Overall, we still really enjoy the plan. It's just the two of us with occasional overnight guests. We do like to have people over for entertaining too. It's really great for that. There are a few things that I knew right from move-in that have bugged me. A couple are actually from the design, others just things the builder did or didn't do correctly, or at least with quality in mind.
#1 Storage - with no attic storage - there's just not much space to store things. Examples - card table and chairs, a deep freezer, holiday decorations, playpens/baby bed/cots, out-of-season clothes, extra linens, etc. We did end up building a large carport with a storage room - but even that fills up :). It seems to be a constant battle.
#2 Wall space - we knew this starting out. We do LOVE all the windows and glass doors, but when you start trying to place furniture - bookshelves, dressers, etc., you start to see there's a problem. We ended up putting built-in bookcases along the side of the house with the fireplace. We also eliminated some windows in the master bedroom back wall so we could put an armoire. Think through all your furniture and where you will want to place it.
#3 thin walls. This I think is a builder thing. Where it especially bothers me is between the guest bathroom and the master bathroom. You can hear EVERYTHING in the adjoining rooms. I've even considered going back and putting insulation between those walls.
#4 Acoustics - since we didn't put any carpet, there's something about the high ceilings/walls that just seem to make the house "echo-y" (can't really describe it well). With a few people talking and maybe some music playing, it just seems really noisy. I've gotten use to it, and I'm not sure how you'd fix it anyway.
#5 - so many doors ! :) We mainly use the back door by the laundry room and the front door. Sometimes just one of the two living room doors. The living room door closest to the fireplace is NEVER used. If I were doing it over, I'd just make that a window. The bedroom door is truly optional. It's only 2 steps to the one right next to it. On a funny note, we have 3 dogs, and when we let them out and close the door, it never fails they go to the other side of the house and bark at one door. Before we can walk over to that door, they have given up and trotted around to another door, etc ,etc... It's almost comical.
#6 Exterior chimney - still not sure if this is a builder issue or design issue, or both, but with a rocked chimney and metal roof, we cannot prevent leakage from coming down onto the porch. We've had 2 different roofers work on it with no real success.
#7 Electrical wiring complexity - again... Design? Builder? not sure. But there are so many switches to all the ceiling fans, lights, etc. Some are the 2 or 3 way type. I ended up having to put labels on each to remind me which switch went to which light. We still have 1 mystery switch. And we can't get our living room ceiling fan to come on reliably.
#8 High Dormer windows - Love the effect of the 5 triangle dormer windows, but how in the world to clean them? 4+ years later and I'm not sure. Esp on the outside (the builder initially left the stickers on them, ugh!). Again - not sure how you would "fix" this without eliminating them. And they are a VERY nice effect - esp. when the moon shines through.
With all that - we do LOVE our house and have no regrets. Being up on a hill, it's awesome to look out all the glass at all times of day/night. The common areas can hold a lot of folks for entertaining with nobody feeling cramped.
