From the pictures, it looks like you have already relocated the stairs and a basic kitchen. The wood floors look great! I can't tell from your drawing what you have next to the fridge. Is that a pantry? What don't you like about your layout and what do you want to keep? What's inefficient about the flow or working in there? Do you want to maintain the step up into kitchen/dining? Is your work triangle working? What do you want to change about the living/dining room. BTW, looks like you have a nice little diamond in the rough there.

In the "current" floorplan, the stairs are still where they were originally, and they are the original stairs. I have just opened up the wall that used to close them in.

The "Step Up" into the kitchen/dining is a result of stepping up into the remaining piece of the mobile home. That step, and the mobile home, will be GONE soon.

The Dishwasher is what is beside (to the left of) the fridge right now.

I dont like the floorplan the way it is now for 3 main reasons:
-There is no "entry" on the main floor, and the basement is currently unfinished so we mostly have guests come in through the screen porch entrance. (we just come and go through the basement)
-I would prefer the kitchen be more open to the living space
-The stairs are too steep and need to be moved (preferably somewhere along the north/top wall due to geometric constraints)

I have doodled up a few new floor plans, which you can see in my galleries and in the thread over in the remodeling forum. For the most part, I like the new floorplans but could use some advice on tweaking them or making adjustments that enhance the "archtectural" appeal. I am worried that just opening the entire space up then defining areas with furniture could be "too" open for a small house like this, But I dont know.

My larger concern is making sure that all I do someday will tie together in a cohesive final product. I want the house to look nice from the outside and I'd like to figure out a way to make the house look less like a basic, square hillside ranch (which looks like a double wide to me), and instead make it more like a house that has had some thought put into design and archetectural details.

I do know I want to put an addition of some kind off the "back"(north/top) side of the house that will serve as a guest entry / mudroom / foyer.
I'd like to keep the basement door too (although for flow Im thinking about moving it to the right, so its on the other side of the chimney) and that will be an entrance for service/everyday use for us and will go into a basement mudroom area (where our woodstove also is, so we will bring wood in that door too.) I'd like this entrance covered as well, but I want to make sure that when you come up and park, it is very apparent where the main entrance to the house is (and that its NOT the basement entrance)

A more lofty goal I have is to do a larger addition off the north/top wall, and incorporate a third bedroom into the mix. I have doodled up another new floorplan recently, that includes this....

for convienience sake, I will re-post relevant pictures over here so people don't have to keep going back and forth.

My CURRENT floor plan:

Newest floorplan idea:

Older Idea for new floorplan: (There is a small mudroom addition in this plan that is not visible, it is off the north wall and the entrance is at the top of the open stairs. I put some 3d renderings of this plan up on my gallery, which is posted below)

And here is a picture of the approximate angle that you approach the house from the parking area of the driveway (might help with figuring on entry/facade issues)

Rather than adding to the footprint of the house (requiring new foundations and roof) I would try replacing the roof with steep rafters and put the master bedroom and bath up there and put a more efficient straight run stair in the center of the house.

You could raise the ceiling in the living/dining area a foot or as high as the rafters.

Thanks Renovator 8 - I posted more details in response to your drawing in the other post

My Post in the Renovations Forum

However, I wanted to post the plan I came up with using your ideas here too, to see what everyone in this forum thinks:

On the right track? Anything look awkward or just not right? Any improvements to be made?

Here is a "rendering" which might help too:

I like your current plan. It turns the main entrance into the house quite grand and includes a mudroom, bench, and closet. The kitchen shape is quite efficient. I'd put the dishwasher to the right of the sink. You could increase the cabinet width between the stove & fridge for more landing space. Mine is 15", but I wish it was 24".

I'd move the "front door" closer to your closet or shelves, so that your walkway would line up with the left of the table. As it is now, it opens up too much into the middle of the space. I'm assuming that by angling your stairs you will be able to meet code now.

As far as your curb appeal goes, it is a ranch. To keep it from looking like a double wide, you could make the front entry into a gabled covered porch. Add shutters and when you add a deck, don't make it too squared off. Ranches suffer from too many rectangles. lol. Then at the back, you could have a curved walkway that leads to the back door. A few steps and some landscaping will soften the angles both in back and in front. Planting beds should have curved edges.

Are you going to cover the lower part of the chimney with siding? They do that here and the chimney disappears into the siding of the house. Also, paint the lower level the same light gray to match your siding.

Those are the things that catch my eye. I hope you get some more responses.

Thanks for the input! Its a bummer, but that french door, the "front" door you called it, is NOT moveable. I just put it in this fall. I was working under the assumption that I couldnt build the stairs to code in the space where they were, so they were going to be moved somewhere along the "north" wall... I have now found that the code isnt as strict as I thought it was, plus with the 45* winder I can get the stairs to fit where they are, which I like a LOT better.

I know, I jumped the gun on re-doing that wall of the house, but the reality is that I had the time to do it this fall, and I needed to keep the project moving, so I went with what I hoped would be a relatively default placement of windows and the door that would accomidate a variety of floorplans.

I think, with this current plan, that while the door placement isnt 100% ideal, it is still functional. I guess I would view the travelled lane to be to the right of the table, so the door works in that sense.

Thanks also for the kitchen suggestions. Once I have the kinks worked out of this overall floorplan, Ill spend some quality time on the kitchen design and figure out exactly where everything will go.

My big concerns are still:
-the window placements (on the right hand wall), look good?
-the closet by the patio door -good, or leave it open space? Or open shelving?
-The passageway into the hall to the bedrooms - should I leave it all open (ie having the hall share a common ceiling with the living/dining), or do you like it how ive shown it on this plan, with a partition and open passageway(no door)
-The kitchen has just the window on the end - is this okay or should I try to put a window somehow on the "north" wall too?

I think the window placement is OK, but I'd consider putting them together into one, like a picture window. Will you have a nice view from them?

Since you have a nice closet from the rear entry, this one won't be necessary unless you're of the mind that you can never have too many closets! I'd make it like a dining room hutch with closed doors on the bottom and open shelves on top. You won't have room for a formal hutch so this would look good here. Have it trimmed out so it looks like a real piece of furniture.

Since your plan shows 2 windows over the sink, I think it's got enough natural light. You could always put a skylight in for more light. I think another window would complicate your plan--it's a smallish house to begin with.

The opening in the hall from the living area to bedroom area is up to you. I think it's a personal preference. I think having the partition might make the walk space smaller for moving furniture in and out unless you want a door to separate them. If you do put in the partition, I would mimic the pointed arch over your front windows. It's a lovely shape.

The only other thing I'd look at is that you said your basement is unfinished. If you have your stairway open to the basement, won't you lose heat on the main floor? Do you only heat with the wood stove? Is that the benefit of the open stairway?

BTW, if you want a third bedroom, could you not build one in the basement near the egress door? It's under roof already. In the meantime, you could always use it as a den with a closet so it would qualify as a bedroom.

Thanks for all the input Still Waters. I'll certainly take it all into account as I finalize these plans.

On the basement: It was kind of partially finished when I bought the place. I have torn it all out now because it was done AWFULLY, and am working on insulating the walls and rebuilding the Laundry room and furnace room this winter, as well as completely re-doing the ventilation system. I expect to finish it again within a year or two. I am hopefully going to have a third bedroom down there.

Also - While we have an oil hot air furnace, we heat the house with a big wood stove thats right where you see the chimney on the end. One of the main reasons to have an open staircase is to have the heat from the woodstove mix with the upstairs - As it is, our oil furnace only comes on during very cold nights when I don't get up to put wood in the fire. The main area stay about 68-70 and the bedrooms stay a comfy 65-67.