Do you need a separate powder room and 3/4 bath so close in proximity? Combining them might help to get more space at that end of the kitchen.

You have a lot of space dedicated to hallway off the the left. Do you need that or is it redundant circulation?

Perhaps there is a reason for this but do you want to work in an office space with no window? Why not have the office where part of the mudroom is so you can have a window?

I am asking all these questions because there is a lot of real estate dedicated to separate little areas and then the kitchen really ends up functioning like a 12 x 12 room. Draw a line to the left of the range and you will see what I mean..That is the kitchen area where you will be working.

Thanks for the comments. I have been talking myself in circles with the exact issues you mentioned. The reason we have 2 baths so close together is because my husband wants a utility shower that he can use when he comes home from work, hunting, fishing, anything that he will be really dirty without having to worry about messing anything up. He wasn't keen on sharing that space with the guest powder room. The mud room with bath and outdoor kitchen are his only request so I am trying to give him what he wants. The powder room is in that hall because it gives access from the main kitchen/living area as well as the back patio and game room (which is across the hall from the powder room). I really hate that hallway. It's the guest entrance. I dont want people walking through my garage and in our area no one uses the front door so this hallway leads to the driveway. I wish I could figure out another way to set up that entry that wasn't through a hallway. The office will only be used for mail, paying bills and filing. I definitely don't need a window in the office. Thanks for pointing this all out! I may really need to rework that area in order for the kitchen to flow but we are limited to pushing things out due to our lot size. Thanks for your thoughts.

Marsee, it's going to be a lovely home. You do, though, ABSOLUTELY NEED a nice entry for guests--and especially for yourselves! Please don't let that go. My husband fishes and helps me in the garden often so I sympathize, but you do NOT need enough room in the middle of your mud room for your husband to dress a deer, much as you might like to have it. IMO, you need to use some of that space for a genuinely nice secondary (actually primary in practice?) entry. Discard the usual and meet your needs, which a from-the-garage hall simply won't. It fails most people, even in standard tract homes, actually.

As for the kitchen, cooking is cook + ingredients + stove. Cleanup comes after. How about turning a good part of that nicely out of sight pantry (assuming you are within an hour of the nearest good markets) into a scullery and using the current clean-up wall for the most-needed pantry/prep items, plus prep sink? People designing a custom home just don't have to accept the usual. That wall, by definition, would include the fridge.

That wouldn't get your fridge nearer the grill, of course. One answer would be to give the grill chef his own small fridge somewhere at that end of the kitchen.

Another would be to enclose your current stove counter with walls at its ends, thus allowing the wall to the left (on the diagram) to advance similarly, gaining a little portion of that mud room for the kitchen and setting the fridge in there, thus prepping at that end of the kitchen--which would require a sink on the island or by the stove.

BTW, in this case I hope you wouldn't be influenced in favor of those tall, obtrusive faucets. Low and discrete would allow the symmetry of the stove wall to dominate without unnecessary interruption. Anyway, the tall ones have been around for some while now and if not pasee now will be soon enough. If you love them, though, a nice initial prep space by the window, setting up for mis en place, plus that grill fridge at the other end, might be just right... ?

Whatever, have fun suiting yourselves. :)

One idea is to get an all-fridge and an all freezer to flank the range w/ them. Then the fridge would be closer to the locker, easier to access from the outside.
There's already a sink in the mudroom.

Then the wall/double ovens can go where the fridge is currently designed.

Then your sink wall would be the clean-up zone.

I would add a prep sink in the left bottom corner of that massive island.

Amanda

Hi there. I'm no expert, but it seems like you have a lot of space for lockers, mud room, utility room, office and bathrooms all over the place. I'm not sure how you rework those areas, but it's a lot of redundant and kinda wasted space. That office is also big, especially if you're just going to pay bills in it. Can you incoporate that activity into the mudroom or locker room?

Why can't the fridge still go on the wall next to the entrance to the lockers? Maybe I missed that, but I think it still works there. Then scoot the range down to the center of the wall space. Like Amanda suggested, I would put a prep sink on that huge island to seperate the prep/cooking from the cleanup at the wall sink.

What's the purpose of the sink in the pantry?

Is the door at the top left of that hallway a door to the patio?

Could you lead your guests from the driveway to the patio and have one nice entrance from the patio into the house? I fully understand needing this guest entrance, now that you've explained it, but right now its not all that "friendly", it twists and turns.

If you could have the entry from the patio be the main entrance it could be a simple rectangular vestibule with a larger powder room and closet to one side, and the long hallway would not be necessary.

I wish I would have posted these plans on this site weeks ago. Thanks for all the great feed back. I guess I couldn't think of an alternative for that hall so I let it go. But you are right it is really odd. I wish I could post the whole plan but I have it on a legal sheet and can only scan letter size paper. When I get to work tomorrow I will try to scan it in pieces and paste them together so that I can get more opinions.
A big problem is that I have a pond about 35 feet off the back of my patio. That means the house can only go so far back.
Rosie thanks for that. I think no one really wanted to tell me you HAVE to rework that hall! But I will somehow. Just to be sure I explained it correctly, me and my family will use the garage entrance that leads into the locker room. This is how I want it set up. So that our things can have a place and mail can put put in the office and not on my kitchen island. The hall issue is the guest entry which leads to the driveway, not actually in the garage. My husband and I both agree the mud room can be smaller but that would just create a larger hallway?? The other side of that hall is our game room. The only thing I could come up with would be to push the game room out a little more and then make more of a outdoor courtyard with the door moving up closer to the bathroom. My architect said I am adding more square feet when I am already way over what I was expecting. Does that make sense?

