Hello Chelsea,
I love all your ideas of being green - energy efficiend and eco-friendly etc.
I have some questions:
Are you on the south of USA?
Is the north of the house on the top?
What do you plan to do with the big space in the middle of the rooms (second floor)
Is the second floor going to be placed over the sunspace and the living room? - I can not follow how the stairs is going to be.

So far I have to say that the bedrooms are to narrow (about 9') and that I I do not like (this is personal preference) the laundry/bathroom; you could have at least a low wall to conceal the toilet.
On the other hand, I suggest to turn the fire place 90 degress and place the tv on top of the fireplace so pleople can enjoy both. The fireplace could be see-thru so you can enjoy it from the dining room, too.
Good luck with your build

I think you'd appreciate being able to come in from outside and easily access the stairs. Maybe by pushing them over against the office wall and then entering by the laundry room. Otherwise, I think you'll like the open living space and the large family space at the top of the stairs.

Marthaelena-
Thanks for your thoughts. I love the green stuff because they save me so much money in the long run.
Are you on the south of USA? - definitely not, Washington State
Is the north of the house on the top? Yes
What do you plan to do with the big space in the middle of the rooms (second floor) - not sure yet. The second floor plan is very tentative. Also on the second floor the N/S walls mark 8ft ceiling height so the rooms will likely extend beyond them to a lower knee wall.
Is the second floor going to be placed over the sunspace and the living room? - The main roof will cover the sunspace as well.
The stairs come up about in the middle of the north wall there, my program isn't good at showing stairs on both floors. There may be a small dormer above them to ensure enough headroom if necessary.
THe 9' bedrooms upstairs are kids rooms and are actually wider if you include lower head room space.
The upstairs space will be space for what ever we need it for. If we decide we want the TV out of the main living space or the kids need room for a specific activity.
Sadly the woodstove will only be visible from one side because it will be fully enclosed rather than a fireplace so that it can heat efficiently.

ajpl - good suggestion for the stairs I will give that a try. Actually I think I will "L" them as well now that I look at it.

A couple of things-

Because you are building a smaller house, I see a couple of places where you could get more living space. "L" and "U" shaped stairs take up significantly more space than a straight run.

Also, why do you need a washer/dryer upstairs AND downstairs?

Are the kids bedrooms going to be larger enough when you consider putting in the closets?

Are all of the windows going to create glare on the tv?

The bedroom upstairs (I am guessing it is the master) must have a window to be considered a bedroom.

Paint Chips - thanks for your thoughts. The L will use a bit more space but it is more difficult to fit in a straight run of stairs than a L or U in a small house. The L will also give me fewer stairs to fall down at once. Much of the space under the stairs will be used for storage so we aren't losing too much.
We don't need two sets of W/D as I mentioned before I just want to make sure I have hook ups both places so I can have them either up or downstairs.

I will have to think about the windows, though what you can't see in the plan is that they are higher up and only 1 ft tall. That said I don't know if they will cause glare, I am seriously considering just having the TV upstairs anyway so that might be another reason to do that.

I am not worried about the size of the kids' rooms, they are kids rooms and in my opinion don't need to be very big. My brother's bedroom was no bigger than that growing up, mine was but I shared it with my sister. Also since those walls won't be structural we can always knock down the walls when the kids move out to have a bigger space. The upper floor is really in flux anyway and the plans for it aren't really finished yet. Mostly I just want 3 bedrooms and a bathroom with some space left over up there.

Chelsea, I finally got some new photos. There in my photobucket but not on my blog yet. Here's the extra upstairs space we have. We just finished the boards yesterday and still have trim work to do obviously and we aren't sure what we'll use the space for.

Oh, and we have passive solar and a TV in the room and we just use blinds when we have to. Eventually we'll move the Tv out of the living space when we get the place organized. I wouldn't give up solar design for TV. We use the heat way more often ;)

I completely missed the part about the two washers. Duh.

What you said about the smaller windows makes sense now. I was imagining large windows behind your sofa.

