry be accessible from the other side? How on earth do you plan to vent the dryer? There HAS to be a way to get more privacy for the toilet area, even if it is not fully enclosed. Where do the windows in the bedroom face? What is at the bottom, under the closet? What are outside walls? Inside walls? Inside walls facing what rooms?

The over is just not good.

Originally there was a door from the closet to the laundry room to connect the two, but we decided we’d rather get a couple more feet of hanging space in the closet and skip the door.

This is a plan from the builder, not from your own architect, yes? How much freedome do you have with it?

It is a custom home, so we can do it however we’d like - here’s a copy of how the house we are copying had the bathroom laid out the only difference is where a closet is listed, they had a tub.

It is difficult to clean a shower with only a rainhead. Also, you have to be completely out of the water to lather your hair, etc. It gets cold! Will you also have a handheld option?

We will do a shower head from the vanity side and skip the rainhead.

Would you consider restoring the toilet room, or as Mark likes to call it, the gas chamber? (you won’t close that door every time, so if you put in a pocket door at least someone could get to the closet.)

My husband and I don’t like the feel of the toilet being shoved into a small room and I guess we’re comfortable enough with eachother that it wouldn’t bother us to walk past eachother to the closet on the rare occasion that would happen. There is also another bathroom on the main level that could be utilized.

Another issue you will encounter after you move in is retrieving items that drop between the freestanding tub and the wall, and cleaning between the tub and the wall.

If you give us a sketch of the entire floor, we may be able to come up with a better solution.

Here’s the whole first floor.

My first reaction? The garage seems very out of proportion to the size of the house (though I prefer a big garage to one that's too small to park in).

What's upstairs? Will the basement be finished? How many people live in the house?

Frankly, everything feels cramped - yet there is a lot of space take up with hallways, including the walkway through the living room. I understand that the hallways are there to provide separation and privacy for the bedrooms, but all the rooms pay the price.

It is a ranch style home so this is the main level and then there will be a basement that will be unfinished for now. We are just getting married so right now only two of us and probably not more than four people in the future.

Why do you need 2 sets of stairs to the basement?

The 2nd set of stairs is so that it’s easy to bring softener salt down to the basement and it’s nice to go right into the mechanical room to clean fish and store dirty hunting gear - that way we’re not trudging through the whole house to get there.

Here is a better look at how the basement is set up.

But the basement stairs are right next to the garage entry - not really "trudging through the whole house".

What part of the country are you in? Could you put a sink in the garage, for cleaning fish?

I think you could do a lot upstairs if you could incorporate those 3' into the house instead of garage.

We are in Minnesota, so not a good state to have a sink in the garage. The steps going into the basement in the house will be carpeted, so definitely don’t want muddy hunting clothes going thru that way.

If you added the space from the garage to the house, you could access the laundry from the mudroom (they call it that for a reason!), and hunting clothes can go right into the wash.

If you tell your architect everything you've told us, they should be able to come up with a plan that suits your lifestyle.

An 8' x 12' foyer is pretty large for a house of this size. I have a much larger 1-story house and my foyer is just a bit larger at 10' x 11'.

Do you have room on your lot to make the house wider by shifting the garage to the left? Then change/rotate the shape and size of the foyer.

If you plan to have a solid front door, then you should add 2 sidelites to get natural light in the foyer.

We have 3.5 acres, so there is plenty of space.

You have 270 sq.ft in that L-shaped hallway from front door to master bedroom ... that is equivalent to two more guest bedroom on the main floor.

I like hallways too, but in a smaller home you have to be careful that you aren't sacrificing valuable space to the hallways.

The house you copied was designed for a narrow suburban lot ... you have so much more flexibility with 3.5 acres.

We only had 0.66 acre, irregular shaped lot, to fit a big house and we worked with our architect to fit things into that unique shaped lot. We wished we had more land and the house would have looked very different!

I am also in Minnesota. You picked a builder plan and modified it (nearly the exact plan as my neighbor's, which is part of a production home development). You are just getting married, and you are building a custom house on 3.5 acres? Then you are doing very well. This is your first home? Don't mess it up by modifying a tract home. You could do so much better. You will pay the same either way so please make your house suitable for your land.

Do you actually have an architect or are you using a designer?

We went through a custom home design a few years ago. The cost was a bit too much for us (so we built in a production development ) but the learning experience was extensive. You don't know what you don't know at this point so a talented architect is so important.

I'm sorry but I would totally rethink your approach. I would love to be in your shoes (our final plans were so amazing and I wish we could have built). You have a lot of life to live in this house. Make sure you get your money's worth. You could have this house in a development, or you could have something so much better that's designed for you.

