Your main living area is TOO open. There's no real point in having a family room a living room . . . that are really both one big room without any distinction between them. If someone's watching TV in the family room, a person in the living room can't read a book. If you wall one of them in, you'll have acoustical privacy and visual privacy -- that'll be a much better choice.

At a glance, I'd move the guest bedroom over by the master bedroom . . . and bump the family room over beyond the kitchen (and give it a door). This'd give you an open floor plan for your main living area AND an "away room" with some privacy.

I'd move the back French doors to the middle of the kitchen /family room. This would give you a lovely sight line as you walk in the front door.

Master suite: Pocket doors are a great choice for doors that are rarely closed -- not for doors that are used frequently. Your bathroom looks too narrow, and it has no storage. Are you sure you want people to be able to walk on the porch and look in your bathroom window?

Secondary bedrooms: The most forward bedroom seems to be very narrow, and I don't like that wasted space that forms a hallway just for that bedroom. I think this can be refigured to better advantage. The guest bedroom has lovely windows, but the other three have a piddly little one window; I'd keep at this 'til the others could be made nicer.

Secondary bathrooms: None of these have any storage space -- not even floor space for a hamper. This is a real need. The jack-and-jill bath vanity isn't big enough to support two sinks. Again, pocket doors are ideal for rooms where the door is usually open -- but they're a poor choice for doors that see a lot of use.

General bathroom statement: You have 5 bathrooms, and they all need work. They all need storage and walking space. I'd rather have fewer bathrooms . . . but do them right.

In the garage entrance area, the laundry area looks very narrow -- opening the dryer door would create a bottleneck in a busy spot. What's that open area to the left, nearer the garage -- could the laundry be relocated to that spot?

Trying to figure out how to move guest room and bath on master side? Any suggestions? We would to add a bay window that you when you walk in, that's what you see.
We have closets in all the secondary rooms. Not following what you mean there? The master will get a tad bigger and adding linen closet. I'm not worried about people looking in, we are in 5@.
The laundry are can be moved over closer to garage but we were thinking if using that space for computer area.
Not sure how to change the hallway by dining. I don't want kids room open to dining when we entertain and I'd like a place to put my hutch and table.

Keep the thoughts coming please!!!

The laundry area is unworkable, IMO. It's a hallway, for goodness sakes!

Where will you stand when doing laundry? Blocking the hallway for anyone entering and leaving? Where will the laundry baskets be? Where will you hang clothes coming out of the dryer? Where will you fold clean clothes? This house is very large - surely a dedicated laundry space can be found somewhere other than in the busiest hall in the house.

I don't like the open living/dining/family/kitchen. Cavernous. I'd like to see the new walls you have proposed in there. I don't like the bathroom opening off the dining room or the opening to the master bedroom right off the family room.

I agree that bathrooms are teeny tiny.

How many people will be living in this house?

Put the guest room where the current family room is (or the current living room). Then move the chosen area to the current guest room's spot. Benefits: Breaks up the over-sized, no-privacy main living area; provides privacy for the "away room"; makes no difference in the function of the guest room.

Where you don't have storage is the secondary BATH ROOMS. You have none (really, none in the master either). No space for towels. No space for toiletries. No place for even a small hamper. I'll say it again: Instead of 5 too-small bathrooms that don't work, I'd rather have a smaller number of moderate-sized bathrooms that function well.

What is 5@?

I like that near-the-garage spot for computer usage. It's well lit and out of the way. It's actually one of the best spots in the house.

I understand that you don't want a bedroom opening off the dining room, but the two bedrooms by the dining room need a re-work altogether to rid yourself of the wasted-space hallway.

Ok. Will take these things into consideration and try. 5@ is 5 acres.
I need a cabana bath, we will have a pool and I wanted the guest room and bath to be near each other.
As far as the laundry room, I have the same set up now, except its a tunnel effect with my pantry. I know what your saying, but min it sure how to rework that. We will 6 people living here and entertain most weekends.

