What the heck is a "family studio"??? It looks like a laundry room to me! And they have the nerve to call it HER studio and give her the washer and dryer!! Like Mom is the only one who can do laundry!? Grrrr...

IAC, I didn't want the kitchen open to the DR...I had that in my old house and my guests were treated to things like me reaching for something in the cabinet, knocking down the box of crackers and having crackers dumped all over me and the kitchen! And who caught me licking my finger full of whipped cream while prepping dessert!

So in our new house, our DR is around the corner from the kitchen. The DR is open (separated by a walk way and columns) to the library (formal living room) which makes both rooms feel larger, allows you to see light from both sides of the house and gives flexibility for expanding the table or for larger gatherings in what becomes a single space...but still formal in feel. But you don't see the pots and pans and dirty dishes in the kitchen which I love. And you don't see the less formal FR space with the TV and entertainment equipment.

The other thing I love is that the house circulates so from the foyer, through to the kitchen/nook/FR, around to the DR/library and back to the foyer so for large gatherings, there's plenty of space for people to circulate with no dead ends.

I prefer a dining room that is open to rooms other than the kitchen. My mother's dining room is open to the foyer and she will set up another smaller table when there are too many guests for the dining room table. Mine is open to my living room, and I also like being able to add another table. I think the flow is better for cocktail parties/buffet service when it's open.

In the first floor plan, it looks like there would be a bottleneck during parties. The second one would work for me if there was another opening that led to the FR. I love that there's a fireplace in the 4th.

Hard to say which plan would be perfect ....

1)I would love a separate dining room ....maybe a fireplace and built-in bookshelves around the main entrance for interesting "bits and pieces"

2)I would love to have a butler's pantry with china/linen storage; a dishwasher and sink ...and doors to close it off from the dining room

3)I would love to have a square-shaped room with a fireplace -- then add a round table that would seat eight -- and have a charming garden and patio outside the windows (maybe even add French doors) ....

sigh .... just some dreams ...... LOL! :)

Thanks for theresponses so far!

I should have mentioned that I'm just concerned with the dining room flow right now. All of the floorplans would require some changes to be made, mostly having to do with the kitchen and utility area. I do agree though, that "her studio" is pretty funny.

As far as the dining room flow is concerned, do you think having a closed off space, which would be nice most nights, would be too big of a hassle the few times a year I have larger parties? I agree that #1 could cause a bottleneck if say I had a lot of guests and was serving buffet style from the dining room. Does anyone else not care for an open dining room as much? Anyone have a closed off space and run into problems?

I'm just trying to envision living with either. Is hard because our current floorplan is so different and most people I know have a similar floor plan, or don't even use the small dining room they have.

We prefer an open DR for the reasons that Annie mentioned. Our Dr is just past the foyer and leads to the Sun Room. It has only two side walls and we have the ability to expand the table in two directions. You can see how we had a very large family gathering where we all sat at one table.

None of the plans have a butlers pantry, which is surprising looking at what all look to be very generous square footage~you may want to consider making a space for one. When I built my home, I thought for sure it was a space that wouldn't get utilized, but was I wrong! It's a perfect spot for keeping additional food while dining, as well as a great space to set up a drink bar or dessert bar for a dinner party.

While my DR only gets used a few times a year, the extra cabinets(top and bottom)in the butlers pantry is a great place for storing extra dinnerware as well as other things I don't use often.

I like the idea of having a way to open up the DR when needed, but close it off for smaller groups as well. In plan 4 I swapped the placement of the kitchen and breakfast room (I hate the idea of a window-less kitchen) and put pocket doors between the dining room and breakfast area. The red lines show where I made changes and the green lines are supposed to represent the pocket doors sliding to the sides. I'm working in powerpoint here, so I'm a bit limited ;)

Since you often do buffet dinners, that allows the breakfast table to serve as the buffet line when needed. And I think it would give you enough distance that the kitchen would not feel like it is on display from the dining room. For more formal parties, the breakfast area becomes a staging space for the next course.

And now the kitchen gets windows to the porch and the backyard in this version. I figure I spend more time prepping and cooking food (and cleaning up) than I do grabbing breakfast or quick meals, so I'd rather have the views and sunlight in my work space.

I prefer a closed kitchen and an open dining room, both for day-to-day dining and for special occasions with larger groups. Observing my own home as well as friends' homes, dining rooms that are separate spaces seem to get used less often and are more likely to become special-occasion-only rooms, even when that wasn't the intention at the start. In addition, kids are at an age where they can easily sit with the adults through dinner, but they really don't want to "hang around" socializing with the adults after the meal is finished. With a dining room open, the kids "retire" to the nearby space, but they can easily participate in conversation and there's still a sense of everyone "being together."

And they have the nerve to call it HER studio and give her the washer and dryer!! Like Mom is the only one who can do laundry!? Grrrr...

My thoughts exactly when looking at those first plans. I have looked at a lot of plans and have never seen the laundry/utility room called a "studio". Geez.

Monablair: when you dine with a smaller group, say 4-6, does your dining room feel too large and exposed? That's one concern I have with such an open space like that, though it does seem convenient to be able to expand the table into the foyer if needed. Also, does your dining room lose its sense if intimacy being so open to the other rooms? Is it distracting to see all the other rooms from the table?

Three things -

First, the first plan requires that anyone progressing from the great room to the dining room either go through the kitchen or back out through the front hall. Not a good idea.

