Schmeltz- I love all the windows over the sink! Very pretty.

Could you take out the laundry/pantry area and move the dining room over into that space? Then, you'd have room for a separate dining room and big kitchen, with island. Maybe move the sink with windows to the left and have the range on the same wall, with prep space on each side. This should give you room for a doorway to the new pantry/laundry/mudroom (behind the trophy room) to the left of the fridge. If necessary, you could move the fridge a bit to the right. What about a prep sink, on the big island?

The new pantry/laundry/mudroom could be a little bigger and give you a doorway to the deck. That would give you a great access, from the deck, through the mudroom and into the kitchen. That would be so handy, when it's bad weather and you may not want to enter, through the french doors.

Could you move the trophy room forward, so it's even with the front of the living room? That should give you plenty of space for the new pantry/laundry/mudroom, behind it. Also, what if you make the archway a little wider (maybe 5') from the kitchen into the living room? I like the way you have the door to the trophy room and window balanced on that east wall, of the living room. Could you add a small fireplace on that wall...maybe with the TV over it? Just a few ideas :)

Some thoughts and questions:

Do you mean your dining table will fit in front of the French doors? How large will it be most of the time?

Do you need seating for 5 at the island if the table will be in the same room? Seating all in a line like that won't make for very easy conversation or relating to each other.

Is there a reason you don't want anything on the lower wall (the one shared with the living room)? If that doorway wasn't centered, it might suit the room better... Especially if it's going to remain that narrow.

I assume you're going for something very cosmetically attractive around the fridge, but I think you could get more function than you'll get with that arrangement... And right up to the corner stove with the empty upper window wall looks unbalanced to me. Just an opinion. How do you plan to use that storage around the fridge?

Or... You could put the sink and the stove both on the window wall and get more room on the right for storage.

If you used the 3rd wall, you could get the range out of the corner and get more use of the island as prep space...without the point of the island corner poised right behind you as you back up to take things out of the oven or deal with a large, hot pot.

Mostly, you have a large kitchen, but I don't feel like you're getting all you can from it.

Zones are important in a large and active kitchen....Cleanup and dish storage, Cooking and prep, Baking, and perhaps a breakfast, snack, or sandwich area for the kids. For example, think of where you'll bake and how you'll store what you need closeby... and the same for your canning and other activities. And how multiple people can work in the kitchen at the same time without fighting for work space or walking over each other in traffic patterns.

Below is a link to my blog post in which I showed my kitchen floorplan (shorter than your kitchen, but we have a dining room, too) and discussed how our zones work for us. I love having the kids work in the kitchen with me, and we do lots of cooking and baking... Canning is a plan for the future, too... Anyway, having places for everyone who wanted to contribute was important, as well as having the things I need where I use them.

Ours was a new build, too. You're smart to think far ahead so you can consider all your options and make sure you'll get all your needs met for the money you'll spend and work you'll put in! Best wishes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Layout and zones in my kitchen

Lavender-My original plan had a dining room where the laundry/pantry are and I liked it better, but my husband wouldn't let me move the trophy/family room. He said it would look silly since the roof line will follow the same shape as the second floor's roof, but it will be shorter. I was trying to convince him just to run another 18' off that whole side of the house, taking it up the full roof height. No go. I do think I will add a prep sink to the island though. I would love to put a wood stove in the kitchen as well. I'm thinking a small potbelly would look nice. I'm not sure how many chimneys that will be in that house. We'll have the big stone one in the trophy room on the outside wall, and hopefully one in the kitchen and living room. I tried to cram one in the master, but it didn't leave much of a walkway. It's amazing that after this many years of having wood stoves as our only heat source, that I would want to ever see another.