I like your saferoom. We were hit by a tornado once. Therefore, we now have a saferoom:)
I agree with MrsPete about the door placement for your extended sight lines. It will make your house feel huge upon entering, if you like that. I disagree with her about the large multipurpose space however. We have done something like this in our new build because I need to position a rather large piano in the "family room". We delineated the space by lowering the floor of the media area and setting the piano up on a little stage. We used a change in the ceilings too, to psychologically mark the space. If you are only going to repeat a seating area, it might be redundant- in which case, you could use part of that area for a study, if that is useful to you.
I see potential for your saferoom to be a large working pantry/larder/wine cellar too. Flow onto the patio from the guestroom bath is covenient if you put in a pool later.
Your front two bedrooms and bath are problematic. I would think about using that space between the garage and bedrooms to tweak those arrangements so the bathroom design works better. If you push the top wall of the bedroom adjoining your laundry down and extend into the yard space you could make that vanity work a little better. Looks like you are thinking about cubby space just off the garage to the "south" of the saferoom. That would be handy. If you moved bedroom space over to where that became a shared wall, you could introduce natural light with a skylight or solatube. We lit up our potentially dark back hallway/mud area with two of these lovely things. Best wishes.

Thank you...I am still trying how to move the kitchen around to make it fit better. Not sure how to move the guest room and pool bath? We will have a pool.

Front not working. Take a breather and look at some model houses in your area. Clear your mind for a bit- our eventual plan morphed many times. No shame in change.

So many of the model homes around here are set up this way in the front. Walk in with dining on one side, study on the other.
Honestly we cannot find plans online I have looked at 1000's.
We want the walkaround porch, spilt plan, with walk in pantry, safe room, cabana bath for pool.

I'd move the dining room over where the guest room is since it would flow nicely from the kitchen. Move the guest room to the living room area.

If you add a coat closet to the left side of the front door, that could give some privacy to that front bedroom, eliminating the need for that long strange hallway.

I'd flip the master bedroom - bedroom to the front of the house and bathroom toward the back. (You say your on 5 acres, but visitors can still walk onto your porch and visit with you while your are in the tub.)

You could then put the cabana bath on the other side of the porch - adjacent to your master bath plumbing. not sure where you live, but I'd consider the cabana bath as just a powder room, with outdoor shower.

Hi Bridget- There is a builder in Texas which has genius floor plans... at least IMO. I've owned 2 of their homes and we are renting one now. I know you are tired of looking at plans but if you get in the mood, check out Perry Homes in the Houston/San Antonio area. Since you are starting from scratch anyway, you might see one of their layouts you can tweak. I was impressed with one of their models with a 3 car tandem... we adapted that for our odd shaped lot. There was a plan back a few years with 2 bedrooms towards the back joined by a gallery across the back of the family room. There was no traffic pattern through the great room seating area. Other bedrooms were up front. Line of sight straight from the front to the back... not a huge house but very symmetrical with very little wasted space. Best wishes.

Thank you, I will gladly look at more plans. I've been debating about changing from a 5 bedroom to a 4. The 5th room would be for guests only, which we have often, but I thought if I had a kid common area they could "camp out" there and give up their room to guest if needed. (Like the one attatched) What do you think??

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Here is a link that might be useful: Korel house design

We lived in a house that had one of those common areas by the bedrooms. It can be difficult to place furniture in due to all the doors and pathways. It was also dark since it was an interior room with no windows, similar to the one in the Korel plan.

We installed 4 of these in our new build. Beautiful natural light for interior spaces. Unfortunately, perfection is not to be found for every taste at every budget, but the Korel plan seems to function for what you want, better than the first option we talked about. Longevity is a reasonable indicator of a sound design approach and it looks like Korel and Solatube have had a modicum of success in pleasing customers longterm.

Thank you. My hubby would never go for those. He doesn't like cutting holes into a metal roof. He's very old fashioned about things, straight, simple lines, kind of bland. He looked at the other plans I posted and said it too busy and too many walls. I think it's nice, but he likes open.
I feel like we are never going to agree in plans. Trying to incorporate some of the other plans into ours.

Do you think the idea of 5th bedroom is better over the common area for the kids?

Find a local architect. In addition to providing a design that works much better, they can integrate both spouses desires and meld them together. Open space need not be completely open to work as open plan, and a straight no jogs plan need not be boring. Look at ceiling treatments and some integrated storage like bookcases to separate spaces, much like the old Craftman style low bookcases that separate living and dining. Look at Colonial and Georgian and good Ranch plans for that.

Thank you! The hardest part is knowing what styles they are called. I love farmhouse, but most are 2 story.

What's a ballpark pricing for artictecht?

If anybody has any questions regarding my house plans, you can call me at my toll free number: 1-800-400-9220. Thank you, Jerry Karlovich, Korel Home Designs