It would help to know a bit more about you (any kids? how many cooks? like to entertain? etc.) and also see some dimensions, particularly in the kitchen for aisle widths etc.

Where is your garage and which door will you be coming in when carrying bags of groceries? If you're just feeding 2 it might not be as big a deal; if you're feeding many you will want a short path from car to kitchen. If you have kids I think you'll definitely want a mudroom. If no kids but you like to garden, or have pets, or might someday want to appeal to families for resale, I'd still recommend a mudroom.

In the master bath I'd recommend repositioning the toilet so that the wall or half wall is between the sink counter and the toilet area, and the open end of the toilet is facing the shower rather than the sinks.

If you reorient the first floor office door to open off the foyer (above the closet), it looks like you can move that nearby bathroom door over to gain about a foot of space in the bathroom. That puts the bathroom door closer to the entrance of the DR though, so I'm not sure if it's worth the gain in space for the bathroom. Depends on the dimensions and the swing of the shower door/clearance of the shower door compared to the toilet.

Make sure you have room for your DR table and chairs and still have a walkway to the LR and kitchen.

Thanks! Great suggestions. I guess I should have elaborated on my family. Its me, my wife (we're 31) and son (now a year old). No plans for more kids but I'd like another, the wife, 'she's good'. I like to cook and grill, while the wife likes to bake and make salads. We'll be building this house on what my family has called "the family compound" since there are four generations of family members all living on parcels divided from a large parcel that's been in the family for over a century. We're proud to have our opportunity to build on our own parcel. The garage (future when funds allow) will be to the right, front of the plan with the door along the exterior wall of the stairs leading to the basement. There will be a mudroom with cubbies/storage between the garage and the house once built. The house we're in now has the kitchen on the second floor so this design is certainly better than that! We're okay with the kitchen location since we'd like it adjacent to the living room more so than the entry. I'll add the dimensions soon so you have a better idea of the space. But in the mean time the clear aisleway dimension in the kitchen is 42". Great suggestion on the MBath toilet! Its great to see things more clearly when someone else see's something so obvious! I originally had the entry closet the full width of the office but realized it was way oversized and took up a lot of space. I like the idea of moving the door to the other wall. Doing so will also make it a bit more private since you can't see it from the DR/LR. Plus it will give more space to that BR and give a nice place for a table. I think I'll just move the BR wall with the door in it over 6" to the right on the plan so that it still is more private to the DR. I placed the DR table we're wanting in the space and it works well, even with someone sitting at the bar.

Updated per suggestions as well as some other minor revisions.

For maximum flexibility, I would rearrange the secondary upstairs bathroom. I would move the toilet to beside the tub and make that separated from the sink with a door.

Perhaps this way: 1. door to bathroom, 2. double sink or single sink with linen cabinet, 3. door to shower/toilet area, 4. toilet along bedroom wall (same as sink) 5. tub turned 90 degrees with plumbing along same bedroom wall. I would also add a high window over the tub, maybe 1'x4'.

Also, I don't like the collision of doors in the middle bedroom. It also makes positioning of furniture more difficult. How about moving the door down and using the rest of the space along the hallway side for closets? That would make the room more balanced. Or you could put the door in the middle with closets on both sides.

Excellent comments!

What size are the bedroom closets? They all look very small to me.

They are 24" deep and 60" wide.

I'm so glad you're planning on a mudroom -- that will come in very handy. A couple more suggestions (and I'm hoping bevangle chimes in because she has a great eye for plans / details.)

1. Be sure to post your 1st floor plan plus a closeup of the kitchen on the kitchens forum. Great advice there for getting the best layout.
2. Strongly consider all or mostly drawers for lower cabinets in the kitchen. We love ours for ease / organization. See the linked thread below. Good pics of drawer organizers too.
3. In the DR, just a thought... instead of a closet for the table leaves etc., use a tall cabinet. You won't waste space with 2x4s and wall board like a closet would. Orient the cabinet so it faces out toward the room and make that whole wall cabinetry for a nice beverage / serving zone (lower cabinets under the window; tall cabinet on left for storage; on right maybe a beverage ref below and wine glasses above.) Our neighbors have similar and it's great for family dinners, game night, etc. You could use the same cabinetry as your kitchen, or a different finish if you want something more formal. You might lose space for a chair at the window end of the table, but it would feel less crowded along the long sides of the table at that end. Mockup below in floor plan and at right of plan.

{{gwi:1459140}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Drawers vs pull out shelves

chicagoans: Thank you so much for these great ideas! Also of note pertaining to the mudroom is that our basement will be daylight to the back of the house (under the LR) and we'll have a screened in porch below the deck above. An exterior door to a game room that will also have a small bathroom with stand up shower so we can clean up after digging in the garden or swimming in the pool without having to trudge through the house. We won't be able to finish off the basement now but those are future plans...