Rhome, I was thinking that the dining room table wouldn't be in there most of the time. We will probably keep it on the porch. But it's 3'6"x8'. When the weather is nice, we eat outside. October/November-March, Indiana weather forces us inside. I looked at making the island open on one end, leaving room for everyone at essentially, a square table, but I wasn't really feeling the look of the island. I want my island to be nice and bulky. And ideally, I would just like to have a dining room. I was raised in houses that had dining rooms, and the only eating that was done in a kitchen was sneaking veggies or taste testing food. I'd love to raise my kids that way as well. It's the pantry and laundry that are throwing a wrench in my plan every time. There is plenty of room for a kitchen and dining room without those rooms, but trying to configure them in without making room look funny is another feat in itself. As far as the bottom wall empty, it doesn't have to be at all. I just don't want to buy more cabinets, but anything could be moved around. I also don't want to feel like I've run a marathon after fixing a meal. The cabinets around the fridge were originally supposed to be around my range, but I didn't like the range that far away from the sink and I wanted my sink in front of a window. I currently stare at a wall. I won't use the storage around the fridge, but my husband will. He's a foot taller so he likes wall cabinets, I'm short and wish that wall cabinets weren't an option. I really like the idea of them sitting on the counter top though. That means I could actually reach the first few shelves. I get tired of dragging out ladders and climbing on counter tops to get what I need. Right now, all of my canning stuff stays in the pantry, because it takes up a lot of room. When canning season starts, it finds a temporary home in between the sink and the stove, because it gets used all day, every day for a few months. I'm going to do a few different layouts and see if they can be tweaked some. I'm definitely going to get a separate dining room. That would make me happier than anything, and then I wouldn't have to have a 10 ft island. And thank you for posting your kitchen layout. It definitely helps get an idea for what's going on where in the kitchen.

If you shift the door between the LR & K to the right (near the cabinets and FR door), you'll have an unbroken wall in both rooms to put shelving, narrow cabinets, a picture arrangement, furniture, etc.

Decide what the size of your table and chairs in the kitchen will be, how much space you'll need behind the chairs, and then center the lighting fixture and French doors to the porch on the space (9' wide? 10' wide?).

Anne

I do not know the way your family lives - but in my family, I would want a much quicker access to the family room from the kitchen. Is it possible to have an entry from the kitchen to the family room? If so, I'd start with that. Then start placing kitchen cabinets etc... (and make the entrances to rooms - living and family - larger. Bigger entrances are definitely better!)

Also... 5 bar stools in a row. It is definitely not conducive for family meals... (and a pet peeve of mine: more stools to push back in when kids leave out, more stools to move in order to sweep etc... you get the point.)

And I agree with Rhome... I love the sink wall, but with the fridge wall and range, it seems very unbalanced. The symmetrical treatment of the fridge really seems to say "Tada!!! Here's my fridge!!!" Are you wanting to make the fridge a focal point?

Sorry to be so negative, but since you are starting from scratch, the world is your oyster. I think it's better to play with paper ideas now -- and be thrilled later when your kitchen works at its maximum capability.
~C

Schmeltz- Maybe you should relabel the family room...the trophy room, with dead animals, everywhere? Then, people would realize why you don't want that room open to the kitchen :)

I like the idea of a wood stove in the kitchen, since I plan to have one. I've been thinking about one in the bedroom, too. (LOL) It's not our only way to heat, at least not until the power goes out...so I'm thinking it would be great back up heating.

Have you talked to your husband about putting a mudroom, in with the laundry and pantry? Maybe include some room for tool storage? Guys usually love that idea...you never know, he might rethink moving the trophy room forward. Isn't he planning to have a vaulted ceiling in that room? He could still vault it and maybe have a gable for the mudroom area? What if he could have a bonus/game room upstairs (that's vaulted) over that part of the house? Just a few ideas :)

I have a few concerns about the house plan, from one DIY house planner to another ;-) .... It sounds like you sure need a dining room. We have a table that's 3 1/2 by 10 and I can barely move it to sweep, much less think of moving it from outside to in! And I like what you're trying to experience with your kids. I like a separate dining room, too. The table in our kitchen was planned to give the family a place to read, draw, or play games, while not being in the splash zone of kitchen goings-on.

Will you have a garage? From where will you bring groceries, and from where will the family enter the house most of the time? Maybe with muddy boots, etc?

Your stairs are of minimal width, which means after the railing is on in the entry, it might be tight to carry things up and down.

In your master closet you can only hang things along one wall...because of the window on the back and not enough depth for hangers on the right. Mine is about that size, but with the door centered so there is hanging space on both sides, and one side is 'double-stacked.' --Do you really want to go through the (possibly damp) master bath every time you want to access your closet?

I hadn't noticed the family room before. I, too, would rather have access to the family room from the kitchen than from the living room, but it depends on how you're using it. I don't have a family room, but my dream would be to have a family space that was a little private so it could be well-loved and well-used without being on public display.

