What are your needs for the house? How does this house meet them? What do you like about it?

I think the rear of a house should not look like a rear.

In my opinion it has a poor layout, but a lot depends on the site, the owner's specific needs, the site, and the site.

I’m wrapping my head around four different ceiling heights on the main floor, two in the master bedroom (tray ceiling). And none of them account for the huge roof and dormers. The image shows them lit, what is in there?

Yes, poor layout, and the rear should definitely be similar to and as attractive as the front. (insert your joke here)

What I like about it:

- The garage is in the back of the house

- Door from the porch to the powder room (though if this is because there is a pool in the back yard, that PR should be have a shower and storage for towels)

- Decent sized garage

What I don't like:

-Jack and Jill bath

- lots of space taken up with hallways

- no natural light in the living areas (because of front and back covered porches)

- have to go through the bath to get to the primary bedroom closet

- closets on outside walls

- laundry no on an outside wall

- pocket door on powder room

- tiny mudroom

- poor kitchen layout

- small great room (once you've placed furniture to allow for all the walkways)

- no place for a TV except over the fireplace

- lots of extra jigs and jogs for no benefit

- dormer windows for no reason - except to break up the roof that's way too big

That would be a score of Good Ideas 3, Bad Ideas 13.

The master bedroom is in the working area of the house: laundry, mudroom, garage, kitchen. Bedrooms should be in a restful area.

Secondary bedroom laundry, which outnumbers master suite laundry, goes through the working aea of the kitchen.

Powder room exterior door, be sure to check it every night and every time you leave the house.

jack-n-jill bath could be changed to single hall door, but it is visible from the living room. I never understand having the toilet and tub/shower together behind a door.

Bath 3 could be ensuite, why isn’t it?

Neither secondary bath has much storage.

If guests use the powder room, they walk through the working part of the kitchen.

There is not much graceful flow to the layout.

The site and direction could lead to other questions.

The icing on the cake is "barn doors".

What does the building site look like? Your building site is important when deciding on the house you build. I think too many people overlook this - instead they focus only on the house itself.

I won't list issues that I would want changed with the layout of the home - you've already received comments with those listed.

If I was building a new home, I would look for an architect in order to have a house designed to meet my needs. At the very least, I'd look at other homes with similar exterior elevations that have better floor plans.

I do love a wrap around porches + covered patios - however, it might be better to not cover the entire front + the entire back of the home. It would be different if this was a model home where you could experience the amount of light that will be inside the home before building it. I just feel like it will be a bit dark. I never turn on any lights during the day - but it seems like you may need to.

One thought that hasn't been covered - the secondary bedrooms don't have enough natural light. If you aren't going to have windows on two walls, the windows that are in the room need to be larger.