The mudroom - you enter the mudroom thru the garage. Then you have to walk thru the laundry room ot thru one of the bathrooms to get anywhere else.

I'm not sure of the rooms - do you plan for the 3 boys to bunk together? And then the kids have a separate playroom? How old are the boys? May be a great idea when they are young. But not necessarily the best idea when they become teenagers. Between the bunk rom, kids office and guest room, you do have space to give all 3 kids their own room. Just need to move some doors around.

You work from home a lot. Where will you work? Or is the kids office your office?

How often do you plan guests? It's an awfully long walk from the guest room to the bathroom. Thru the living room and family room.

When you enter the front door, you will see directly into the powder room. Speaking of powder room - no sink? Gross.

I think with some simple flip flopping of the bedroom side, you'd have the ability to align some of the bathroom walls - which would result in fewer plumbing lines.

You have a pool in the front yard?

I don't think you really want a powder room next to the dining table . . . or directly across from the front door. You have space in that powder room for a pedestal sink -- I'm sure it just wasn't drawn.

With no windows /no natural light at all, the family room /game room will be a dark cave. I think the issue here is that you're trying to work within a square. To get this many rooms in a one-story house, you need a rectangle (and a central hallway).

In contrast, you have nothing but windows in the living room, and that isn't ideal either. It means you'll have difficulty with placing furniture, and you'll have a glare on the TV.

Is the master bedroom missing a closet, or is that it in the bath? The shower is undersized.

Three kids sharing a bedroom that's less than 10' wide isn't going to work out -- and I'm not in the camp of "One's children must have palatial bedrooms". Even if they use the room ONLY for sleeping and dressing, it just isn't enough space for growing boys. I don't think putting them all in one bedroom is the worst idea in the world, but the best thing you could add to this room would be a BIG closet; that'll allow them to put their things away neatly.

Their bathroom could be improved too. For boys, I'd suggest a good-sized walk-in shower instead of the tub, and I'd move the sink so it's positioned on the same wall as the tub and the toilet -- keeping your water all in the same wall is a BIG money saver.

I'd move the guest room's entrance to the family room. Having it open into the living room is too "public".

I agree with Mrs. Pete.

FWIW, I think the whole place needs more storage, and you should try to place the furniture you have/want in this footprint. Aside from being a windowless cave, because you have so many doorways on it and therefore need to allow space for walkways, the family room will feel very small, and may end up essentially being a large walkway.

I am guessing that you have been thinking of hallways as wasted space, and that is why you have so many walk-thru rooms, but when a room doubles as a hallway it makes the room functionally smaller, and if your laundry room tends to be cluttered like mine, it would be a pretty unpleasant, inconvenient place to have to bump through every time you come and go, even if it weren't another dark windowless cave.

I'm attaching a small house plan I found that isn't really right for you, but it shows how a very small house can have organization and a defined hallway without wasting a lot of space.

If you want to stick with a square plan, this might be a good starting point: http://www.familyhomeplans.com/plan_details.cfm?PlanNumber=45402

Here is a link that might be useful: small house

I think you're trying to put in too many rooms for the available space. Separate living/family rooms, four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, and a fairly big laundry room are a lot to ask for from ~2000 sq ft. I would eliminate one bedroom, or the family room, and increase the size of the other bedrooms, giving them more storage as others have suggested. There's also way too many doors and passageways. Five ways out of the family room? Four ways out of the mudroom? There's not a single room that's private, including any of the bathrooms.

Thanks for all the good feed back.

Pool in front yard - we will be on 5 acres of wooded land with a gate at the road. At our current house we are often splitting up to play in pool and do stuff in the front yard, the goal is not to have to.

Windowless Play room - The room will probably have a video game system set up so the window wasn't a big concern. This room is meant as a common area for the kids to compensate for their small bedrooms.

Small Bedrooms - Currently our 3 boys are small and all share a room. We want to have enough rooms if they want their own in the future but for the immediate time we will set one up for homework and stuff, the other will be a guest and possibly act as a dressing room (currently we use one for clothes and one for sleeping so they don't wake each other up)

Storage - We have been at our current house for over 5 years and have multiple empty closets that just sit their wasting space.

Doors and More Doors - As many noted I don't like hallways and I hate our current house where you have to often times walk 'forever' to get to a room that is just on the other side of the wall. I know that sounds like weird complaint and may go away when we move into a smaller house. But that is the motivation, granted I may have gone overboard.

Game room & Small Bedrooms - The idea was to give our boys their own 'suite' with a common area and small bedrooms off of it. Anything other sleeping is meant to happen in the common room. The 'left side' of this room will indeed act as a hallway. May use full height custom wardrobes between two bedrooms. When they want to use them as one we will move them against a wall but when they want two we will put them in as a partition... Still working on details.

Walk through the mudroom, laundry room to get anywhere - Ya, I don't like that either. Particularly with groceries. Many people have a utility room/mudroom off of their garage - that is what I was thinking, but usually this opens to kitchen...

Square - I have challenged myself to try and to stick with a somewhat square foot print. This results in a lower thermal envelope surface areas to interior volume helping with heating and cooling. It also minimize the amount of exterior walls (expensive) for the amount of livable floor space. Not a hard and fast rule but something I am keeping in mind.