But maybe I'm getting ahead of you with some of this stuff... You have good ideas of what you want and need. We're here to help, and there is also the homebuilding forum for getting help with houseplans and details.

I am seeing a largish kitchen space with very little upper storage even in the upper cabinet wall, and no counterspace except a narrow ledge that must be kept clear to be able to open the doors. The arrangement of upper cabinets is more ornamental than practical. The DW is also probably on the wrong side in terms of the range, but on the right side in terms of dish storage so that is also problematic.

I agree that the 5 person line-up of seating is not very conducive to family meals since it makes conversation with people not directly adjacent awkward and there is not direct eye contact.

With regard to the question you asked about, I think that if you made the pantry and laundry rooms one, with the door in the hallway it would add a bit to the trip to the pantry, which I would place first, but it would create more room for the table since you would not need to access that corner. You may also need to do sliders here or outswinging french doors. Right now its too small for a table but too big of a space to sit vacant in the summer months, essentially.

I also think there are some general circulation issues with the downstairs unfortunately, and if the LR is to be used for TV watching, there is no good place for a TV in the current layout.

I am not trying to be harsh but I wanted to voice my concerns briefly.

As Lavender mentioned, the family room is actually a trophy room, full of taxidermy. We will most likely be in this house for a great deal of time, so I want to keep it closed off. We can easily move cabinets and appliances around if we need to have a door to the family room for resale. Luckily, we are in an area that people will ignore the things that don't like to have a house in the area. So essentially, I can do this house however I want, and it will still sell quickly. I just have to pick and choose what I want in the house. The fact that I have doubled my kitchen and dining room budget meant that I wasn't going to get my separate tub in the master bath more than likely, so I was able to shrink down the bathroom and reconfigure to put the laundry room there. Probably will work out better, because that will be the main entrance to the house that everyone will use. I'm sure that bugs some, but I always thought it was kind of weird to have a door that no one uses. I'm not sure I can argue tool storage, because we'll have an entire basement and he has a 30x50 pole barn. I don't have much leverage here hahaha. Plus having a tiny budget makes it really hard to do things, and that budget cannot change. So if the initial building goes over budget, it's coming out of the kitchen fund first. It's really the only one that was budgeted for more than drywall, trim, and paint. It stinks to be poor and live in a house that's falling in LOL. We should have all the flooring for the entire house by the time it's done, unless we decide to put carpet or tile down somewhere. We just hauled in a few more trees last week to have cut for the trophy room.

A few things that Wes (husband) didn't want were mentioned in suggestions. He unfortunately doesn't want to have a mudroom off of the back. He said a covered porch is essentially an unheated mudroom and shoes can be kicked off there. There will also be an entrance to the basement, so really dirty kids will be forced to go in that entrance and can use the shower down there. In this second plan, there is a little entry area that is in between the two rooms so you won't be walking directly in to one from the outside, but I was still able to keep my french doors. The dining room will be a little cramped for space, but I can take a leaf out of the table and allow more walkway almost all of the time. It's longer than the dining room we have now, and we have had a 10 ft table in there before, just sticking the kids at the end. The island will leave enough room for three kids to sit and work on homework or have a quick snack, while still giving me plenty of counter space.

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Ooops, a few things posted while I was trying to upload stuff. And I don't take anything too personally. I would much rather have someone see it from their perspective and see issues. Right now our current home's floor plan just stinks, and I'm not sure I have ever lived in or had a house with a good flow. So I'm not too sure I will have issues with most things. We just work around what we have. Here is the view of the whole downstairs. While I'm sure there are some issues, most can be worked around. The stairs can be made wider, but they need to stay where the truss spaces will be. With dormers upstairs, I was limited and my program does 39" as standard. Final layout doesn't need to be figured out until spring, so measurements will be tweaked a bit in between now and then. Probably hundreds of times. The doorway to the closet could be taken to the bedroom wall, I would just have to make it wider. Or I could completely scrap the walk-in closet idea, because it seems like a waste of space to me, but I thought they were pretty much the norm nowadays.

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The pantry in the second picture sure be flopped like in the first. I was changing stuff around and saved the second picture before the change.

Your living room is huge and would it might be better to put your dining room there. And I would not sacrifice that nice master bathroom.

