I'm sorry to say that I have only negative input also. This floor plan does not look as though the house would flow at all. Have studied Interior Design & have been involved in a lot of house plans, but sorry to say I don't think you will be happy in the long run. You have a Laundry right at your front door. This is where all your visitors will be entering. You have no external door from your laundry , so will you be carrying clothes outside through the house or will be there be a door in the garage to the outside? Bedrooms 3 & 4 need to go through the rumpus room to get to the toilet and bathroom. You dont want bathrooms & toilets to be seen from your front door, its not a good look. Your bedroom quarters should all be grouped together with access to bathroom & toilet, so you dont need to go through other rooms to get to them. Your area of your kitchen and breakfast bar seems to be too narrow if you are intending to have bar stools across there with doors opening out to a deck. If your most beautiful views are along the south & west I would consider flipping the design. Try to get your designer to put all 4 bedrooms, bathroom & toilet on the East side and make that the bedroom wing. Make the rumpus room from the internal garage wall towards the west. Move your balcony from that same point and wrap it around your rumpus room with big bifold doors that open to one side. This will give you the views and entertaining space in & out. Move the laundry door from the front entry to where the cupboard is at the moment. Leave the garage/Laundry door where it is and seen if you could get cupboards for storage along that garage/laundry wall. In your kitchen area I would extend the doors on that balcony out which will give you more room for stools along the breakfast bench. Move your toilet to the back wall of your living room near the stairs. I know that wall is long but your designer should be able to fit in a toilet and basin comfortably and what ever area remains you could either make it into a wet bar for entertaining or inbuilt shelving and cupboards below? or maybe even the piano, which will not be in a walk way now but in nook overlooking the living area; where it can be used on special occasions. I would also do the same with the balcony as below and wrap it around the living room with big bifolds opening to one side which will give you that indoor/outdoor living space especially if you have the wonderful views you say towards the south/west. Get rid of you french doors leading into the living room and open up all the space so it feel airy and roomy. With the toilet gone from where it is, the piano moved and the balcony moved out a little, your walk way is opened up, there will be a better flow into your dining and library areas without walls and obstacles. You will get a much better view out from your kitchen area, (which lets face it is where you will spend a lot of time) as you will be able to see the views to the south and west whilst standing at the sink. Where as it stands now you have a toilet and french doors blocking the view from your kitchen.

I am referring to knobs on my doors. Cabinets are bronze downstairs and nickel upstairs. I don't want to have to change doorknobs to sell, which might be in a year or two. So, is it weird to do nickel upstairs and bronze down? Or is is better to do the whole house the same?

I'd personally decide on whether I needed a scullery at all. They are fashionable but do you need one? Or is a pantry really what you are after? These are homes not restaurants or hotels. It's all about where you would prefer to be while you go about daily life. What's your kitchen for if you don't plan to cook in it? Making tea and coffee? You could create a wet bar that that. In years to come people will be buying houses and ripping out the butlers pantry's and sculleries because they are wasted space that could have created a more optimal layout in the kitchen. A friend's house has one and she's set it up with breakfast appliances, toaster, coffee maker etc. TBH it's a pain to go and stand in a cupboard to make breakfast, then bring it out to eat it.

You've got some great suggestions there, so I won't really add anything different, but I'm wondering how you use the living area, do you need both a lounge and a living room or would you benefit from another room like a guest room or office, or a reading/library room? A studio? Do you like having a lounge area and separate tv area, or would that all be the same area? My family all likes being together but doing their own thing so for us a large family room that includes reading, tv, arts/crafts, toys, boardgames and spaces to do all those things is what we need. But I know other families like having separate rooms for different activities, just sort of depends how you live. As for the reluctant renovation partner, sometimes its just a case of not being able to see what you are thinking... or even seeing why a change would help. One thing I like to do is just just rearrange the rooms and set up the areas as they'll be used. For the time being ignore the wall positions. Go right ahead and swap the tv and dining furniture and see how it feels, you'll soon see if some areas are cramped and the walls need to be pushed out or where the door should be. sometimes its easier for people to solve problems than imagine design changes that avoid problems.