Just a couple things I see - I can't really read dimensions, so can't comment on size of spaces.

I love the openness of the kitchen/dining/great room, and I think it will work well for large gatherings. Also love the large porches. They will also work well for large gatherings.

Where do the garage stairs lead?

Is that a gardeners bath in the garage? One of those is on my dream list. That and an outdoor shower.

all traffic from the mudroom goes straight into the kitchen. Maybe you could make a hallway they the pantry. The kids could come in and head straight to their rooms instead of detouring thru kitchen, dining, great room.

Also - with the laundry in the mudroom - it's the same problem but in reverse. All your laundry has to be brought all the way across the house, thru the great room and kitchen to get to the laundry. Maybe pull some space from the master closet to accommodate laundry in that second bathroom?

No coat closet off the foyer? Where do your large groups put coats when they come visit?

How do you intend to use the home office? Wondering if it would make sense to have the entry off the foyer instead of from the great room?

Pixie-lou, Thank you for taking time to look over our plan. I have tried to get a better copy so that people can see the dimensions. I'll keep working on it.

I understand you points about the traffic thru the kitchen from the mudroom. I'll have to think about that.

As far as the laundry room goes, i've gone back and forth about placement. My husband likes the idea of saving square footage by putting it in the mudroom. I've always carried laundry across the house and it has never bothered me, but it is something to keep thinking about.

We have our our business and my husband spends a good bit of time on his computer. Our last house had the same layout with the office and great room and I loved it. He could still be a part when he is working or we can close the pocket doors for privacy.

As far as a coat closet, we live in florida so we would need more of a flip flop closet :)

Thanks again for your input.

How nice to build on all that land...in the sunshine :) It snowed here on Halloween, so I'm a bit envious!

The foyer is a bit long, with nothing of much interest like doors, other rooms. I see why the office doors are where they are, totally agree with that, so could you at least recess the front door a bit, to make it shorter? Will the doors be glass doors? You might like a single door with sidelights, too.

Seems like when you walk in the front door, you walk down the hall into the great room..reminds me of Shark Tank a bit. Or maybe the back of a sofa will be right in front. Have you thought about your furniture placement in the great room?

Personally, I prefer a different shape for homes of this size-- sticking with a basically rectangular shape in such a large home means that there is a large central part of the house that has no natural light or ventilation.

Have you seen what the house is going to look like? Because it is so wide and deep, the roof will be very tall. And because of the shape of the house with lots of corners, it will be complicated.

Also, I understand that you're in the South, and you may want to limit the amount of natural light you get in your home, because it will bring heat with it, but your great room is going to be dark, especially if the back of the house faces North.

I really like the mudroom, but I would want to be able to get from the mudroom to the rest of the house without passing through the kitchen. As you have it now, the quickest route from the mudroom to the kids' rooms would be to bump past the person cooking at the stove.

Bpathome - We hope to have a double glass front door. The foyer in our last home was the same size and I really liked it. There will be a coffee table with a chair on each side. I have though about furniture and there will be a large sofa when you walk into the living room.

Zone4newby - Our back porch off the living room is going to be vaulted. The house is going to face east/west. I'm hoping that with the high vault on the back porch that we will still get some day light in the house. We are in Florida and the sun can be brutal. I want a balance between sunlight and shade :) Most of the sunlight will enter through the kitchen and dining room during the day.

I'm going to have to really give some thought to a pass through in the pantry.

Thank you so much for all your thought. It really helps :)

Thanks again for your suggestions/comments

I think I'd turn the office's door towards the foyer. It'd be more private that way.

Secondary bedrooms look good, but both of their baths could use work: One has only a minimal vanity/sink -- no space for storage. This bathroom has no storage space -- no space for a hamper, barely space for a trash can. The other is trying to house two sinks in a too-small vanity; you really need at least 6' for two sinks to fit comfortably.

I'd say make the mud room another 2' wider . . . so you can have shelves, lockers, or something else on the wall shared with the pantry. The storage would be very useful in that spot.

Do you have a door from the mudroom /pantry area straight into the entryway? I can't quite tell, but I think you ought to have a door through that way. You don't want to be forced to circle through the kitchen if you want to enter the house and come straight towards the bedrooms. Note, too, that without such a door, you'd have to carry laundry through the kitchen and down the mudroom hall -- you're going to want a more direct route.

Does the breezeway serve any function other than joining the house and the garage? I mean, I've seen some breezeways that also hold a couple chairs for reading . . . or whatever.

The kitchen is large, but it's too choppy --- your work areas are divided from one another by walkways.

I would want a pass-through between the kitchen and the pantry. If you're picking up lots of cans, or if you're moving lots of home canned goods into the pantry, you're not going to want to walk around that corner multiple times.

Nice dining room and nice great room.

Your plumbing is really spread across the whole house. This will be very expensive to install, and more plumbing lines = more opportunity for leaks in the future.