This is hard to see, but hopefully you get the idea. Its an open wall when you walk in with china cabinet at the top of the dining table. The black rectangle is supposed to be a coffee table.

I would then restructure the kitchen to have direct access to the family room.

Put a door between the master bath and the laundry. It would be very convenient. I'm thinking of a sliding door... I can't think of the proper name for it.

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Live_wire_oak, that's how I had it drawn out, almost exactly, minus the banquette. Question about that in a minute. Although I love the idea of having a separate family entry. And the laundry off the kitchen seems convenient...work on laundry while something is baking...three steps away when I forget that I left something on the stove top that now looks like charcoal. And I do spend the majority of my day between both rooms. And I would get to keep my dreams of a separate tub in the bathroom.

Now my question about banquettes. Aren't they a PITA for getting in and out of? I always think they look nice, but I know how much of a struggle it is for me to get in and out of booths, and more than likely the child in the back corner will be the first that has to pee.

Do I not need a hallway to the master bedroom separating the space? When I posted on the building homes forum, everyone seemed to think I needed a hallway.

LWO- Nicely done! That plan is a big improvement.

Schmeltz- Put all the kids on the banquette and you and DH sit in the chairs...and if necessary, remind them to use the bathroom, before a meal :)

Banquettes are wonderful, especially if you have chairs, too. You can stretch out on a cushioned banquette and read a book, when there isn't a meal (just use outdoor fabrics) and then use the chair, during a meal. You can fit more kids on a banquette, too. Very handy, when they bring friends over...and great for doing homework!

Kids are small enough to slide down and go under the table if they need to pee that bad. And the adults generally use the chairs or the end seat. For family meals, it will be fine. For larger groups, if you make the island mobile, you can just roll it out of the way, turn the table 90 degrees and add leaves. That will mean you need some type of easily foldable/stackable chair, and the place to store that.

The whole master area also needs tweaking as you are wasting window space on a closet and I wouldn't want to enter a master from the kitchen and it's too long and skinny. I'd want the powder room closer to the back by the laundry/pantry.

You've got a lot of work left to do, and there is NO way, NO way, NO way, I'd order cabinets until the drywall was up in the kitchen space and you were 1000% sure of the space's exact dimensions. Small mistakes can add up and suddenly things do not fit. That is a lesson I learned very early in my career. Blueprints are only guidelines when it comes to cabinet placement.

LWO's plan solves some problems, but wouldn't work for us... Kids grow, and fast, so that backside of the banquette would lose favor too quickly. All our bedrooms are upstairs and so is our laundry, so I now know how great it is to have the laundry close to the bedroom areas. I wouldn't want it on the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms and stairs.

I really like the plan you're showing with the pantry between kitchen and dining (posted 14:38)... I'd swap the dw to the right of the sink. I also might open the pantry into the kitchen (you could have a closet or shelves or something attractive facing the French doors). WIth it opening toward the French doors, though, it leaves that wall available for shallow storage and/or book/display shelves, which could be wonderful. And the pocket door from master into the laundry is an excellent idea.

I would also change the diagonal door lazy susan to a 90 degree door, to get more floorspace and more counter frontage, with a larger opening to the deep cabinet.

If it weren't for the master bedroom entrance right there, I'd remove the bottom wall to the dining area and make it more open for more flexibility. As it is, I'd widen the doorway almost all the way. I'd also make a larger, more gracious openings from living room to entry, and entry to dining.

The problem with cabinets....I need new cabinets now. Mine are falling apart literally. Right now I have two with doors that fell off. Too much moisture from the basement as well as a leaky sink took a toll on the particle board for sure. I'm missing three drawer fronts which were completely ripped off. Not just the face, but part of the drawer itself. The cabinets I am looking at are standard overlay, far cheaper than inset and full overlay. Not the exact look I want, but it's saving money, and they are just as well made as the others. I can easily fit in a filler here and there or completely sacrifice a cabinet. That doesn't really bother me too much. I'm not looking for perfection or gorgeous, just something pretty that suits a busy family and that I enjoy being in. Hopefully something that I never have to replace. I'm realistic and know that this is probably going to be the only time we will ever have the money to do a new kitchen. I can always paint cabinets or replace a backsplash, but the cabinets will more than likely be there as long as we are.

