Are you willing to have the powder room open off of the mudroom? Are you willing to lose that window at the end of the hallway?

If the answer to both question is yes then...

1) Move the mud room closet so that it is at the end of the hallway. It can open either to the hallway or into the mud room. Your hallway would end at the turn-in to the office. If you have the closet open up toward the mud room, you could put an art niche at the end of the hallway so that you have something pretty to look at. And a solatube could be used to bring light into the hallway if you're worried about it being dark.

2) Now move the powderroom into the space currently occupied by the closet and pantry.

3) Put a new pantry where the current butler's pantry is located.

4) Put the butler's pantry and hallway where the powderroom is currently located.

5) Enlarge the closet near the staircase.

Or, if you don't want to shove the butler's pantry down quite that far...

1) Do #1 and #2 above

2) Left/right flip the bulter's pantry so that the "hallway" is shifted to the left by 2 feet.

3) Put the pantry where the powder room currently is.

4) Enlarge the hallway closet near the stairs.

If you don't want to move the powderroom to the mudroom tho, I think what you have now is about as good as you're going to get.

Thanks so much, bevangel. We love the idea of the window at the end of the hallway and hate to give it up. And we're reluctant to have the powder room open to the mudroom, because we are expecting our mudroom will get pretty messy and don't want our guests to see :). So maybe we have to leave that part alone. Any thoughts on other parts of the plan?

I actually quite like this floor plan, it is simple, and it works, though the kitchen could probably use some work. You may want to do a large outline of just the kitchen and post it on the kitchen forum for feedback.

Otherwise, the only thing I would suggest is to take into consideration how your furniture (or the furniture you you would like) will fit into the space. We are planning a large great room and it really helped me to picture it all after I laid out the furniture.

Looks fine. Its a pretty common layout and without measurements and on a rough sketch that is clearly not to scale, it is impossible to really say if there are any issues with things like kitchen aisles being too narrow or rooms being too small for their intended usages.

I would probably the upper stair way open (use a railing only) along most if not all of the first flight. Having it open on the side will make both the FR and the stairwell feel larger.

Again, realizing that the sketch is not really drawn to scale, I don't think a window seat needs to be quite as deep as the one you've drawn on the landing. So, I don't think the bottom of your steps will need to stick out quite as close to the closet as it currently appears. It would be better if the bottom (curved) step of the staircase doesn't extend out any further than the edge of the opening between foyer and FR. In folks minds, the width of that doorway will tend to make people expect subconsciously to have the same width walkway space between staircase and closet. If the step extends out into that space, people who aren't paying attention may tend to trip over it.

Once you have a scale drawing with measurements, pay careful attention to aisleway widths, depths of closets, door widths, the depth of the front porch, etc. You might repost so folks here can help you look for any issues. And, post the kitchen plan on the KITCHENS forum for feedback from the kitchen gurus over there.

Meanwhile, how is the second floor and basement drawings coming along?