I don't understand... You won't need access to the upstairs if you have relatives sharing?

Can you tell us a little more about your family situation/who will live here and for how long?

I would re think the kitchen as it is way too small for me while the great room is bigger than necessary. At the very least shrink the laundry to give more counter space to the kitchen. I would move the upstairs bath closer to the bedroom area so you don't have to cross an entire room in the middle of the night.

So you would not have access to the upstairs as the plan is now? Regardless, I would move the pocket door closer to the stairs so the DR has wall space for a buffet and feels more like a room than a hallway. Will you have a car port? Where will mechanicals go?

Kirkhall:
"I don't understand... You won't need access to the upstairs if you have relatives sharing?"

Yes, that's correct. I'm a single with a long term girlfriend. We only need the one room downstairs for us. There is the possibility of her father living with us for a time. So the pocket door was just creates some semi-privacy and a noise barrier.

AnnieDeighnaugh:

"At the very least shrink the laundry to give more counter space to the kitchen."

Great idea... I was thinking the kitchen was a bit too small.

"I would move the pocket door closer to the stairs so the DR has wall space for a buffet and feels more like a room than a hallway. Will you have a car port? Where will mechanicals go?"

Thanks, I will have him move the pocket door closer to the stairs. The water heater and A/C will be either in the attic or in the laundry room.

Is it much better to have it in the laundry room instead of the hot attic?

Seems odd to me to have relatives living with you, with three bedrooms without some kitchen facility. I don't see why the living quarters need to be separated because without a kitchen they are going to be in your space all the time. Is it possible to have a walk out basement?

No garage? Carport? Where is the driveway? How will you handle storage needs if there is no garage?

I'm not a fan of the "open the door and dump you right into family space" types of plans. The plan almost needs to be reversed. If I were the secondary person living here, first of all, if I'm elderly, I would not want to climb stairs to get to "my" space. Second, I wouldn't want to go all the way through someone else's family space to get to my space either. I'd want to come in the home's main entrance and have the opportunity to go straight to my room. I'd want privacy from the other space that living on top of others wouldn't give me.

Start your ideas with the entrance to the space. Where will you park? How will you enter the house? How will the other family member enter the house? How will guests enter the house? The covered entry is a start, but it's too small to actually use as a real porch if that's your intent. And it's about as far as you can get from the kitchen if this is going to be how you enter the house with groceries. That's not undoable, but it is less desirable than having a secondary garage entrance and mud area close to the kitchen.

My other thoughts are that you have the laundry space in a very desirable location in the house. It's on a corner where you could have two windows in different directions. I don't spend enough time in the laundry to give it such a prime location, and I suspect you don't either. Wouldn't it be a better location for the kitchen so you could have more natural light in it? Or an eating area? Or pretty much anything other than a laundry room?

For mechanicals, in a hot area, you should be thinking about constructing the home with an unvented attic. That makes the mechanicals be in the home's conditioned space envelope. If you plan the home with a steep enough roof, such as a story and a half, then the attic space can be both mechanicals and a lot of secondary storage space. I'd also put the master bedroom there, upstairs, and leave the "downstairs master" to be more isolated from the public space and use that for the relative's space.

archie123:

"I don't see why the living quarters need to be separated because without a kitchen they are going to be in your space all the time. Is it possible to have a walk out basement?"

No walk out basements here in my part of Florida. The land is very flat and the water table is very high. I guess we're really not "separated" with family so much as just trying to give them a separate entrance and a pocket door for additional sound barrier. But yes, they would be in and out of the kitchen.

What about something like this? It also has the garage...

Here is a link that might be useful: Perhaps?

The dining room is too small to be very functional. It starts out small (10x10) and then you need a clear space in front of the pocket door to enter the room and a clear space in front of the sliding door to access the concrete pad.

utahman:
"What about something like this? It also has the garage..."

Thanks for the link... there are parts of that I definitely like and it's about the same size.

dekeoboe:
"The dining room is too small to be very functional. It starts out small (10x10) and then you need a clear space in front of the pocket door to enter the room and a clear space in front of the sliding door to access the concrete pad."

You're right... with the back door there it really cuts down the space. I have the big great room... maybe I can figure out how to use that space better.

Hi diego797! I just want to challenge your thoughts a bit. It seems like you are designing this house for a potential short term situation. How about the rest of the time when your (almost) FIL isn't with you? The house doesn't function well from that aspect, and would be a bear come resale time. The way it's laid out, you'll feel (unconsciously? or not) relegated to the left 2/3 of the house. So even though you have a very nice sized 2200sq ft house, it'll probably feel pretty cramped.

The reality is, he's going to use the kitchen and the laundry room no matter what, and that pocket door will only give you a psychological barrier- it definitely won't stop sound transmission. So I don't think you're going to be able to overlook his presence, despite the barriers you're trying to erect. What if you just made an in-law suite that was accessible from both the house and the outside patio? And then when he moves out, his room will become part of the normal flow of the house again.

Just some food for thought!