You are no where near a final layout for the house much less a kitchen. If you are having issues with your current cabinets, look on craigslist or a Habitat ReStore or even just plain open shelving of concrete blocks and planks or thirdhand dressers and armoires. Don't waste a dime on buying any cabinets now.

Yes, the kitchen as tweaked works better, but the whole house plan does not really "work" well at all as a whole. You cannot even think of starting building with this rough concept. You need a professional involved, sooner rather than later. Especially if you want to break ground this spring. You have at least 2 months of design work ahead of you for it to be drafted, even if you had a good final layout. And then you can begin the permitting process after you receive the stamped blueprints.

Building costs so much more than buying existing that you can only afford to make these mistakes on paper or change orders will eat you alive.

Have you looked at buying something that is already built? A builder grade home costs around $100 a square foot here (not including land), but you can buy pretty much the same house that is 10 years older for $60 a square foot. A custom home starts at around $200 a square foot+. An existing custom home in one of the nicest sections of town can be had for around $150 a square foot. It's very similar even in more costly areas of the country.

We will be building ourselves. It will run far less than what I could buy a 10 year old home for and we could never find one in the location that we wanted. Our current home is falling apart, literally. The original part of our 100+ year old home has bad floor joists, the rest of the house is sinking 3+" each year. Noted by how many times we have to adjust the doors to make them open and close again. We already have the land, and a home to live in until the build is done. Our estimates, overestimated 20% for our 32x48 1 1/2 story with full walkout basement will cost under 35k. Building materials are all being cut at the local sawmill, as well as all of the flooring. We can reuse almost all of the windows that we have replaced and we've collected lots of odds and ends throughout the last 6 years. Unused tile, old doors, lighting fixtures, etc. Some need work, others are perfect. This isn't an area of multimillion dollar homes, in fact, houses aren't even sold, but the farm ground that the house is on. We were lucky enough to snag a bank repo. There were 8 offers in the first 24 hours of the property listing. We were the only ones that offered cash and refused an inspection. We had the money upfront and knew that it would not pass any type of inspection...no running water, no central heating, never had a duct installed in this house's lifetime, and the additions were all horribly built with the wrong materials and no foundation. We knew what had to be done to make the house safe to live in, and we knew what could wait. We are just to the point where sinking thousands into this house is only delaying the inevitable, it will fall in, maybe not this decade, but it will happen soon enough. There just isn't anything worth salvaging except for the original wood floors and baseboards and the new windows that we have put in. There aren't strict regulations on building permits and as long as the wiring and plumbing are drawn up to code, they will give you a permit. They are more than happy to hand them out.

35K?!?!?! Am I reading that right? 15 years ago our complete DIY single story garage/workshop materials cost 5k more than that, and it doesn't have any plumbing or interior partition walls. It's just a 30'x54' rectangle.

I'm a design professional and deal with construction estimates constantly. I also live in one of the cheapest places to live in the country. Our shop would cost at least 40% more if we built today, and more than double that if it were to have a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom areas. Double it again for a basement and 1/2 story upstairs. My numbers would be 225K for a 4400 square foot build and would be incredibly cheap at only $52 a square foot.

I'm really afraid that you have bitten off way more than you can handle here. There is no way you're going to get 4000 square foot under roof for less than $10 a square foot. You couldn't do that even if it were an unfinished shell.

Yes, you are reading that right, but please keep in mind that you have no idea what kind of trade work we have arranged, what we already have stored and waiting, what the costs of things are to us. There is no way we could do it without the years of collecting and knowing the right people, and working in the right line of work to find all of the materials one might need for building a house. I should have made that clear in my post, but I didn't think it was particularly relevant. Hiring an architect is not in our budget, designing a house that works for us and isn't going to fall down in our lifetime is all that matters to me. I was just hoping to get a few ideas from another viewpoint is all. If you want a price breakdown of how we are doing it, I would be willing to share, just so you understand how we're doing it. I'm not a nutcase or an idiot and I was just claiming OUR estimates based on what we needed and what our expenses out of pocket would be. Nothing top of the line, just a decent house with basic materials that we have at our disposal.

I just figured up your foundation pour, and between the cost of the concrete, steel, insulation, vapor barrier, and forms, you'll have about 20K for that alone. That's not counting any excavation costs or rental for a backhoe or any basement waterproofing or backfill or even a concrete pumping truck or extra guys to manage the pour. And you'll need all of that as well. That's already 60% of your budget and you haven't even touched the framing, much less the plumbing, electrical, or HVAC systems.