Second, the "Sagecrest" and "Bloomsbury Park" plans have one of those, you should excuse me for saying so, horrible open spaces with columns and no walls right off the entry hall that they call a dining room, but that is really an affront to all of the time-tested hierarchies of space.

To all of you who have such an arrangement, I apologize.

And third, since you don't like the open plan you now have, you may be overcorrecting by looking for a completely enclosed room, which only works if the room is very large. Consider instead a room that connects to the kitchen through a door in a solid wall, perhaps with a pass-through window that can be closed at dinnertime.

Then instead of a solid wall on the more public entry, a pair of half-height walls with columns, flanking a wide doorway into the dining room. That way, you avoid the rabbit warren of closed rooms, you establish a distinct separation between rooms, you keep an open view, and you don't have to make the rooms too big for your needs or for the proportions of your house.

If you want to accommodate both your immediate family and larger groups, consider building a library-dining room, with bookshelves and cabinetry that can also house china and flatware, and a table with many leaves that will function as a library table and dinner table for the few, and expand to accommodate the many. The library aspect can keep it from looking abandoned and unused when you aren't entertaining.

RE:#1; I can imagine a screened bluestone front porch (with privacy plantings if visible to street) with folding french doors to the dining room that could be thrown open in nice weather, allowing for extra circulation, with maybe double entrance front doors that could also be opened wide....
Hope to spend time looking at the rest of your plans later - what a fun problem to have!!!

Peegee: your description sounds lovely and makes me want to keep considering this plan even though there will be a bottleneck if I had a large buffet setup in the dining room. I should mention I am in the pacific nw, so no need for a screen and patio doors would only be utilized maybe 2-3 months out of the year (and that's optimistic;). However, the idea of adding additional windows/doors sounds really appealing. The lot will be a wooded 5+ acres and while I plan to clear a good portion of the trees from the back of the lot to allow for a sunny (well, as much as possible) backyard, I plan to leave as many trees as I can to the front of the house to give a real woody, tree house effect. So adding additional windows would be really nice and dining in that space would be beautiful I think.

"And they have the nerve to call it HER studio and give her the washer and dryer!! Like Mom is the only one who can do laundry!? Grrrr...

My thoughts exactly when looking at those first plans. I have looked at a lot of plans and have never seen the laundry/utility room called a "studio". Geez."

I think it's a craft room.. or office... or whatever. It has a computer desk in there. They probably should have stuck with the "family studio" label from the third plan, although that is obviously confusing too.

RE: OP's question... I prefer for a dining room to be closed off as that gives the room more flexibility. It can be a den, an office or a number of things with the potential to cut out noise and give privacy. With that said, our dining room is open to our great room because of all the light that comes thru the dining room windows. The great room would be much darker without.

Olivesmom, when we have 4-6 people at the table, we take the extensions out. We dim the lighting and the atmosphere is cozy. I think if we didn't have cased openings with 3' side walls the DR might seem too open, but because of those features it doesn't.

We've never found the other rooms to be a distraction; in fact, that's never crossed my mind (or anybody else's, either).

The pros of having an open DR far outnumber any of the cons. This works for our lifestyle and way of entertaining. We've had as many as 40 for a sit down dinner and as many as 100 for a cocktail party. The layout allowed our guests to walk around from room to room and from inside to outside without any "traffic jam".

#2 Charlton House, would have the ability for the Dining room to open to the Great Room by the means of large pocket doors in the wall between, and still be separate from the kitchen.

There are some things that I find odd about all the plans but that one does have the separate, but adjacent (and possible able to be opened) dining room/great room.

I prefer a separate dining room. With french or pocket doors into the adjacent living area(s) or kitchen. I don't get the desire for openness for parties. One of the nice things about parties is the ability to circulate (and get away from people when they drive you nuts). So you move from room to room and get involved in different conversations. I like that. The ability to create a really long table does have some appeal but since the people at the ends wouldn't be able to talk to the people at the other end anyway I don't see it as a reason to have an open space.

But.... those "Her Studio" rooms with washers and dryers would be reason enough for me to cross those architects off my list. Are you kidding me? I don't care if they have computer desks, etc. The whole idea is just insulting.

In our previous house we had a smallish DR with no option for enlarging the table much to accommodate larger groups. It kind of bugged me. One end was open, and you could see into the kitchen, but there wasn't enough length for more seating.

In our current home, the dining room functions more like Mona's in that we can expand the table into the foyer if we need more seating. The dining room is not visible to the kitchen which I like. We do, however, have a small tv/fam. rm adjoining the kitchen and an eating nook where my DH & I eat most of our meals. What drives me crazy, though, is how everyone congregates in this area, no matter where I set up appetizers, drinks, etc. It happened again at Christmas. My DH LOVES it this way, so he can visit while cooking, etc., but that's because he thinks he's like the celebrity tv chefs...hee her!

I liked the plan PeeGee talked about with the dining room near a porch where overflow could happen...sounded lovely We also are in the Pacific NW, & I understand about the porch. The nice thing is, though, that with lots of windows, it would help with a somewhat dreary (much of the year) climate.

I should have mentioned that there is a pony type wall between our dining & living room & the living room is sunken by three steps from the foyer. This pony wall is great for setting up buffet style serving, if that might work for you. Because the living room is lower than the rest of the main floor, it remains pretty private, even though it is open to the foyer & dining rm.

How exciting to be planning a new home...keep us posted!