second floor

It's almost impossible to read the text on this plan. Is that a pantry in the lower center? And the room just to the right of it - is that a laundry plus somethingelse?

I usually don't like a laundry right at the back door. How many people do you know who strip out of their dirty clothes at the washer beside the back door, and then streak through the house? It's gonna be a chore to haul the dirty/clean clothes around - clear to the other end of the house for the master and upstairs for the other bedrooms.

The closet at the garage entry is teeny weeny. Especially for 5 people. Ditto on the closet at the front door. TINY.

I like the rest of it. Is that a wall of windows by the dining room table? Nice.

I don't like the separate vanities in the master bathroom. You are wasting valuable storage space there, and for what? An empty space to dust?

Can you flip the stairs so they start by the powder room and end up in the one area of upstairs? Just thinking that when the kids (and furniture) go up and down, that tight U-turn at the top is

It seems like a long trek to go all the way down your hallway and back through the bathroom to get to the closet.

Measurements, we need measurements.

Your needs are a lot like my family's. We too are a family of five building a similar size and set up (two story with master down).

The one thing I fought tooth and nail for in our design was natural light. I'd worry about that in yours. Your kitchen may be dark, and your living room will be dark with the covered porch there.

Also, I agree with little bug above....you'll need WAY more closet space by the back door.

The upstairs--is that bonus space outside of the bedrooms on the front, left? If so, if someone is there, and needs to go to bathroom (or friend over), they have to go INTO a bedroom to get to one.

Are you super committed to a bathroom for every occupant? If not, I'd suggest making one of the bathrooms accessible from the hallway, and also make the J&J toilet have only 1 door to access it (otherwise, inevitably, someone is locked out, or walked in on).

I took the liberty of tweaking the master suite. With this arrangement, you can walk through the door and be at the center of the bedroom, closet, and bathroom entries. There's room for a mirror on the right, and perhaps a jewelry/accessory chest. No one has to walk around the bed to get to the closet, the noisy activity of water running is away from a laz-a-bed, and the bathroom humidity is more separated from the closet.

The only thing is, too keep all the sizes the same, I moved the back even with the dining room, and scootched the front forward a tad. The latter probably won't work with the upstairs walls, but it was just an idea.

oh, I also flipped the stairs so it's easier to holler up from the kitchen on school mornings. (This also allows the closet for that front bedroom to enlarge.)

Thoughts?

This post was edited by bpathome on Tue, Sep 30, 14 at 23:54

Really great feedback so quickly. We appreciate it as we meet to review with the designer tomorrow.

I am sorry the plans uploaded so small - I am new here and trying to figure this out so please be patient with me

Our kids play a several sports (hockey, LAX, soccer, etc) so the "family studio" at the backdoor will work well for us and all of the dirty/smelly equipment and keeping it out of the rest of the house. We wanted that space to be fairly large for that reason and also to allow for my wife to set up her sewing machine in there and craft area for my daughter.

I agree that the closet is too small at that area and the separate vanities don't make sense -we will rework it.

Yes, those are windows at the dining area (facing South along with wall of windows in Great Rm) so to try to get in as much light as possible!

bpathome: you also have given some great thoughts. And thank you so much for your time in providing the revised layout! We will definitely discuss this tomorrow as I agree with you guys on the stairs and the points about the master closet being so far away.

Great stuff all! We really appreciate the feedback and welcome anything else you may have!

I like bpathhome's reworked master suite -- if you just want to, say, put away a pair of shoes or pick up a sweater, the closet is much more convenient. It will be more convenient to bring in baskets of clean laundry. And this makes the master bath a bit more private. The toilet closet, though, looks deep, narrow, and uncomfortable in both renditions.

As for who'd want the laundry next to the back door, my daughter -- a nursing student -- is already saying that she definitely wants to live in a house that will allow her to enter the house, drop her scrubs (with germs from work) and change before she enters "the house proper". She's already becoming nervous about "bringing her work home with her".

More to the point: The laundry has some problems: You say you're planning to store smelly sports equipment . . . and that it'll be a sewing /craft room. I don't see those two plans combining nicely -- who wants to sit and work in a room full of smelly stuff? You have an over-sized garage. I'd build appropriate-sized lockers out there for the sports equipment -- never bring it in the house at all. And I'd cut down the size of the laundry room.

I wish you could flip the powder room and the pantry. That would allow you to have plumbing lines in only one wall, while servicing both the powder room AND the washer/dryer. But the pantry is perfectly positioned right now.

"The toilet closet, though, looks deep, narrow, and uncomfortable in both renditions." Does the toilet need to be in a closet? We do see such a setup a lot, but not always.

Do you have an elevation you can show?