Currently we have a 4300 square foot custom. Rather "typical" plan. Front entry formal"ish" with open stair case, formal dining to one side, den to the other & powder room. Back of the house is a large family room, open to huge kitchen and breakfast area. Off the garage is a large mud room (long hall) another half bath, and laundry. Master suite is on the lower level and kid's are upstairs.

We have determined like many we don't need the front of our house, except to buffer it from the front door. We like a foyer and love being able to answer the door and not have people "in the house" and not able to see the kitchen and family room. We realize we like the formal dining room on special occassions. We want to downsize some and feel like a nook that seats 8, a larger formal dining and an island that seats six are not all needed/wanted by us.

I'm envisioing a large kitchen, with windows to the backyard (over the sink), open to a family room. Never have had the two entirely sepearate and can't even imagine that. So, a stairs or fireplace bewteen the kitchen and family room are not options. Directly off the kitchen and in the back of the home I want a large dining room that will take the place of a formal dining room and a nook. It would be like a pottery barn catalog page. Stone fireplace, wood floors, exposed beamed, vaulted ceiling, window and french doors surrounding the room. This room would branch out into the woods by itself. It would house an old, large farmhouse table. It could be dressed up for the holidays and still be fitting for eveing dinners and sipping coffee and reading the paper on Sunday mornings. Ahhhh, dreaming, back to the plans.

Off the kitchen towards the garage area I would require a large (SEPERATE) laundry area, small (very) office area for me, half bath and a LARGE MUDROOM. The mud room would require an entrance from the garage and exterior. Think, five, active, mud loving....BOYS!

I have seen plans that are ok, only if I take a sharpie marker and color off the dining room, front den, and small kitchen nook. Then I change the screened in porch, that so often angles off the kitchen and make this my dream dining area. Oh, and I remove the so often seen stairs that are a barrier between the kitchen and family room.

Please, I don't want anyone to think I'm putting their house or style down. I love the house I have now and if not trying to downsize or work within a certain budget, I would too have all these formal rooms too. After living in five home (3 we built) and many apartments....we just know what we want this time. Thought we new last time, but live and learn. Also, paying grealty for the increased mortage. So, please know I'm not against certain plans or less used formal areas. It is just a matter of how we live and what works for us and our budget.

SO WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE AND THE EXTERIOR??? I rather like an open stairs, just always had a fondness for them. I have played making the "front" typical formal dining room place a laundry room. A little unorthodox, but hey I do need that space more for laundry than entertaining.

I so love looking at plans and coloring all over stock plans and drawing on graph paper until the wee hours of the night. Eventually, we will have the gentleman who drew the plans for our current house take a stab at it. Call me crazy, but I get a huge amount of satisfaction, fun, gratitude, persoanl achievement for working on this forever myself (before handing it over to the professional).

Any opinions, ideas, advice? Do we live so absolutley different from other "larger" families that I have never seen a plan even close to what I want. As anyone seen anything I'm describing? We basically want only the rooms that we use and feel we need for our family and I want those main rooms all in the back of the house. Lots of windows, privacy and views of the trees. Of those rooms we want them spacious enough for our family. If you think I'm crazy to not have the "normal" plan that I see so often...please tell me that too. I don't feel concerned about resale, but I thought this was our forever home too. Lord, help us that we get it closer to "perfect" this time. Also, huge impact on the move is the 1 1/2 acres we are on, isn't nearly the space we envisioned it to be. Love to have some words for thought! Thanks for your time and ideas:)

Next, sounds similar to what I tried to accomplish also. No formal spaces, my foyer might be a little larger than necessary but it also acts as a buffer to the private spaces. It is also the hub for traffic in and out, up and down.

It was important for me to have our main living spaces on the back of the house also. We live in the country, and almost at the end of the road, but we still sit close enough to the road, but mostly I wanted this because our pond will be to the back, our horses are usually out back rather than across the road, the deer and turkey are usually to the back, the river bluff is to the back, etc.