You have three doors leading out to the back porch -- and two of them are within a few feet of one another. I'd cut out one of these. If you keep the one in the dining room, I'd consider making it a slider (take a look at the new sliders -- they're nothing like their 1970s counterparts) because a slider wouldn't interfere with the dining room table placement.

Front porches usually end up being "just for show". As a result, I'd eliminate the steps on the sides. I can't imagine they'll be used much, and I'd save that money.

This post was edited by MrsPete on Mon, Nov 3, 14 at 23:17

Hi amoore! I too live in rural North Florida (I'm assuming you're in the north due the style of your home... a true Southerner!). I love your plan and elevation, though I would echo the concerns of others re. the traffic pattern through the kitchen/mudroom/pantry. Kids running into the house from the garage are going to have to cut through a kitchen workspace, either in front of the sink or the stove. I would consider opening that passage through the pantry. You would lose a bit of storage but greatly improve flow and eliminate that bottleneck.

This post was edited by davis.mbd on Tue, Nov 4, 14 at 8:54

A couple other thoughts:

Based on your description of the land/lifestyle, I would keep those side steps. Yes, front porches are usually just for show... but not in the case of a farmhouse set on acreage. If you really do become homesteaders, that will be a working porch just like the rear porch (which will be screened in, yes?).

I really do think that the middle of the home will be too dark. My parents have a very similar home. It's sited north/south, with the porch only on the north side, and the interior great room pretty much always needs some form of artificial light. I understand that you need to protect yourself from the sun, but there can be too much of a good thing.

This post was edited by davis.mbd on Tue, Nov 4, 14 at 9:10

MrsPete, Thank you for taking the time to review our plan. I was hoping you would :) From reading many post on this website I have always agreed with most of your comments.

We are looking at ways to widen the mudroom. I think you are right about the wasted space on the opposite wall. I think cabinets would be great there.

I am also leaning towards adding a pocket door in the pantry leading to the entry way.

Can you please offer some suggestion on how to eliminate the choppiness of the kitchen.

I TOTALLY LOVE your idea about a sliding door from the dining to eating kitchen outside. That area will be screened in and I love the idea of the entire wall being a sliding glass door that completely opens up. (We will have to consider the cost)

I really believe that we will use both front and back porches. They way our land is designed we have about 3 acres in the front of the house that will be a fruit and berry orchard.

I agree with you about the bathrooms. We are looking into fixing that. We are also looking at adding some length to the breezeway.

Davis.mbd.- Yes, we are in North Florida and are wanting a true Southern home :)

Thank you for reviewing our plan and for taking the time to eliminate the wall in the pantry. I'm pretty sure this is something we are going to change.

I agree with you about keeping the steps. The front porch will not be screened in, but the back eating porch will be. We are not sure about the vaulted porch. We are going to try it without, but I have a feeling it will eventually be screened as well.

Do you think the middle will be too dark if we are facing East/West. The front of the home will face East. The back porch will be 12 foot tall on the eves and then be vaulted in the middle. I hoping this will allow some daylight into the living room. Please give me your thought on this.

Thanks again for the feedback everyone!!

I've never lived in a house without a basement. Where does the water heater go?

I don't like the laundry so far from the bedrooms. I'd be tempted to put a half bath in the mudroom, steal some space from your huge master closet to enlarge bathroom 2, and turn bathroom 3 into a laundry room.

I'm not keen on the angle into bedroom 3. Is that so there isn't a direct line of sight from the hallway to the bedroom? I think if the closet was shortened a little and the door squared off, most of what you would see would be closet wall. If the occupant wants privacy, they can close the door!

I agree with the others about the mudroom-kitchen path.

Have there been comments about the kitchen? I may have missed them. Where do you plan to store dishes? You have just one base cabinet next to the DW. Are you looked at the kitchen forum here, enough to know how we all feel about drawers? There's a strong preference for drawers over base cabinets.

I might swap the sink and cooktop, with a window on each side. It puts it closer to the ovens, and in less of a traffic path, especially if you leave the pantry/mudroom as is. It also provides for proximity between DW and dish storage. Move the prep sink to the other end of the island.

Thank you Annkh for your comments. I have taken some of the wonderful comments from the people above and made some changes to our plan.

We have bumped out the mudroom 2 foot.

Added a pocket door to the hall to help with flow.

Changed the dining room door to a 12 foot glass sliding

Did some work to bath #3 (but I think it needs some more work)

I do agree with you regarding the view down the hall. I'll have to think about it.

I still want to make bathroom #2 a little bigger and maybe add a linen closet.

I am also not sure about the kitchen layout. I'm going to try to post our plan in the kitchen forum tonight.

Thanks again for your input.

Please feel free to comment on the updated plan.

Also, It is not a big deal for me to carry laundry across the house. I'm used to it. With our lifestyle on our farm most of our dirty clothes come from working outside. The mudroom is a great place to leave the clothes straight in the washing machine.

Better. Do you plan to use that dormer to bring more light to the interior?

Deleted duplicate post.

This post was edited by davis.mbd on Wed, Nov 5, 14 at 10:42

Yes, davismbd that dormer will bring in light.