I'll post in the kitchens forum momentarily. I had planned for as many drawers as possible in the lower cabinets. That is a great idea for the DR! And thanks for the little diagram. I'll implement that for sure!

Can you post the elevations? How do you plan on handling the retaining walls or slope from the front to the back daylight basement? Do I understand correctly that you will have a deck on the west side of the house? If so, what are your plans to keep from overheating on the deck?

dekeoboe: Thanks for the questions. The elevations need some fine tuning before I can post them. I did a grade study of the lot and a couple of sections. The natural slope of the lot accommodates the daylight basement, having the full height space to the west. And yes the top of the plan in the pictures is the west side. My mom's house (the next house over, to the south) also has a deck/daylight basement to the west and it hasn't posed an overheating problem so my concerns for that are minimal.

Posted in the Kitchens forum for specific design help there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Design Thread

Sorry to say I just do not like the peninsula between two doors in the kitchen. I had my stove between two doors when we first bought our house and it was an awful set up. Do you really need two doors from your dining room to Kitchen? Good luck!

dilly_ny: I don't follow you on your comments... Where are you seeing two doors in my kitchen? And I don't have a peninsula, I have an island. The pinkish line between the DR and the Kitchen is the floor transition from HW to tile (I'm showing HW in the pictures below since the IKEA plug-in doesn't have the tile we want). The door you see next to the Fridge is actually a cabinet.

Preliminary layout from the IKEA Home Planner:

Colors and textures will vary but it gives an overall 3D sense of the space I'm working with and the potential cabinet/appliance layout.

The entry/main stair space wanders from the front door past offsets and corners until it arrives between the kitchen and dining areas. That sequence seems accidental, ie, what was left over after the other functions were placed where they fit. This space needs to be studied and designed to feel more intentional, to welcome visitors, and to introduce the main design idea of the house or at least allude to it.

Renovator8: I agree and have struggled since the start of this layout with that entry/stair space. I "band-aided" it by centering the opening leading into the Kitchen/DR and making it an arched opening hoping to draw your (a guest's) attention toward the path of travel. Plus I really wanted you to be able to see from the front door (or in this latest version of the plan, the archway) thru the entire house to the back door which is a large 4 panel glass door unit (hopefully garnering an open concept type of feel). This plan currently "opens up" as you make your way to the back of the house. Since the ceilings throughout this level will be 9 feet, I was thinking about dropping the floor a step or two down (6"-12") in the LR (sunken LR) to also create that gradually more open concept. But I'd have to adjust the framing/floor truss layout below. I haven't fully investigated how that would work yet, but it's on the table for discussion and it's something I would like to do if feasible.

I think the entry space can come together better with a specific tile pattern layout (giving a sort of "pathway" to the arch). I wanted to do some sort of tile mosaic compass on the floor of the entry as well since the house will truly be oriented east-west (west is the top of the photos). Also next to the stairway (BTW, it is an open stair to the south) I was thinking of a bench of some sort for taking off shoes and the like. It's a large enough space so that several people can stand, and the little niche areas created by the wall offsets provide separate places to stand and have a conversation. For instance, if my wife is saying hello/goodbye to my grandmother (which can take forever), my grandfather and I can stand somewhere else within the entryway without being too cramped.

The wall of the closet adjacent to the office door, the wall next to and adjacent to the bathroom door and the stair wall between the entry and the kitchen are great places to hang paintings/pictures. I had also thought about angling the wall with the office door in it to eliminate the edge jutting out into the entry space, but alas there are no other angled walls in the entire house, unless you count the angled (in respect to the house) garage...

I think if I were to stick with this floor plan, I can make the entry space work with a specific tile pattern, the archway and various pieces of furniture/wall hanging items.

Do you have any other such suggestions for this space? I'd love to hear them!

I'm not liking this too much but it does sort of open up the entry a bit more and better directs guests.

The feature against the stair would be built out of full height walls with a HW shelf about 30-36" above the floor for a statue/artwork/plant, etc. and the office door is directly opposite on a parallel wall.

In the master bath, I would swap the sink closest to the closet with the toilet, and enclose it as much as possible (personally, I would go so far as to put a pocket door on the outside if it made a toilet room possible), and then put the two sinks in one cabinet. If I'm going to look out of the shower and see Tom, I would much rather see him brushing his teeth than sitting on the toilet.

Where is the furniture going to go on the front bedroom? Between the door, closet, the little jog and the windows, there's no real place to put the bed, but I don't have a good idea to fix it.

I like the idea's for the MBath. Put a full height wall there but without a door; still works better I think.

There is plenty of space for a queen size bed against the bathroom wall. There's enough space for a 36" wide desk against the outside wall as well as other various dressers and a night stand...