Doors on Mudroom - They kill space but being able to leave early in the morning without trouncing through the house or master bedroom is highly desirable for us. Also being able to shed muddy clothes and jump in the shower before going more than 2 feet in the house is also highly desirable.

We don't watch TV nor do we have one.

Small Office. I have recently gotten rid of all my book due to availability of electronic options. I have a single laptop with a 27 inch second monitor to do my work and realized I really don't need much space.

Small shower - I have scrapped shower and second sink in exchange for shower bath combo.

Alan, I see you've put thought into these concepts, but I can't buy into most of your conclusions. I do suggest that you continue to read and investigate all options. No matter what you decide to do, being well informed will be nothing but good for you.

alan-just my personal experience - two kiddos 9 and 12. They have a small nook area upstairs open to their rooms with no doors but no window window of it's own. There is a nice table set up there with their legos a nice soft rug... Where do they play? On the stairwell landing between the main level and the upstairs which I thought was so odd but - why? Because there are windows on the stairwell that light it up and they love it. It's a standard landing. I wouldn't underestimate not having a window in that room. It may not get used near as much as you think. If you want it dark you can always install a room darkening blind.

Square - I have challenged myself to try and to stick with a somewhat square foot print. This results in a lower thermal envelope surface areas to interior volume helping with heating and cooling. It also minimize the amount of exterior walls (expensive) for the amount of livable floor space. Not a hard and fast rule but something I am keeping in mind.

Wouldn't the same be true for a rectangle? And, if you are worried about heating and cooling, consider passive solar heating and cooling and plan the long side of the house and the window locations accordingly.

The downside of a square footprint is that you lose both natural light and natural ventilation. There is a reason so few square homes are built.

Also, unpleasant rooms are not used. I would encourage you to read a little about what makes a room pleasant and comfortable, and also about what rooms you find comfortable. One excellent option is Hirsch's Designing your Perfect House. The homes he shows are ostentatious, but the design principles transfer to simpler, smaller homes (like mine) :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Designing Your Perfect House

Thanks again for the feedback - It truly is much appreciated and I realize that our taste don't conform to standard practices. It is further confirmed by the fact that we have never been happy with our houses floor plans in any home we have lived in.

Based on some of the feedback I am looking at making the mudroom and laundry into one larger area (eliminating the door/wall between the two) I am also looking at consolidating the master bath door and master bedroom door into one (rather than two) in the closet area. Is there any reason not to have the mudroom and laundry room room together?

The closer to circular you are the more efficient use of exterior walls you have and less surface area on your thermal envelope. Think about 160 feet of wall. This could be a 40x40 square house with 1600 square feet or it could be a 60x20 house with 1200 square feet. Both would have the same amount of exterior walls. (A circular house would 2038 square feet for reference)

I know there is a lot of concern about natural light and lack of windows but I am frankly not to concerned about that. We have been in a constant battle in keeping light out of most of our homes. Black out shade are purchased for the bedrooms and in our kids room's we often tape them directly on the windows as my family is fairly sensitive to light while they sleep. Our dining, living and kitchen area will have ample floor to ceiling windows. The common area for the kids outside their bedroom will be able to go dark for video games or a movie but will have large sliding doors to open it up to the floor to ceiling windows in the living room. As to the kids gathering at a window to play - if it is nice enough outside to desire playing near a window we will simply go outside - that is where most of the play and activity in my family usually happens anyway.

You don't appear to show the required fencing around your pool. That will not make for a very pleasant front of the home view. Unless it's glass panels. Also, 5 acres isn't all that big of a lot. It would have to be VERY densely wooded, with a winding drive for that pool not to be visible from the street.

I also live on 5 acres, and have planted a lot of privacy screening. By no means is the front of my home invisible! My drive is 300 ft long, and needs to have a bit of clearance from the plant material in order to actually have someone drive down it. For a large truck, like a concrete truck, you need a fairly cleared apron at the street, as well as a decent turnaround space and not too winding. So, the demands of construction will make some of your current woods to have to be eliminated.

Your home would really need to be pushed to the back of the lot for the required amount of screening from the front that most non exhibitionists would want for a pool. What is your neighbor situation like now in the back? Sides? Likely to be like in the future?

I find the children's closet area sorely lacking. It would be barely adequate for one, and only work with supplemental dressers. Even boys will have 3x the clothes that will fit in that single small closet.

You say that "resale isn't a concern", but unless you are a 100% cash build, that concern has to exist. A bank finances you based on their ability to resell the home should they take possession. So, your plans will have to have some resale appeal to others, as well as enough amenities and square footage to make the appraisal that will be needed. If you are a cash build, you certainly have the freedom of choice and can build anything that you want, including an underground cave house, if that appeals to your family. If you don't have the financial freedom to do that, then your home will need to be less nonconformist.

5 acres will be the smallest plot of land in the area as the adjacent properties are 20-100 acre plots. It is indeed quite wooded. In its current 'raw' form you can not see deeper than 20 feet in winter, we had been planning on a winding narrow drive. It is also a rectangular property giving us a good distance from the rarely used road.

