I think the biggest problem to your project is the approach. You're treating this like it's a separate structure. And, from your plans, it's NOT. It's part of a house. You have to, design the entire home, and do it in such a way that it's capable of being built modularly to suit your plans. Unless you are doing this as a completely separate outbuilding with no connection to the main house, you need to stop and think about what you ultimately want to have built there.

Wow...vast improvement over the last one. Is that a shower in the master bath? Or a corner tub?

Still looks a bit disproportionate. The living room is large, but there's barely enough room for chairs in the dining area....figure a table is 40" across and you need 30" on either side for chairs to go in and out. I would think about making the island half as deep and extend it closer to the LR so that there's more room in the DR. And the 2nd bedroom is really wee.

You also need to think about closets...making them deeper is not making them more useful unless they are deep enough to step into and there's room for a person to get by hangers or shelves.

I agree about not needing a 2nd bath for such a small space and that will save disproportionately on the costs as baths and kitchens are where the $$ is in a build.

Also, if this has the same orientation as the last plan, the stairs are not coming down where you want them off the mud room....I think that would be an important factor for future use.

GreenDesigns - There's another old post of mine on this forum where I have a rough idea of the main house. The apartment would still be in the same position/orientation with the mudroom being the connecting factor. I'm sure my GC will discuss other arrangements that we need to do to make future expansion easier. Basically the only thing that changed was the overall dimension of the garage and the livable space on top. I'm open to hearing about what suggestions you may have to prepare it more for future expansions.

annie - Just a shower in the master bath (tub in the other bath). The dining area is more of a breakfast area. We'd have a small table and a few chairs, but we're not table eaters, so we'll probably be eating at the island bar or on the couch. I wouldn't mind extending it into the living room, but was concerned that there wouldn't be much room to turn from the stairs into the living room without running into the island.

The only closet that I made slightly deeper is the former coat closet to fit the side by side W/D (we don't expect to be walking in there). I realize the master closet lost a few inches, but I was thinking that if I did keep the bathroom, I could just connect the two to get a few inches back. I'm not really opposed to a small closet for a few years anyways. (Depending on the bathroom quote, I may be reworking this entire area - depending on how much I can modify this plan)

I'm still trying to figure out the stair situation. I'm just not sure that the cost to modify the plan do a 180 to the stairs would be any better than just hiring my own architect. Ideally, I was thinking of mirroring the whole plan, putting the stairs along the outer wall (just not outside) to have them as close as possible to where the main part of the house would be. That would be ideal....but I figure with a pre-existing plan I'm not going to be able to get everything I want.

Here's another new modification. I did a 180 on the stairs so that they open into the mudroom, combined the laundry/bathroom, and clarified that the second bedroom is really only an office (if it was to be used as a bedroom, it would a small childs room). Some other furniture also helps clarify spaces. I know the dining area is small, but it doesn't need to be big, we're not table eaters and will be using the bar and couch more.

And here's the garage layout. The stairs now have access to the mud room. The main portion of the house will be connected to the mudroom (the future expansion)

Getting better. Things to think about....

. not a fan of having to turn to use washer/dryer

. think about the balcony...it's really a small porch where chairs can only sit and look out....not enough room to put them across from each other for conversation, and that's 90 sq ft of potential usable space

. stairs are still an issue...moving them to the inside wall might be better...right now it's very awkward to come up the stairs and face into the wall.... how will you get a mattress and a sofa up the stairs and into the apartment?

. I'm presuming the left wall is against the house so no opportunity for windows there, which means, as you show it, the door to the balcony is the only window in the MBR.

. Still not a fan of the DR/island space. 3' is barely enough space to get around, esp if you cook as much as you say, and that DR space is just too tight IMO to be useful....I would rethink the shape of the island, make it more narrow, move it right and extend toward the LR to make the space more useful. If you're concerned about the space into the living room by the island, think about making the end of the island a quarter round shape so it's easier to get by but gives you more seating/working space.

You don't need to, and it is a waste of space to, wall off the laundry. Just have that be part of that bathroom, and turn them so they face the bathroom proper.

I would stick to one bath in the apartment. Seems like overkill otherwise. I would see about doing the single bath on the master side and provide access from inside the master as well as the hallway. Then you could put laundry where the current hall bath is. Make the closet in the office/2nd bedroom a reach in depth and use the extra space for a larger dining area.

Excellent feedback everyone! We've decided to drop the balcony and second bath and make a few other big changes. I'll be posting a new floorplan soon!

Here's the newest plan. I tried shifting over the stairs (although the stair shift pretty much ensures that I'm going to have to get an architect), which allows entry from the mud room as well as a bit more area at the top of the stairs. The balcony and second bedroom have been dropped. The kitchen and dining area have been flipped/combined into kitchen a small breakfast area. My boyfriend wants to drop the dining area completely, but we're compromising on a small dining area (primarily to be used to play cards).

You are not going to be able to fit a table 1' from a stairwell. There's not enough room for people to come up the stairs. And it's big safety hazard for any potential sitting people.

The kitchen is still too large. And yet, you've put a utility closet right next to a range, which is a fire hazard and extremely inconvenient to try to work around.

The closets and laundry are still badly wrong, with wasted space in each for what you actually need.

You really need a professional. You don't have a good grasp of building codes or the spaces that humans need to both find comfortable, proportionate, and to be able to pass through that comfortable proportionate space.

It's not a stairwell, there are walls blocking them off. (Perhaps you're thinking the entry from the stairs is north?) I've already measured my small table that will be there and there's plenty of room. There's more space for people to come up the stairs than in the original plan from the website.

The kitchen layout is not what the final layout would be. It's just to show the items that will be there and the space that they will take up. The kitchen space isn't too large for what we want and there's more than enough space for everything else. All we did was reduce the dining area and extend the kitchen.

The closets are larger in this plan than they were in the original. Frankly, almost everything in this plan is larger than the original except for the dining area, which was intentionally reduced. This is just an apartment, not a house, and is already ~200 sq ft bigger than the original.

Of course we'll be getting a professional to draw up the final plans. A GC wouldn't be able to use such a simple floorplan anyways.

The stair opening is too long; it only needs to accommodate 11 or 12 treads not 17. You should be able to add the rest of that area to the living area. Perhaps the table could shift toward the stair and the kitchen could extend across the entire wall.

If a door is added at the bottom of the stair the wall at the apartment level could be 3 ft high and make the living space feel larger.

Then there could be a work counter between the range and the sink and the refrigerator side could move to the right and allow more space in the laundry and/or office.

The door to the larger closet doesn't need to be larger than the door to the bathroom.

Be very carful to dimension the bathroom so the door doe not strike the toilet. What you have drown is obviously a "cadet" or "round-front" toilet normally used for a half bath/powder room not an "elongated" toilet normally used for a full bathroom. If the toilet and the door both extend into the space 30 inches the room width should be 60".

Perhaps the laundry could be in a 3 ft deep closet off the hall and the space behind it could be a walk-in storage room and the office could be made larger since it might someday be used as a bedroom.

Revonator - For some reason Chief Architect keeps saying that the stair won't reach the second floor with only 12 treads. Excellent ideas though!

There's so many modifications to this plan that I may have to scrap it. I'm trying to avoid hiring an architect and at this point my ideal plan just keeps getting further away from the original. I'm continuing the online floorplan search though and will continue posting. Everyone's comments have been a huge help in figuring out exactly what I want vs need.