I am sure I could have done a much better job on our layout, but I think we will be very happy.

Our house "lives" very well. We use the hearth room area as a family room...we adore that room. Last night with the snow storm raging, a roast in the crock pot and a fire in the fireplace we snuggled in and watched a movie. Today with 22 inches of snow on the ground and dogs and kids in and out with all the gear, the clutter room was invaluable!

We made some changes, moved a bathroom, changed the master bath and closet a bit.

We have a full basement, walk out. It's not finished yet but will be in the near future adding another 1500 or so sq ft.

Gopintos- I've never seen a plan like yours, and I'm smitten. I love the library and the clutter room!

toning- thanks for the suggestions, we will have more land and better views to work with for this build. I have actually seen a few plans since and in the past would have nixed them because of the "front" kitchens.

pps7- Your plans are very well thought out. I do really like them, especially the layout, front foyer, and mutipurpose room, etc.

sombreuil- Yes, I too have thought a courtyard plan would meet our needs. I will study that more.

gopintos- my memory is getting bad, but I know your plan was nice. I specifically recall that I loved the front stairs. Do you happen to have pictures?

ponydoc- i'm sorry, now i'm confused with gopintos, perhaps your plan has the stairs in front of the entrance doors. I will go back to review.

oicu812- thanks for sharing the lovely plan. I so love the back mudroom, pantry, 1/2 bath, management area. I want them all and they are on my MUST HAVE LIST.

Young gardener- How funny, I'll let my dh know I'm not alone:) I will check those plans out, thanks!

First time builder- VERY NICE PLAN and best wishes to you on building your home. The back of your home is very so much what I like to see! A nice family home!

Thanks again for all the help, I'm now going to reviw more details.

-The sun room and plant room side of this house would become the master suite area.

-The dining room would be enlarged and have a cased, arched opening, to give it a seperate room.

-OR expand the kitchen area into the dining room some and move the screenedporch closer to the kitchen and have the screenedporch become the dining room. I love a super large kitchen and would not want to have the sink and cooktop in the island. So spreading the kitchen over to the dining area too and having the dining room become the screenedporch could be neat. I think an angled dining room off the back of the house with vaulted ceilings and a firplace would be so cozy.

-I would most likely not have the back set of stairs and enlarge the mudroom area. Also, we would only want one 1/2 bath in that area of the house. Perhaps the closet back in the corner between the gargae and screened porch could be my little office/management area.

-Not sold on the foyer, seems very open and close to the family room. Perhaps with the arches and all it would be fine. Else, move the stairs, kind of like em' where they are? One idea I had (think it was discussed here a few months ago) to have a stone fireplace directly across from the front door and block the family room with the fireplace. Then the existing fireplace wall could just be one huge built in with tv in center and shelves, etc flanking each side???

Love to get some feedback on these ideas !

Our happiness, the way we live and our boys are such an incentive for this move. We really aren't that comfortable in our home or neighborhood. Basically we have upgraded, decked out, trimmed out to the hilt and back and it doesn't make us any the happier. We spend too much time cleaning and dusting chandeliers and worrying about dinks in the cherry woood. I have gone back to work part-time to make up the difference in the extra mortgage and we just rather not live like this. DH from the start wanted more land and less sub-division. Him and the boys can't race around on their "toys" quads and all. We figure if we can do this one more time, we'll have a much more enjoyable place for us, more casul, more woods for the boys to explore and less mortgage. Trust me, I have learned a good lesson on wants/needs and the cost of 4 different granites in my main floor alone. I agree that a smaller house can be much more expensive, after I didn't say "NO" to any extras this time around. Bottom line, just a simple family looking for a simpler forever home.

We ended up doing a custom plan with an architect. The main changes were:

-we got rid of the eat in kitchen. We wanted only one dining area.
-we moved the multipurpose room to the back of the house, we wanted acsess from the backyard.
-we wanted 2 bedrooms on the main level.Laundry area near the bedrooms.
-attched 3 car garage.

Good luck!