The odd shape of the lot really limits what you can do here I think. The back of the property looks out onto a wooded area. One desire I have is to have my own little desk space separate from my DH, so I've planned to currently have that right against the back wall, in the open floor plan area looking out onto the deck/woods. The corner fireplace likely won't be staying as such. I have the desire to put an indoor outdoor model such as the lennox montebello see through fireplace on the back wall at a comfortable distance from that corner.

The basement level is a daylight basement. The image shown will change as we need more useable space for a hot tub and i've told the architect to take it out of the right most room which we plan to leave unfinished anyway. The basement includes a guest bedroom and the large room leading out to a patio we intend to use for exercise or maybe a rec room.

So please suggest any little tweaks or design ideas to make the most of the space and rooms I have. Any problems that my hours of staring at this thing havn't caught?

Appreciate the help and hopefully the image is readable for you all.

you have a lot of wasted space , and the garage placement is going to prohibit natural light where you need it most ... master wardrobe is also poorly located ...

if you can post a plot plan that shows the buildable area , i'll see what i can do to help ...

thanks :-)

Its a challenging lot for sure :d

Extra large shower easily capable of 2 ppl showering simultaneously was non negotiable with the DH.

As is, the plan has 2 bedrooms and an unfinished 3rd, the master on the main level and a guest bedroom on basement level. We're mostly very private people and large gatherings/entertaining isn't something we've ever done in our 10 years of marriage. We will be in a state away from family however, so the guest accommodations in the basement will house out of town visitors on the rare occasions that we have them. I don't foresee having more than 2 guests at a time staying with us as I'm an only child and my husbands family is large but not tight knit.

My husband is a very techy individual and our pastimes include gaming and movies (hence the requirement for a decent wall space for such tasks). He also has an affinity for music and me a passing fancy for billiards. We tried to keep this in mind when leaving the large open space in the basement, which is large enough to use as a multipurpose rec room.

The community has a very european/tudor feel to it which we love. The builder has incorporated decks with wrought iron railings, turreted roof designs, arched top windows and such. Myself (and the hubby) love the gothic architectural style and plan to incorporate it on the outside and the inside of the home. Wrought iron chandeliers where applicable, gothic top windows on the front office, groin vaulted ceiling in the master, old world textured plaster on the walls on main level... The plain square box this home will not be!

NOW is the time to talk to banks about this, not after you've spent untold hours planning something that cannot be built.

Even fitting a master bath back there could be problematic.

If you like what I did earlier, let me know and I'll be happy to try to massage it to meet any other limits builder should come up with.

Even if the builder agrees to a 37'0" deep garage, that leaves you with LESS than 12ft of useable space behind the garage. Remember that you have to account for wall thicknesses and you have at least three walls (Front garage wall where the garage doors are, wall at the back of the house, and wall between garage and house) With 2x4 framing, those three walls will take up about one foot of your available depth leaving you just 11 foot of useable room behind the garage. With 2x6 exterior framing, you would lose another 4 inches leaving you with just 10'8" back there.

It is certainly possible to have a kitchen just 10'8" to 11'0" deep...but I don't think you can make it an "island kitchen".

If your builder (or the your neighborhood covenants and restrictions) require that your tandem garage be 40' deep, you'll basically have just 7 feet deep space back there. Okay for a closet, a bathroom, or a laundry room...but not much else.

Another thing is a square or rectangular bedroom so we can easily have our groin vault in that room.

Trying to take form and function and meet somewhere in the middle atm! If I get something I'm reasonably happy with I'll throw it up for more critique.

More importantly tho, you have sight-lines that really bother me...

With the tiny size image that you are able to post, it is sometimes hard to see details but it looks maybe you intend to use a pocket door on the powder room. If so, be aware that bathroom pocket doors often get left standing at least part-way open when people leave. (This is also true of regular swinging doors but they get left standing open slightly less often than pocket doors.) Whether you have a pocket door or a swinging door on your powder room, if it gets left standing open, you'll have a straight in view from your dining room, breakfast nook, and much of your living room and kitchen. I definitely don't like that. I don't want to glance up from eating dinner and see a toilet bowl. Also, my experience is that guests are often hesitant to use a powder room that isn't tucked away down a hallway from the main living areas. There is just a sense of "lack of privacy."

I also would not like answering the front door and knowing that anyone standing there has a view into my master bedroom.

With all the best of intentions, mud rooms tend to get a bit messy. With an arched opening into the mud room, any such messes are on display to anyone in your living room area.

In the master bath, the location of your tub means that you can't have a window over it. If you're going to have a nice big tub in the master bath, IMHO it really should have a window next to it. You haven't indicated where your vanities will go in the master bath but I assume they would go on the exterior wall across from the tub because that's pretty much the only spot left. You'll want mirrors above your sinks - so that means you're limited to maybe a single narrow window between twin sinks or a row of high windows over the mirrors. In either case, your master bath is not going to get much light.

The way the front door opens, it blocks access to the office door. Such door conflicts should be avoided if at all possible. It's okay, tho still not good, when the door being blocked in a door conflict is the door to a seldom used closet, but blocking the door into a major room like the office just kind of screams "poor design."

Finally, you have apparently got your heart set on that circular staircase leading down to the walk-out basement. I personally think you would do much better to give that design element up in favor of a more functional floorplan. But, if you are bound and determined to have a circular staircase, wouldn't it be better to position the staircase where it would be MORE on display as an architectural feature. As it is, while you see the staircase when you first come thru the front door, it is then hidden behind solid walls from all the "living areas" of the house.

So, I'm wondering maybe moving the staircase would solve some of these issues.

Moving the staircase would allow you to move the front door which would solve the door conflict between front door and office. Here's a rough sketch of what I'm thinking...
Note that this puts your staircase "on display" from both the entry and the living area. You could also have a window where the front door was before which would bring a bit of light into the entire foyer area.

I put a short hallway with an arched opening to lead to the master bedroom and powder room so that both have a greater sense of privacy. It is true that anyone standing or seated in a straight line with the arched opening and powderroom door would still be able to see into the powder room but the vanity is all they would see. The toilet bowl would be hidden around the bend. And, one would not be able to see into your master bedroom from the front door.

The entry into the mudroom is angled so that you can't look straight into it from the living room area or from the front door. So if you wanted to use just an arched opening into the mudroom instead of a door, at least any messes would be partially hidden. And, if you were to bump the right hand wall of the mudroom another 8 inches or so toward the living area, I think you might actually have room enough for a couple of cubbies in the mudroom. I don't know if doing so would make the aisle between mudroom and living area too crowded tho, so I left the wall where you had the arched opening originally.

I also did a little bit of rearranging of the master bath. Moved the tub so that it could have a window over it. This also makes your tub the focal point upon entering your bathroom (which, in my opinion is much better than looking at an expanse of blank wall.) Toilet room is moved to down to the far end where, if you wanted to, you could actually have a second door between office and toilet so your husband wouldn't have to walk clear around if he needed to go.

Anyway, some more ideas for you to play around with...