2nd Floor

These are the posts that I want to use somewhere in or on the outside of the house. They held up the wrap around porch on the house. Part of the porch has collapsed and I pulled these out before the rotted way. They were hand made by slaves on the plantation in the early 1800's.

The history of the posts is super cool. They clearly need some work, but they'll make quite the conversation piece. I'd think the opening between the family room and the kitchen would be an obvious spot. Perhaps the other two flanking the dining room opening.

As for the house plan, you have lots of jigs and jogs, which add significantly to the cost.

I would make the kitchen into an L + island. That'll give you quite a bit of counter space, whereas right now you really have an overabundance. Switching to an L + island would give you several positives: 1) Less expensive, yet still plenty of workspace. 2) Your island would be 2' larger. 3) Corners are awkward, inefficient and expensive -- you're forced to have one, but the second could go without loss. 4) Right now your work triangle is too far apart, and the island forms a barrier between your main items. But if you change to an L, the refrigerator would move closer and everything would fall into place more nicely.

The dining room is far from the kitchen. Imagine carrying all the plates back and forth. Especially since you have a fairly large table in the kitchen, I can't see the dining room being used.

I like the arrangement of the kitchen - casual dining - family room.

Since the door to the laundry room will probably stand open most of the time, I'd consider going with a pocket door instead of a swing door.

In the mudroom I see that you have a closet and what appears to be a bench area. If this were my space (especially since I'd be going with the L kitchen), I'd consolidate those a bit, move the entrance door down somewhat, and enlarge the pantry -- you could easily make it 50% larger and still have a comfortable mudroom.

The laundry room and the master bedroom closet aren't well located in relation to one another. You'll have to carry baskets of clean clothes through the mud room, through the living room, through a small hallway, through the master bedroom, through the bathroom . . . and finally you'll make it to the closet. This could be simplified.

The master bedroom could be downsized without loss of spaciousness . . . but then, I'm in the camp of, "A bedroom is for sleeping".

I always wonder, "Why a three car garage?"

Upstairs the bedrooms look fine -- nothing strikes me as particularly good or bad.

It's interesting to read someone wants to honor a family's ownership of other people. And would brag about it.

Nashville, It's history. I seriously doubt the OP is pro-slavery. I've visited old plantation houses and have been thrilled to learn how they operated and how the people (both the owners and the slaves) lived. The most interesting one I've ever visited is Boone Plantation in Charleston, SC. They were a brickyard as well as a plantation; thus, the actual slave houses are still standing. I was fascinated by the small size of the houses and came away with a sense of the conditions in which these people lived. Doesn't mean I'm anxious to own another human being in any way.

Mrspete- finding a tour fascinating and educational is vastly different than my comment. The OP isn't building a replica of the family home or teaching others about life on a plantation and detailing the reality of the situation good and bad for visitors and school children.

My comment did not say the OP wanted to own slaves. Nor did it suggest that anyone who visits old plantations wishes to revert back to antebellum times. I merely noted it was interesting what the OP chose to disclose. No one needed to know where the posts came from or that the were hand carved by the OP family's slaves. I still find it an interesting disclosure and an odd thing to want in the heart of the home.

Mrs Pete....thanks for taking the time to review the plan. I will have to sit down with the plan and review all of your notes. I will consider them all.

Nashville....I was never bragging...only trying explain the history of the posts. This is a house forum so I am not going to debate you or anyone else on slavery. Obviously it was a terrible thing that caused pain, suffering and was eventually abolished. But it is a part of history. If we forgot or ignored every piece of history that was hurtful or sad we would be living in a fairy tale. Good or bad it is part of our history and part of the history of these posts. Again...I'm not here to debate slavery so any other posts on that subject will be ignored by me.
Thanks again Mrs. Pete or your comments!

Your kitchen, as is, will be a problem... You have a very large island (or so it appears) and it is right in between the sink and the fridge. You'll always be dancing/running around the island between the 2. It would be better to figure out how to avoid that scenario--making the kitchen L-shaped would probably solve that.

I am not a fan of the double doored bathrooms upstairs--either one of them. Figure out how to make them single door bathrooms (at least single-locking door bathrooms) or replace them with individual bathrooms for each bedroom. As is, one door will always be locked anyway, and someone will be locked out when they need to get in.

Similarly, you should reconsider your door swing in your master toilet (unless that is an unusually long WC).

How will people approach your house? As they drive up and park, are they more likely to see/use your laundry room side entrance than your front door? What about the UPS man?

I like the location of the laundry room. I'd rather have my husband and children drop their muddy clothes close to the back or garage entry than have to carry them through the house to the laundry room.

I would try to incorporate the pantry into the walkway to the dining room, so it becomes a butler's pantry and helps make the dining room feel connected to the kitchen. Although I agree that a formal dining room is rarely needed in modern lifestyles.

Do you really need a bathtub in the bathroom outside the office?

Mrs. Pete: Just to answer a few of your questions.
-You can access the dining room from the kitchen by the short hallway behind the stairs. It's not a long walk. Bu tI don't want to put the pantry on that wall because it would be farther from the kitchen from where it is.

-I will change the laundry to a pocket door!

-I may enlarge the pantry by a foot or so. That's a good point. I dont want to make the mud room too small because the house will be built on a small farm and this will be the entrance we use for dirty clothes and shoes so I want to have plenty of room.

-I agree with Amber and I like the location of the laundry. But Mrs. Pete is right. We are going to have washer and dryer hookups in the master closet so we can put a stacking washer and dryer in their at one point when the kids move out in the future. (a long way into the future)

-I agree with you on the master bedroom being too big. We have talked about moving the back wall in a couple of feet.

-3 car garage....I dont like leaving cars outside in the sun and rain. I dont think there can be too big of a garage.

-The kitchen...I will go back and take anohter look at it and do some measurements. I know it doesn't have the perfect triangle but we have the same setup not on a smaller scale and it works great for us. The island is 5'-5" x 4'-6" and then it has a curved bar for stools on one side. It's not as big as it appears. I would like to keep the island instead of closing off the kitchen on one side. I would like to be able to enter the kitchen on both sides of the island.

Kirkhall...
-We don't want to have 3 bathrooms upstairs and I dont want a hallway bathroom so the jack and jill bathroom works for our family. As long as we buy door knobs that can be unlocked from either side it shouldn't be a big problem.

-approaching the house: We were also worried about people wanting to use the side door instead of the front. The steps to the side door will go toward the back of the house and away from the driveway so that should help.

Amber...
-We dont need the bathtub downstairs and we may remove it. Our thoughts were if we ever needed to use the office as a bedroom we would have a full bath to go with it. It will be used as a nursery at some point although not for an extended amount of time.

Thanks again everyone for your comments. It's nice to have another set of eyes!

Using those posts is in astonishingly poor taste.

They are conversation pieces, so I expect you will tell many people the history of them, and after you do, what the rest of the house looks like won't matter much to many of us.

I think it is a fine idea to reuse the posts. No piece of wood ever did a single thing to anybody, it was the actions of the people that were the problem. I think you would honor the work and blood of those slaves if you used the posts and took the time to tell people about their origins. Let your own life speak for you. If your attitude is correct, using that wood is the right thing to do and can inspire others to change how they view things. The past isnâÂÂt going away, but we have to make something out of the ugly past, you can help by doing thisâ¦good luck with your beautiful new home!

My goodness...use the posts if you want to. They were your GG great grandparent's posts. You obviously want to keep a part of their lives in your home. History is history.