We have walked through hundreds of parade of homes houses and this is the only one that fit our needs that we loved! We are looking for a ranch style, 3 bedrooms on the main level, a large basement with room for a future golf simulator, my fiancé is tall so he wanted something with high ceilings and wide hallways. We have the space to go wider, but I haven’t seen a layout that we like that is wider.

Wow, 3.5 acres is a lot of land on which to build a really special home!

The first thing I would consider is having the garage semi-detached from the home. In this way you can have windows on all four exposures with the attendant light, air and views that affords. You can attach the garage via an enclosed breezeway with windows.

You also should site the house so that you take advantage of prevailing winds and sunlight. You'll have a more eco-efficient home that uses passive solar to maximize light/breezes and minimizes energy use.

We built our vacation home on one acre and originally looked at stock plans but quickly found that none of them fit what we wanted. We then turned to an architect and got a home that was so much better. So yes, instead of using a canned plan, have an architect design a home to fit your needs, budget, and the land.

An architect can create a house for you that will suit your needs. The house we designed isn't on any parade of homes tour, which is why we designed custom.

Here's an example of why your plan isn't great that you may not have thought of. You have two bedrooms right of your foyer. That means less privacy for those rooms. People are walking by those rooms coming in and out of your house. One room only has windows into a porch, which Lacks privacy.

Not sure how long you plan to be in this house, but while it might be fine to walk past each other in the bathroom now, you might not as you get older.

I fully agree with others that you can make much better use of 3.5 acres in terms of house layout. However, also hearing that you are just getting married and may have kids in the future and this will be your first home, I want to acknowledge that you most likely are not going to stay in this home forever. You most likely will learn things and as your life evolves, your needs may change. We have built three times now, and each time we thought it was the final time. Three generation, we learned more things of what we would like and want, so I would say that each has been an improvement on the previous period to be realistic, just know that you won't get your dream home on your first try in my opinion, even if you work with the most talented architect because at the end of the day, you probably don't know enough about what aspects of the house work best for you. If I were in your shoes, I would make some changes, including separating the garage a bit more as stated above, but I also wouldn't go overboard in terms of trying to perfect everything.

Keep in mind that you have minimal storage in the bathroom (even with only one sink), so part of the closet will have to be used as bathroom storage.

Good point, and no one ever said, "I have too much storage!"

Curbless and shower doors do not always do well with mitigating water in the bathroom.

True. We recently had a curbless shower in a vacation rental, and we quickly learned to lay several towels on the floor before showering. Curbless is really hard to get right, especially in a shower that isn't oversized. Consider, instead, a minimal curb ... 2" is all you're required to have.

“I need my shirt!”
”I’m on the can!”
”I’ll be late!”
”Darn this bathroom designer! Should have read more on Houzz.”

Another reason to open a door between the closet and the laundry room. It'd be easy for one spouse to enter the closet through the other door.

Or to go back to the drawing board ... closets in bathrooms are great, when they're well designed. This one requires walking the length of the bathroom to reach the closet ... not ideal.

Could the laundry be accessible from the other side? How on earth do you plan to vent the dryer?

Good point.

I also wouldn't go overboard in terms of trying to perfect everything.

Agree. You're just starting out. This won't be your only house, and -- even if it were -- you'll never get every detail right. Don't pressure yourself, and don't take too seriously all the must-have-a-custom-architect-designed-home-or-your-life-will-be-miserable talk. That's kinda standard on this board, yet the majority of Americans seem to be muddling through.

"Muddling through" doesn't seem like something to strive for.

Getting the best house for your money is.

And even if you're not going to stay long term, your best bet for resale is to be offering a well-designed, structurally sound home, not one that was hastily conceived and is as throwaway as some of the furniture sold these days.

I kind of feel like a couple just starting out that is building CUSTOM on this kind of land are not planning a short term stay. Especially in Minnesota.

If they are... Well lucky them that they have the resources to do it multiple times.

If they're not... Why not at least try to get it right? Sure, no one will get it perfect, but that's no reason to do a builder knock-off plan and spend a premium to get it.

The op is at a disadvantage, likely not having owned before, or having owned without a partner or children involved. But a talented architect should be able to guide the design with future considerations in mind that don't put the kid's rooms right by the door, or put a suburban house plan on acreage.

I have a shower exactly like that setup, although much longer. I have NEVER used the bench. It’s wasted space. I agree with everyone else that this is not a good plan. You have to go through 4 doors with the laundry basket. There’s no real privacy for the toilet. The closet will not live as big as you think. One wall will effectively only be four feet and the other wall much less At the least, I’d incorporate the laundry into the master bath/closet set up/ add a w/d in the master closet. and move the laundry room elsewhere.