We are looking at the back of the property (part of the reason to put the pool in front) since we can't control if someone chooses to build up near our property line.

We are using an automated cover to meet the fencing requirements. If for some reason we change our mind we will use a removable screen fence (we have one on our current pool) and during the off season (6-7 months) we take it down.

The railing on the house side will be steel cable railing and is rather un-obtrusive to a view in my experience.
Currently if we are swimming in our current pool (back of house) and someone drives up they often walk back there rather than knocking on door. So being in the front we will at least have no sense of false privacy.

As far as closet space, this again is must based on our current use. We have 4 bedroom 3200 square foot house. We use one bedroom for my office (with a lot of empty space around my desk) and the boys have bunk beds in another room. Of the three closets available only one has clothes in it and it is the same size as the closets in my floor plan. We have cubbies for their dresser and use a total of 12 spots for all three boys clothes.

As they get bigger and their clothes get bigger I realize they will need more space that is why I have two additional closets which will probably stay empty for the near term.

We are planning to finance a large portion of the costs with cash from the sale of our current home and either using a home equity loan on an existing rental we have or selling it as well. (another big driver towards the smaller foot print and more economical square shape and shed roof)

Construction method will be along these lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5POO4EwMQ with exposed metal SIP for the roof and many of the back walls.

Currently looking at a budget of around $80 per square foot including pool.

Ya I know its not what most would want but I appreciate all the input and as I said we are making changes to the floor plan based on issues brought up on this forum that we didn't see on our own. It is very nice to get other perspectives.

Once your kids get involved in sports, music, have friends over - they will need more room and desire more privacy.

How often do you have overnight guests?

I understand the math between square and rectangle - but I think you're trying to force a rectangular peg into a square hole, and it doesn't fit. And by trying to completely eliminate hallways, you've convoluted the space so much it's like a maze.

I imagine carrying groceries from the garage to the kitchen. You can't get there without going through a bathroom! The you travel either through a bedroom, or the kids' playroom.

I think you will get much more efficient use of the space if you let go our your square, lengthen between garage and front, shorten the other dimension, and put a hallway down the middle. You eliminate a lot of doors, giving each room more usable space. At 42x42, you have 1764 sq ft; 50 x 36 would be 1800 sq ft, and only increases your perimeter by 4 feet.

Oh, have you prices roof trusses for a 42' span? Narrowing the house could provide substantial savings.

If you went 50x36, you could have living room in the same corner, dining room in the bottom corner, U-shaped kitchen to the left of the dining room (open to the central hallway), either open to the dining room, or with a peninsula. Moving the kitchen toward the garage shortens your plumbing runs.

I haven't sketched out the remaining space for bedrooms and bathrooms, but it's something for you to consider.

Since your pool is only open in the summer, you must live in a colder climate. How deep do the footings have to go? Where I live, footings have to be so deep that most people put in a basement - the excavation has to be done anyway. For your family, that would provide all the play space your kids need. You could even shrink your footprint, if you wouldn't need the play space upstairs, although you would have to include room for stairs. You can finish it later - just rough in a bathroom during construction, and maybe put in an egress window for a future bedroom.

And as I think about basement - I don't see on your original plan where the furnace and water heater go.

Which side of the house faces south? If you are concerned or wanting to take into account solar potential, then putting your living spaces on the southern side and your sleeping spaces on the northern side are your best bet.

If you can't do that because you are determined to stick with this design, then consider putting in southfacing clerestory windows to provide more light and solar heating in your northern spaces. That would be better than the flat roof you show in your picture.

I, personally, don't like much of the floorplan at all. You may have the home of YOUR dreams, but good luck selling it when the time comes. I know, I know, you said you don't care about resale - but you should. EVERY homebuilder should. Because at SOME POINT the house will be on the market - even if it's after you have passed and your children are dissolving the estate.

Yes, I "get" the geometry of square vs. rectangle. However, pure square footage doesn't = a better house.

If you want a square house, I'd suggest you look into an American Four Square or Center Hall Colonial design (those are traditional styles, and you appear to lean towards modern . . . but you can have the layout and alter the exterior). These square designs WORK because they use the center of the house for a hallway (yeah, I dislike excessive hallways, but SOME are necessary for circulation) and keep the living areas to the exterior of the house. These houses also tend to be two-story because -- again, with a square house, you only have so much exterior.

As for natural light, resale, lack of closets, pool in the front yard, privacy, etc. . . . respectfully, you're rationalizing. I could buy into one oddity in a design as "a bit odd, but suits your specific family" . . . but when you're looking at this many quirky, odd things, you're considering something a bit outlandish.

Ok. You are married to the square. So let's try to make this work a bit better.

What if you swapped a couple corners of the house. Move the master to the great room corner. Now the top side of the plan would be bedrooms. You could probably get the bathrooms back to back to share a plumbing wall.

Then slide the kitchen back to the MBR area, and the great room moves to the kitchen area. Now you can have mudroom, kitchen, pantry all accessible from the garage. You can still have great room by the front door.

Since you have pointed out the flat roof, what about some skylights to bring daylight to the interior rooms?