We are building a house on a 74' X 109' square lot in a suburban division. Since the preliminary version, we have changed the garage to a front-loading double car garage and reworked the layout of both floors following suggestions made by GW members.

The preliminary version and list of our wants/needs are here:
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/build/msg0710265331336.html?4

Thank you in advance for any help or advice.

1. I'd swap the sink/toilet of the powder room to the other wall to avoid the sight line from the living room. You could still see some from the entry hallway, but not nearly the same.

2. Will you have somewhere in the mudroom to sit and put on/remove shoes?

RE: Downstairs powder room
Excellent suggestion, I made a note.

RE: Place to sit down in the mud room
The dog bed will actually be a daybed (dimension 42'' x 78''). We can sit down there if we need to put on shoes, etc.

RE: Location of master bedroom and master bathroom
We will give it some more thought. Thank you.

RE: Linen and towel storage
Linen will be stored in the laundry room and towels will be stored in the vanity in the kids' bathroom. The vanity will be 24'' (sink) + 24'' (storage) + 24'' (sink). Additionally, there will be a shallow closet (12'' deep) in the master closet (shown behind the door in this plan).

Post your plan on the kitchens forum too, to get some feedback on your kitchen set up. (Is the round table just a place holder in the graphic or do you really have a round table? An oblong, square or rectangular one would work better - as you can see on the graphic a round table would let just one person on the bench use the table comfortably; 2 other people would be too far away.)

There is a ton of room under a set of stairs!

Also, your laundry room is very narrow. I assume you have top loaders? I don't think a front loader would work in here, particularly since they recommend doors being left open. It would be awkward and cut off the room.

Also, your dryer seems to be far from the exterior wall. We were told to avoid that. . .

I would probably swap the washer/dryer and the sink as I prefer the sink to be closer to the door (the sink is a holding spot for me for dirty socks found on the floor, dishrags and cloth napkins that need to be washed, etc.)

How much room is between the kitchen island and the couch? What are the dimensions of the kitchen island? I'm asking to make sure you have enough room as a walkway when people are sitting in those stools.

RE: dining room. Personally, I would put double (glass? pocket?) doors on the dining room just like you have to the library (and make the openings even, for symmetry.) I'd also put a pocket door to be able to close off the dining room from the butler's pantry. To me, that would make the dining room space more flexible to be used for other purposes in the future. It would also give you an option to shut out the noise/hide the mess in the kitchen.

Also, we don't have a door on our dining room which has a similar set up (butler's pantry and pantry in between). This was a mistake by the builder which no one caught until we were about to move in. We decided to leave it off. We have no view other than of the island from the dining room and I like the openness and not having to deal with another door (probably swinging and I hate those). . . Just another perspective on the dining room door - we don't have one and don't miss it at all!

I probably would match the openings to the study and would consider putting pocket doors on the study which would look like a cased opening and match the dining room when closed. The only reason I wouldn't do that is if you plan on keeping the doors closed most of the time.

Pocket doors can be tricky and many don't work well. They aren't always easy to close, particularly as a pair. If you need the doors closed to close off mess and quiet, I would leave the french doors as is and match up the cased opening to the size of the french doors.

RE : Basement
There will be a full basement, so storage under the stairs on the first floor is not an option.

RE: Kitchen layout
I have posted a detailed kitchen plan in the Kitchens forum, I will respond to comments tonight or tomorrow morning.

RE: Centralized linen closet
I like the idea, I will have to play around to see if I can integrate this. How big is yours, athensmomof3? I thought the laundry room was large enough to perform this function (we currently have basically a 5' closet with the washer and dryer side by side, and 5' of upper cabinets.)

RE: Laundry room
We do have a front-loading washer and dryer. Athensmomof3, how much clearance would you recommend in front of the washer and dryer? Thank you for suggesting to put the dryer on the exterior wall, that makes a lot of sense.

RE: Distance between kitchen island and couch
The distance from the cabinet to the back of the couch is 54'', but this would probably be reduced to 48'' once you factor in the countertop and the back of the stools. Other dimensions are posted in this thread in the Kitchens Forum: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg1121581517661.html?5

RE: Dining room
We were thinking of putting 30'' sliding doors in the butler's pantry (one in the kitchen and one in the dining room).
Also, I would rather have a simple opening instead of doors. I agree it would be more aesthetically pleasing if the opening for the library and the dining room were equal. Would 60'' be enough, or should be plan for a larger opening?

RE: Library
I agree it would look better if we used sliding doors instead of swing doors in the library, but if we do this, the maximum opening would be 48'' because of the closets flanking either side of the opening. This would in turn imply a 48'' opening to the dining room, and I think those are rather small compared to the length of the front hall (14'). What do you think?

RE: Powder room (Kirkhall)
I like your suggestion. Thank you.

I can't tell if there is room on the rear wall for them or not. . .

The washer and dryer wouldn't fit where the sink and window currently are because that space is 42'' wide. I think you are right that there should be more clearance in front of the washer and dryer, I will try to incorporate your suggestion in the next iteration of our plan.

I just measured the clearance we have in front of our front-loading washer and dryer. The distance between the closed doors and the opposite wall is 55''. I find it is enough.

Here is a revised layout.

Some changes since the previous version:
- Put master closet on inside wall
- Cut 1' from kids' bedrooms and added 1' to laundry room and kids' bathroom
- Changed opening for study to match opening for dining room
- Created a nook for dining room storage
- Changed powder room
- Pushed the garage back, creating windows in dining room
- Changed kitchen layout
- Created a morning nook in the kitchen

I have two concerns with this layout:
- This added 200 s.f. to the layout - will have to see repercussion on cost.
- We may not be able to have a bonus room above the garage (with access from the second floor right in front of the stairs) because the garage was pushed back too much. If that's the case, we would expand the master bathroom or move the laundry room and make it larger.

Any comments are welcome.
Thanks in advance.