I'd really be curious as to where and how you are cutting your costs.

Our price for concrete was just over 7k, and that was adding on a few extra yards for waste. My uncle will be helping and he's been pouring basements since he was 15. We're paying for concrete only in this one. Between my uncle and us, we have all of the perimeter drain, rebar, and waterproofing materials required. The basement will be staying unfinished for now. We have a backhoe at our disposal and a bobcat here, so we will be doing all of the excavation as well. We have construction workers of all types as friends and family, so we won't have a shortage of extra hands. It only took 4 of us to finish the basement at my in-laws a couple years back. There basement was 160 sq. ft. smaller, but a walkout and 3 ft knee walls. Their cost was $6k and they hired out some of the work. We are trading logs for the insulation, so no cost there. Our insulation man is also the Amish man who cuts all of our lumber. Once again, we're paying about $.20 a board foot lumber, and most of that has been traded in logs that he in turn sells to the local furniture maker. Our trusses and the rest of the framing were estimated at $6k from the Amish lumberyard. So that puts us at $13k. We have over 1000' ft of electrical wire and two 200 amp main breakers, so worst case scenerio is we might have to buy another couple rolls. 1000 ft rolls are $450. Say 2k tops for boxes, outlets, switches, and there is already electric service to the area. There is also a waterline trenched in, that we had done when they first dug the well when we moved in, knowing that we would most likely build back there in the future. It just needs to be connected to the well and line run there to the jet pump in the house. We have all of the extra materials and pump required to get water in to the house already. Pex for water supply will run under $1000. I'm still under $15k here I think. We already have an outdoor furnace and the duct work to get it through the majority of the house. Say another $1k for conservative estimate for more duct work if we need it. I don't think we will though. No A/C, because we've lived without it most of our lives, I don't see any reason to spend the money on it now. It can easily be hooked up though in the future. #2 metal roofing runs about $90-100 a square. So approx. $3-3.5k for the roof. Let's say we're at $18k here, because I don't want to add up anything else. That leaves approx. $17k for everything else or any added expenses that I didn't include. I'm not including cost of our time, because we can't afford to pay for ourselves. We have friends and family that have offered to help if we need it, and I think there are a few that will dedicate some of their weekends and evenings to helping on a regular basis.

Schmeltz, I haven't read everything, but the thought that comes to mind for a young family that will change a great deal of the years, as Rhome mentioned, is FLEXIBILITY. Don't build a subset of your options in so that changing means a pricey remodel. Your needs AND desires will change. Death, taxes, and regretting getting things you once had to have--inevitable.

Second, decide on the functions your entire home is going to need to serve over the next couple of decades, anyway, then allocate and design space for each. You have a nice home there. Don't cannibalize any part of it for another. Make it all work well.

For instance, even with all the cooking you do, the area allocated to the kitchens in your first two drawings is larger than the house will bear without eating into other spaces. A very well-functioning (and you won't have anything else) hard-working kitchen can be made from less space, so keep the kitchen appropriate to the house and make it work. I get the impression you already know you'd regret many, many times over the years doing without a good appropriate place to put the extra leaves in the table and seat the whole crowd.

Somebody's probably pointed it out, but if you do end up having most of your meals perched at the island it really needs to be a more squarish, or roundish one, with people seated on at least 2 sides, preferably even 3, or 4. Much as you hope it might work now, you're really not going to be happy with family time spent lined up like strangers at a coffee shop counter. It's not even great for an occasional lunch.

If you can, forget fashion. Forget trends. Even forget what you think you want right now. Take your space and ask yourself what the very best kitchen for that space would be, then see if you can tweak that into something you can love.

BTW, I'm one of those who opted for 2 walls of windows over my work counter and no uppers. I'm a definite proponent, but having had it I can now say I could also be very happy with a generous stretch of windows/no uppers over my main work counter, say a little as 4'.
Last, FWIW, corners of houses are prize real estate. Any room that can have sunlight streaming in from two directions, or more, has a prize asset in that. They're special. Corner condos sell for more and sell first. Corner offices rent for more and rent first. Your second outside stretch of wall in the kitchen corner isn't large, but if it were mine I'd do my best to get a window in there as part of making this potentially great space you have to work with every bit as terrific as it can be.