It is difficult to really envision what windows will be like from looking at a floorplan. Sadly my program does not do nice elevations and a certain point starts freezing when I try to do 3d. I am trying to decide if I want to do a few similar high small windows on the east side as well. From books I am looking at it seems recommended to have natural light entering from more than one side of each room. Not something I will worry about in the bath or bedroom but it could be good for the main living space.

Ajpl - all that wood is amazing. Are you staining it? Sealing it?

Here it is with the changed stairs.

I like the way it works with the stairs moved. I think with small kids and living on an acreage with animals or a graden or whatever you'll appreciate that set up more than the first.

Our light coloured wood is all varnished with Varathane water based satin finish in the upstairs. Down stairs we have the same finish in oil based which alows for the golden colour to show over time. The reason we did them differently is that the upstairs has less light so we wanted the wood to stay light and b/c DH loves one look and I prefer the other. Our beams are stained but not protected since they aren't likely to be touched very often.

When I reach a certain point in a design, I get out the craft supplies and build a model. I build out of 1/4" foam board (craft or office supply stores) and I build to 1:24 scale, so 1/2"= 1'. You can buy cheap 1:24 scale doll house furniture and people on ebay. DW thinks I'm nuts playing with dolls, but it really helps me visualize things like window placement, furniture placement, traffic flow, etc. You can even take it outside, and see how the light comes in the windows. I cut it with a razor knife, and use a hot glue gun. It doesn't have to be pretty.

Chelsea,
I wonder if it is better to flip the first floor. Isn't it nicer to have morning sun in the bed/studio and living room and not sun in this areas in the afternoon so it is more pleasant? also I prefer to have more windows in the east than in the west. Morning sun is beneficial.
If you spend more time in the laundry and kitchen I guess is ok as is. Laundry could be a good buffer to protect house from afternoon sun in the summer.
On the second floor, I like the master where you have it.

marthaelena -
I am actually NOT a morning person so I prefer to avoid morning sun in the bedroom :) But I do like it in the kitchen when I am up getting breakfast it makes me more cheerful.
Windows will also be limited as much as possible on all sides except for south. There will be some windows on the east side as well, I am just not sure where yet.
I am counting on deep overhangs (2'+), 1.5' thick R 45 walls, and limited glazing on the west to protect the house from over heating. Probably some trees eventually.
We aren't really sure what we are doing with upstairs. It is entirely likely that the only room that will be framed initially will be the bathroom, though we will probably have to have some sort of plan just so we know where to put windows and dormers.

che1sea, From your posted images, it looks to me like you're using a Punch! program. Right?

If so, it should not be freezing up on you and you should be able to get perfectly fine elevation renditions from any angle you want, as well as interior "slice" renditions if you want them. I used Punch! 5-in-1 to do my initial drawings and was able to create some fairly complicated floor plans and got great elevations and fantastic 3d images. I did have a freeze-up issue once very early on in using the program and a fellow by the name of Lyle at a Punch! users forum (see the link below) was able to tell me how to change one of the settings on my computer to make the freeze up problem go away. It was really simple to do and hasn't affected my computer otherwise in any way that I can tell. I can't remember what the fix was tho since it was about 4 or 5 years ago and I haven't thought about it since! Eventually I "graduated" to Punch! 3000 and it too did a great job and was able to handle some of the more complicated things I wanted to do (like roof dormers and a shed roof over my wrap-around porch, etc.)

It looks like the Punch! site got hacked badly sometime in the past couple of years - I tried to look for the archive from when Lyle answered my question and found that I had to rejoin and that there were a lot fewer members and less activity than there used to be - but the same person is moderating it and I'm sure that, if you can get a message to Lyle, he could help you get your program working at its best. Or, maybe someone else on that site remembers the "fix". Properly set up, all the Punch! programs should do perfectly fine elevations and gorgeous 3-d renderings.

BTW - be forewarned that the Punch! users site can be nearly as addictive as this forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: Punch! users forum

bevangel - I have Punch! Home Design Studio for Macs. I am pretty certain it doesn't do 2d elevations. It does do 3d elevations and cutaways. I only have a problem that at a certain point when I try to switch to 3d it will "unexpectedly quit" I will try out that forum you referred me to, hopefully they can help. The funny thing is I copy and paste to a new file and it will 3d just fine.