@soberg: on the toilet entry we thought we could have a 2 way access to the corner most toilet - one from the closet side and another from bedroom 3. @ eagledzines. Thank you for the sketches! On the high ceiling do you think we could juggle the entire layout of 1st floor a bit to accomodate a small family room (hall) where the staircase opens along with 2 other bedrooms. We are ok to compromise on the room sizes a bit and toilet / closet positions can be changed too as long as pillars are not affected.. The kitchen changes sound good. I was also wondering if it would be ok to have the sink right below the window. Thereby freeing up more cooking or prep space.

Interesting seeing designs from another country. Assuming the PUJA is located in the right location and the entrance to your home is the set of double doors adjacent to the car, I have the following comments/suggestions: 1. Regarding the bathroom on the bottom of the picture: a. It appears you have a walkway taking you from the large double doors(gate?) to the bathroom window. Is this correct and is this what you want? b. The room is sufficiently wide to add a bathtub or a shower. Switch the locations of the sink and the toilet, have the toilet turned to face into the room. This would provide easier use. You might also want to consider using a pocket door, will make the room feel more spacious. 2. Regarding the bedroom on the bootom of the picture: In the US we have built in closets but I kow other cultures use stand alone wardrobes. Not knowing what is custom in your country or what your preferences are, I would suggest moving the door over a couple feet and providing a building in closet the full length of the wall. This would allow you to completely customize the room's storage capacility - will it be filled with shoes and clothing or will is have boxes of files, luggage, etc. 3. The drawing room: a. If outsiders are not to use your family space, the orientation of the room will force people to see/walkthru your family lounge. b. If possible, can you shift or resize the drawing room such that it align better with the family lounge? If it can be shifted downward a few feet, you could angle the entry into the kitchen and the view from the family lounge would look better. c. As an alternative, could you reverse the stairs such that the main family lounge area shifts upward? recognize you will likely need to move the bedroom doors and possible reverse the bedroom and bathroom on the lower part of the picture to make sure the doors would work. 4. Kitchen: By US standards this is an average to smaller kitchen. we certainly have smaller ones in condos, apartments, and small homes. That said, I do believe in maximizing capacity and capability. The kitchen traditionally gets a lot of use by the family and has to be able to meet a multitude of needs. I am assuming the plan for the frig is to be located immediately next to the sink - where the empty space is. here are some thoughts: a. Do you need a door for the kitchen? If not, remove, if yes then make it a pocket door. b. Center the window to the OPEN area over the cabinets and align the sink in the center of the window. this will help with symetry. When in the kitchen, typically people spend a lot of time there - prepping, washing, drying, etc. It would give a nicer view than a blank wall or upper cabinets. c. Center the stove - this again helps with symmetry whioch in turn helps with aesthetics. d. Do you have sufficient storage in the house - think of everything that you have and the food products, kitchen items you will need to store. Again, culture differences mandate different needs. In the US we tend to do a bit of bulk shopping and generally have more "stuff" than we need so it is hard to determine what the right level is for you. Make a list of ALL the items you have for the place and assign a space to them on the plan. This is the best time (and least costly) to make changes to construction. 5. Regarding the bedroom on the upper wall - is there a reason the windows are different sizes, why not stick to the same size? 6. Storage room: Is there a way to relocate the "Low Height" restriction at teh entrance? Not sure is this simply means you aren't going to loose a couple inches or if this means a few feet. Big diffeence on how usable that space is. I hope some of these comment are useful. Best of luck with your project!

I think a comfortable distance between the island and the counter is around 42". It seems that you have only 30" between your cook top and the counter. I might be a little too tight. The wall between the entrance and the kitchen could be 4' long instead of 6', you would then be able to move the island a foot which would give you more room between the cook top and the island. Could you switch the location of the toilet and vanity in your dad's bathroom so your enter facing a vanity instead of a toilet which is a lot nicer.

For the living room, the focus should be the balcony area. So flipping the couch to face the wall and not the dining table will help. Kind of like this pic. Even if you already have the sectional that is in the diagram, you should be able to flip it. In fact a sectional would probably work better than the couch in this pic. I also really don't like the style of this pic, but it showed what I meant, For the girls' room: No matter which bedroom you choose, you should maximize floor space so that they have the biggest play space possible in their room (as they get older you can add desks for school work and such). To get this space, I would give them bunk beds. This configuration gives them an open feel and more storage, essential for girls. You posted two different kitchen designs. This makes it hard to give you advice. I agree with other posts that your sink should be away from the wall. This allows you to have stuff to the left of you (drying dishes in my house), while you wash vegetables on the right of the sink. You need the same space on both sides of the stove, also. At least 24 inches on both sides is good. 36 is better, though. The first design has a nice little countertop space that adds a place for your daughters a space to sit a watch/ talk to you while you're in the kitchen. When they added this to the first design, you lost cabinets on the other wall. This is bad, as the space is already storage limited. Try making the rounded countertop bump out into the living space more. If you play with the shape, you could make it work without losing the cabinets on the other side. It doesn't have to be rectangular or a perfect circle. You can see how this one isn't confined to the floor plan of the kitchen. I think this is what you would need to do to make it the most functional.