You will be better off taking a survey of your sit and a list of you needs and wants to an architect rather than a floor plan sketch. This way you will gain full advantage of the architect's skills and creativity.

Contact and interview local architects. Architects are educated, experienced, tested, and licensed to design buildings. Look for a sole practitioner that specializes in single family homes. Find out what architectural styles they have designed in the past and their process and fee structure. Good luck, make it a fun process.

When I click on your plan it does NOT get larger, so I can't see the details well. Remember that each interior wall is going to remove about 4.5" of space from the rooms on either side. A 2x4 measures 1.75" x 3.5", plus 1/2" wallboard on either side. Deeper exterior frame walls remove roughly 6" from the interior. For instance, across your bedroom, closet and bath you could lose 6"+4.5"+4.5"+6" for a total of 21". The bath alone could lose 8.5" of width, so instead of 6' you have 5' 3.5" between the closet and the exterior. Your architect will make everything fit, but you should think about where the shrinkage should occur.

Are you an architect? If not, hire one.

Hi Ross-

I hope you came to Houzz wearing your big boy pants, because the posts that get the most criticism are the house plans. Second are the kitchen plans.

Not because we are nasty so-and-so's, but because the plans actually need it.

You do really, really need an architect.

I don't know jack about building a house, but there are a few things I can see right off the bat.

Other people will chime in too.

The more criticisms you get here should (I hope) get you realize that you can't perform surgery by looking it up on the internet.

You say you don't like garages plunked down in the front of the house?

Your garage is still plunked down in the front of the house! Who wants to see that?

What not put it somewhere on the side? Somewhere out of sight of the front of the house?

A house should not be three rooms wide, and you need to count a porch as a room in that.

Your dining room will be dark, dark. Not good.

A fair portion of your living room will be dark as well.

The kitchen. A G shaped kitchen can work very well.

The peninsula is usually fully attached to the kitchen counter. Yours is not. Why not?

Why do you need the peninsula and the island?

At family gatherings, I am familiar with the adult table and the children's table.

I am not familiar with exiling someone to a peninsula that faces the kitchen.

That peninsula that juts out of the kitchen not only doesn't make sense, it reduces the size of the dining room.

If you anticipate having a group of 12, you need a large dining room.

The table alone needs to be at least 10 feet long if your family is slim, (I like 12 feet better.) and 32-48" wide.

You need close to 4 feet all around the table, for a minimum of 16 feet, which you don't have where the peninsula juts into the room.

Where is the coat closet near the front door, if the front door is between your kitchen and your office?

If you will entertain 12 people at one time, you need two coat closets at the front door, as well as a proper foyer/entryway where one can sit down and take one's boots and hat and gloves off and fluff one's hair in the mirror, not just fall into the living room.

But the porch you are thinking. But the porch is cold! A guest should be able to take their coat off indoors where it is warm.

Your office seems rather small and its closet miniscule. When that house is sold sometime down the line, you want it to be able to be sold as a proper 3 bedroom.

I can't tell from your drawing, but one of your bathrooms really should have a bathtub.

Although many people never take a bath, families buy 3 bedroom houses, and they give their young children baths.

Whether or not you put a bath in your master bedroom, people have varied opinions on that.

I wouldn't purchase a house without a bathtub, but others feel differently.

The pantry needs to be next to the kitchen, not far away from it.

If there is a chance that your parents will move into your house, please give them an en suite bathroom, try to make it as barrier-free as possible, for example, no step-up into the shower, wide space around the toilet and sink, levers instead of doorknobs for their bedroom and bathroom, and if you don't put in the grab bars now at the toilet and in the shower, have the builder put in the framing in so the grab bars can easily be put in later and be well supported.

Make their bedroom larger so it can fit 2 chairs and footstools and a TV for them. Consider putting extra sound insulation in their bedroom. Old people don't sleep well and keep weird hours and nap on and off. They or one of them may sleep while you watch TV in the living room.

Since they will have their own en suite bathroom and you have your en suite bathroom, you need another bathroom for guests. If you don't think you will have anyone else sleeping over who would need to shower, then you can have just a powder room with a sink and toilet.

If you think you may have a cousin or niece or nephew coming out to visit your parents who might sleep over and sleep in your office, then you need another bathroom that can be a 3/4 bath with a toilet, sink and shower.

You can have a murphy bed in your office. Or have a couch somewhere be a convertible. They can be quite comfortable, I have had them and slept on them, too.

The flow doesn't seem quite right.

There should be corridors, so one doesn't have to walk through one room to get to another.

When you come home from grocery shopping, when you leave the garage, you shouldn't have to walk through the dining room to get to the kitchen.

You shouldn't have to walk through the living room to get to the dining room.

Where is your mudroom? You do need one when you come in the back door all dirty from tramping around outside.

Where is your laundry room?

Are you going to have a basement? Why not? Hasn't this year taught us to stock up on toilet paper, etc? What about an auxiliary generator?

What direction is your house going to face?

Did you purchase the land yet?

Your house shape is not limited to this box. It can be a long rectangle, an I a T an L an H a W, a U.

I am sure there are so many other things I haven't even thought of.

You really shouldn't have to invent the wheel.

Even if you did cobble something together and have some hack who knows how use CAD draw it up, what you'll end up with will be so inferior to what you could get with a licensed, experienced architect.

You and your hard-earned money deserve better.

maybe remove the partial wall btwn dining and living rooms, so in case you need to expand your table out into the LR when all the fam comes for dinner

WOW get an architect they design a home to work with the lot your budget and provide a ton of experience . I would never go to an architect with a floor plan but a list of things you need first then things you want come later. You need to also not trust the architect to design the kitchen that needs an independant KD . This is not an endeavor for a newbie at all.

Do you work on your cars, do any other cobbling around? Where is your workshop?

Do you have a gun safe? Where will that go?

What you really have in your favor is a good solid lists of wants and needs. Give it to the architect and let them do their thing.

Kitchen seems small for U shaped with an island in the center.

Thanks everyone! I'm going to reach out to a couple of architects today.

Thanks everyone! I'm going to reach out to a couple of architects today.

Very smart move. :)

and looking forward to seeing what the architect you choose creates for you.

It’s good to gather your ideas and getting ideas from others so you are ready with ideas when you meet with an architect. Go to open houses and look online. It helps. We used an architect for our custom home. It was a crazy amount of money, but very necessary since a bit of important engineering goes along with planning spaces.

There was a thread on here on which a Houzzer recommended some ways for a potential house builder can solidify some of his/her ideas for a potential house.

It recommended a book to read. I don't remember the title, something about small houses.

Does anyone remember the title?

It had some valuable contents that apply to all houses.

Also, there were some valuable diagrams for a potential house builder with all sorts of circles for the potential home builder to draw for themselves about how they would live and move in the home, it was so clever!

Does anyone remember that thread, or from where that circle diagram was obtained?

These things would most probably be very helpful to Ross H.

Loobab, there are a series of excellent books by architect Sarah Susanka: The Not So Big House, Not So Big Remodeling, etc. interestingly, I just now see that she designs house plans as well, “exemplifications of her Not So Big principles of design”.

I would like to know how the progess is on this project? Hopefully the homeowner will update us