Thanks!!

-The kitchen felt very closed off from the rest of the house and with the size island specced in there from the drawing, it felt tight. I would have opened the space up to the family room and changed up the layout. Another thing to think about is do you really need 3 dining areas? You've got the dining room, the island, and a breakfast room. I know breakfast rooms are the "in" thing, but what about extending your kitchen into that space and using the dining room for more than just special occasions? Just something to think about...

-The family room effectively shrinks to 18x15 once you allow for the walkway (14x15 if you allow for a walkway running parallel to the kitchen wall too). For the size house it is + taking into account today's oversized furniture, it also felt a little too narrow. I would have bumped it out so it was even with the breakfast room gaining another ~3' or so. If you opened the space up to the kitchen, you would also gain more space width wise.

-The upstairs bedroom over the mudroom is a little on the narrow side as well as the mudroom itself. I would have bumped that part of the house out ~1-2'. It would give more space in the bedroom allowing for better furniture placement options (also allowing for a deeper closet), the mudroom would actually be a mud room vs. a mud hall that it is on the plan (I can see myself tripping over the kids' shoes left in front of the cubbies), and you could slide the powder room over slightly allowing for the cabinet run on the exterior wall of the kitchen to extend further down.

-The master bath calls for sheet rocked walls for the linen closets on either end of the bathroom next to the sinks. I would make those cabinetry linen towers instead to maximize your storage space (you'll gain an extra 3" or so in each).

-I'm not a fan of doors to the porch from the master for security reasons and I'm not a fan of them from the breakfast room area for functional/usability reasons. I would make one set of the windows in the family room a set of French doors. Or to save $$$ on the window/door budget, do a triple window centered on the wall with a single patio door flanking them on either end.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Now that I can "see" it thru your eyes, I agree with so much of what you've said. (And I love the cabinetry towers idea.) In fact, I've also been eyeing Ginn's very similar- but smaller- plan, Stone Creek. Now I'm thinking that Stone Creek may be better than her big sister- at least it addresses alot of what you've said. Here it is:

I'm not sure that I agree with your kitchen observation- at least in terms of it being "shut off" from the the rest of the house; I kind of like that! :) But I do feel like it needs to be a tad bigger for how I'll be using it. This is a picture of the Shook Hill kitchen as it's drawn, and I LOVE the look, just would want more cabinetry and island space.

And the mudroom- yes, that's a poor excuse for a mudroom, isn't it? :) My hope/dream is to have a project (work?) room- with W/D, desk, cubbies, dog shower, 1/2 bath, etc. I'll definitely need to contact the architect and see if we can make that happen with either Stone Creek or Shook Hill.

If I do end up using Stone Creek, I think I would still push the garage to the back of the house like Shook Hill and would turn the kitchen back like Shook's also, while enlarging that whole mudroom/kitchen area. I might even put some window seats in the "breakfast room" and let it do double duty as a keeping room type area with a small round table or something.

kirkhall- what great eyes you have for house plans! I agree- that's a genius spot to put a foyer closet! If we end up going with Shook Hill over Stone Creek, I'll definitely use your idea!

Thanks for your responses!

Thanks! I love looking at floorplans and seeing how they'd work for me.

You may want to check out some of beaglesdoitbetter's threads on the topic of dog shower areas and the like. She has an awesome setup (and some really cute doggie chandeliers too!)

Keep us posted!

(And p.s.- I am 99% sure I repinned some of my Shook Hill pictures from you on Pinterest! At least your screen name looks like it would match the Pinterest user's name. Small world!) :)

Hubby and I REALLY appreciate your pictures and the time you took to post them!

I gave him a bunch of pics and he got the house right on the first try and in 2 days!!!!!! No Joke

Honestly I hope my whole build goes as well as it did working with him. We should break ground in 20 days so I will post pics in the progress thread in June.