I vote for
Powder Room
Laundry Room
Walk in Pantry
I would not buy a home that did NOT have a laundry room. period.
from where are the stairs that go to the top floor originating?
We turned one of our rooms into a home office. Lots of people telecommute even if it’s only for a couple days a week. I just can’t imagine not having one in a house these days… Also even though we have 3 kids we have never needed a walk in pantry. It’s not like the grocery stores are miles away…
My bro and SusIL just remodeled their home. They added a powder room and put their laundry room in the end of the hall, with built-in countertops and a deep sink. The powder room is heavily used when they entertain (which is very often). It’s off the great room, so guests mostly don’t go into the two full baths nearly as often and the baths remain family spaces.
I’d vote for the powder room. Could the pantry be combined with laundry room or craft room? That way you’d get everything.
Full disclosure, our washer/dryer and deep sink are in our kitchen. We don’t have a powder room or a craft room or pantry. We do have lots of cupboards on our kitchen and it works nicely for us. Now that the kids have moved out, we could convert one or more of their rooms to a craft room or study/den, but we haven’t. We have 2 bathrooms but rarely entertain.
A walk in pantry is also a place to store china, glasses, bakeware, over-sized things. SO much better than cabinets!
I vote for laundry room, powder room, and pantry.
I’ve seen some terrific laundry room/craft room combos…with the washer dryer, ironing board, sweating table area, large work surface…and cabinet storage. how large is the laundry room?
We use a fourth bedroom as a home office…and we have a full walkout finished lower level as well.
I forget…is there a lower level in this house where an extra flex room could be located?
The lower level is unfinished basement right now. I am going to try to add half bath down there because there was one before and plumbing exists, although I believe it was not permitted. I cannot finish basement with drywall until after final inspection because it cannot be deemed ‘liveable space’.
The space is large but has a couple of support posts. Maybe about 15’ by 20’. There are high windows along one side that bring in natural light but they are under the deck so light is not good. Ive already put in about 5 led recessed lights and it looks better already
I think it would make a really great man cave with media center
IMO, junk the craft room. For me, a powder room is essential, a laundry room is essential, and a pantry or other storage for kitchen items is also essential. Craft room? A nice-to-have.
Absolutely agree with Very Happy
Me three! Craft rooms are nice, but I’d rather have the other three.
I don’t see how a 6x8 room could function as a craft room. The essential functions of a craft room are storage and a work table large enough to spread out. I think the 6x8 room will be used as a closet.
With all the basement space to spread out, I don’t see the need for a designated craft room. You could stage the basement with a board game or scrapbook table to give the idea. Or a beer making kit to grab the husband’s attention. I fully support the separate laundry room, preferably with a sink.
I do think office space is very important. Could you format part of the second floor family room as home office space? Perhaps a built in desk against the wall adjacent to the master closet? http://www.houzz.com/photos/46207748/Study-transitional-home-office-san-francisco Parents could work there when the kids are at school or sleeping, and the kids could do homework there. It would be easy to grab a cup of coffee and the lovely view would allow the short breaks that experts recommend while seated at a desk. Not sure how much you envision entertaining upstairs vs on the deck outside the living room so don’t know if you can spare the upstairs space.
Then you could move the laundry room closer to the back door, put the walk in pantry by the refrigerator, and move the powder room to the original pantry room.
I would strongly suggest NOT putting in a built in desk. That option was popular in the 1990’s. But it is far less popular now. We have a built in desk that is just a waste of space. Let folks decide where they want their office desk to be located…rather than having it hooked to the walls! With the advent of wifi, the built in desk area is really old.
Any owner can put a computer table or desk…anywhere…if there is space. And there should be plenty of space in this house.
Agree that suggestive staging for the downstairs could be a good thing…but if it can’t really be considered living area…I guess you need to be careful about that.
Agree with thumper! Our home office has never been used as an office, and even the kid who was into graphic deaign abandoned her large monitor and did most of her work on her laptop while lounging by the fireplace. I don’t remember when we actually used any of the two desks we have in our house.
I have posted the new revised designs for main floor, bedroom wing and 2nd story on the Flickr group. There are so many erasures, pencil redraws… hope they are legible!!
I took some time to do some market research… I pulled up a lot of high end tract developments and scoured through their floor plans. My reasoning was that these big home builders spend a lot of time and money doing ‘market research’ to figure out what buyers want in new homes. Who am I to argue with all that research?? I noticed that every large home had laundry room, powder room/half bath, and walk in pantry. The craft room/offices are ‘optional’ and can be added to the base home layout. There also seemed to be a cool concept of ‘drop room’ which is a little area with countertop as you come in from the garage. I can imagine how totally messy that would get really quick 
There is a set of cabinets with countertop just as you come up the garage staircase. I will consider that the ‘drop zone’ where phones charge, backpacks congregate, mail and keys, etc.
Of course these homes have 3,000 to 4,000 sq ft so their master bathrooms and walk in closets are a lot larger than I can do with what I have. Key reason I cannot go larger with the bathroom or closet is that the structure is only 24’ wide, so if I go crazy with bath and closet, the bedroom gets way too skinny.
I eliminated the craft room and moved the laundry room into that space. It puts it closer to the ‘back door’ coming up from garage and next to the dumbwaiter area. The dumbwater can be used to send laundry up/down from 2nd story, if needed (of course there’s really only 2 x 2 x 3 high available in dumbwaiter). Someone will have to invent a small size hamper to go into the dumb waiter. So, washer/dryer/broom closet are in the hallway now. Trying to decide whether broom closet should go in laundry room area or somewhere else. That really doesn’t matter to the City Bldg Departmnet so I can switch cabinetry around in these rooms, as needed.
Created a walk in pantry where laundry room was. I realized that there is going to be a lot of ‘dead space’ under the stairway and it would be ideal to have it in the pantry area. I can put very deep wide shelves in there and it can be used for bulk storage of appliances, toilet paper, paper towels, etc. This also eliminates a set of doors in kitchen which is really wasted space.
Powder room moved into original walk in pantry (in Revision 3) and that leaves room for a nice long countertop with cabinets running 7’ along the eastern wall of kitchen. This is extra counterspace in kitchen so now there will be 5 zones of countertop. Cleanup zone 8’ long, cooking zone about 6’ with 36" stove, coffee bar zone (to left of refrigerator) only 2’ wide, prep zone on island at 6’ and 7’ of countertop along eastern wall. That’s 29’ of counterspace - uh oh… that’s going to cost a lot of money!
Excellent! Kitchen counter space will be a much bigger draw than a 6x8 craft room! I think that’s fabulous!
I like the changes! 
I like the changes very much too! I think this works!!
Yes, I do believe that you all had really good suggestions, especially Marilyn about moving laundry closer to garage entry.
I’m ready for meeting with architect to discuss structural design and where to start 2nd floor.