2nd Floor

Inspiration for Front Exterior - although we have now added a "wing" to the left side of the house, which we believe will still blend well with the style

I think you need a few walls around your dining room... Your dimensions/pictures are small (even when I click on them), but you have a "floating" powder room right smack in the middle of everything. You'll see it from the front entry, the kitchen (cooking side), and the dining room. I think that is a little odd.

I like your upstairs shared bath layout. Your furnace room probably doesn't need an inswing door, as I imagine it will be closed almost always. Is there a reason not to make it an outswing (so it can be more closet-sized) to get your linen/game storage closet there?

I feel like you have a HUGE loft area. Just huge. And, it is an odd space. How will you use it?

Good point about te powder room visibility without the dining room walls. We had walls and then removed them thinking it might be nice to be able to flex into the foyer/great room on holidays with extra tables but thinking for everyday it would be better to have the wals.

Agreed on the furnace room.

The loft space will be 2 main areas. At the back next to the steps will be a couch with tv and toy storage. Over by the bedroom will be a corner desk with computers for homework space. We thought about framing the attic over garage as possible expansion in case we'd ever want to add another bedroom

It will be very difficult for kids to be doing homework in the same area as other kids watching tv, playing, etc. Just in my experience.

We've got three kids at about the same age gaps as yours but we're a few years ahead-- they're 11, 12 & 7. Something we've realized we want now is an acoustically separate space that isn't a bedroom on the main floor so DH and I have a quiet place to relax in the evening without having to put our tweens or ourselves to bed ridiculously early.

If we were building your plan, I'd put doors in between the great room/dining room wing and the kitchen/hearth room wing so that people in one space didn't have to necessarily listen to people in the other.

I'd also look at reworking the stairs/powder room/kitchen so that I wasn't spending so much on a bumpout just for stairs, and the powder room wasn't an island in the middle of the floor plan, and there weren't so many ways to walk through the kitchen. There's not a single corner of the kitchen without a doorway. It seems like it would be like cooking in Grand Central Station.

If I were going to build those stairs, I'd increase the bumpout a little more so there could be a window seat on the landing.

All traffic coming in from the garage has to go through the kitchen. How does the cook feel about that?

Before you proceed any further, I would purchase the lot. You will need to tweek things specific to the lot. I like the overall front elevation inspiration with the exception of the fact that the garage sticks out significantly more that the main house. If you are able to find a wide lot you can avoid that. Many of the 1 acre lots in St. Louis would be able to accomodate a side entry 3 car garage. Also, it would be nice to be able to access the mudroom directly from the outside.

The powder room is really strange and you may want one in the mudroom.
I would definitely put walls in the dining room and maybe consider putting walls in the great room.

The winters in St. Louis can feel long and I love having the backyard facing south. Also with 3 or possible 4 yound children, you may want to choose a lot that slopes side to side instead of front to back so that at least a portion of your yard will be level with the main floor.

Are you planning a pool?

You don't have access to your backyard from garage. Your garage entry would benefit from a bathroom, laundry and kitchen all in close proximity. With a hallway to bypass the kitchen.

I agree that at a minimum we should put walls around the dining room which will help obscure the powder room. But we will also think about different placement for powder room (any ideas?) although I do have to say that conceptually our current powder room is in a similar spot in that it is in between the breakfast room, kitchen, great room, and dining room so we like the fact that it is accessible both when we do more formal entertaining as well as every day use by the kids (my husband and I rarely use it and instead primarily use our master bathroom which is currently upstairs). I get the functionality of having a powder room near the mud room but I would not want that to be the main floor bathroom for guests since I envision our mud room will likely not be the most presentable spot in the house and since we can't afford 2 powder rooms I'd rather have 1 where I think will work best based on how it currently works for us. Also we hope to have a pool and finish some of the walkout basement so there would be a bathroom down there easily accessible from the back yard.

Ok so walks around dining room and great room. I feel like maybe we could move the powder room down into the "hall" space to avoid 2 hallways - one in front and one behind powder room island. Any ideas for how we might design that and bonus could be if we could also add in a butlers pantry or bar space for entertaining. We kind of like the stairs bumped out as we currently have the stairs very similar in our house now and we also plan to use the rear bump out to allow us to mid materials. Ideally we will grade the lot we are looking at to be level off the kitchen / hearth room and then step down the yard around the stairs to be a walkout below the great room and master.