Huango- We will have a freezer in the mudroom so I was thinking we would just have a full refrigerator in the kitchen. Switching the fridge and ovens gives me what I had originally and I liked that much better. I also think putting a small sink in the island would create a prep area close to the range and fridge while leaving the window area for cleanup. Do you think it would be odd to have a doorway (lockers) separating the fridge from the rest of the kitchen? The sink in the pantry will be removed. The architect put it there because I said I wanted 2 sinks and didnt want one on the island. I guess that was his other option.

Breezygirl, we are young with a young family and we are building on family property. So this will be our first and last build. We are trying to get everything we want because we dont get a redo! I guess the office could be a desk in the mud room. We have a desk area now and I get so frustrated with it being out in the open. That was why I was just making it a closet type area. But if it would be moved to the mud room you could close the door. That's a good point. What else do you think could be eliminated? I originally asked for the lockers to be in the mud room but Arch keeps saying to leave them in a walk way. Our options to eliminate a bathroom would be to have the kid in the downstairs bedroom use our master bath or dont have a powder room and guest would use my husbands mud bath. Do you think I should do that?? I really have been worrying about all of these issues but with little feedback from my husband I feel like I dont know what to do. I really appreciate all this help.

palimpsest, yes the top left door is to the patio and the door further left is the game room. That was the only suggestions my arch had. To move the guest entrance to the back door or through the game room. To me the point of having a game room is to hide the toys not make your guests fight through them. I have never had to walk into the backyard to get into someones house. I think that would be just as odd as the hall entrance.
Now I am exhausted. I feel like I need to start all over again! :(

The mudroom proper could be the size it is now and also accommodate a toilet and shower in it. The office and lockers area could be combined. The freezer could be put in the locker area rather than as remote as the the mudroom. What about ice?

I think if it's going to be a guest entry it either has to be a nice entry, or guests should just kind of informally enter right into the part of the house with perhaps a small vestibule or airlock separating it. So its either formal-ish or informal.

Right now its kind of this formal-ized (meaning very specific), space, but kind of squeezed in, kind of like --we needed a separate entrance for the help, so here it is.

I am typing briefly so it is easier for you to see my point, not to be abrupt or mean.

Your architect either really likes doors, or hasn't been good at helping you work all your needs into a cohesive floor plan. Sorry. It's just that I feel like I am looking at a house of doors. There's 2 doors into the "utility room", 3 doors in the "locker room", a door from outside into the back hallway, a door between that hallway and the game room, and another door leading to the backyard/patio area. Closet doors in even the smallest rooms/halls, and those closets are also small. And sinks - a sink in the mudroom, pantry, kitchen, and utility room and presumably, all of these sinks are for some sort of cleaning function. Honestly, this whole space looks like so much of a maze, it is too distracting to focus on the function of the kitchen.

I think you need to simplify. I just don't know if you need to simplify your wants, or if you need to get your architect to simplify his approach or maybe a little of both. The most functional spaces are often the most simple. In my experience, architects like lots of twists and turns, lots of varying roof lines, etc. to add "interest" but sometimes that added interest also wastes space and costs more money. For example, I don't really understand why you need 2 private family entrances from your garage - one for DH, and one for the rest of you. 12x26 sounds like a huge kitchen, but very little of the space is available for actually cooking in. How big is your family? You have seating for 7 at the island - do you need that? If you do, fine, but if you don't, could that space be better utilized in another way?

I know it is frustrating to hear all of this. Rest assured. Everyone is trying to help. Better to get these issues worked out now rather then find yourself wanting to remodel in 5 yrs.

One more thing, from a mom who has relatively recently moved out of the messy little one's phase and onto the school age phase. Don't only plan for how you live today. Try to keep in mind that your kids are ever growing and changing and that their needs will be different in a couple years, and different again in 5 yrs. Make space flexible and not too tied to the difficulties of baby and toddlerhood - those years go by much more quickly than you can imagine when you are living right in the midst of it.

Good luck!

I'm not sure what's the problem with the line of communication between me and the architect. It could be me creating problems but I don't feel like I am getting much feedback from him. All these spaces were things that I wanted but the whole issue with the mud room, locker area, and office were his creation. I wanted a mudroom with lockers and a shower for my husband and this is what I got. I feel like I need to come up with ideas instead of getting ideas from him. Maybe we need to have another sit down meeting and talk about everything you guys have brought up.

I think the office could be extended out to the locker wall and then incorporate everything from the mud room in that area. With the old mud room gone it would give more space for a functional guest entry and eliminate the hall. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Do you really think we have too many sinks? The mud room sink would be to bathe the dog and clean muddy items while the utility room sink would be to soak clothes before washing. The pantry sink isn't staying. I guess I didn't think I was going overboard.

Lots of food for thought. I will run all of this by my husband. Thanks again.

an architect is not a kitchen designer:all of the square footage you have with pantry, kitchen, locker area, office could be cleverly designed by an experienced kitchen designer.I would finish up with load bearing walls and plumbing stacks with the architect and allow a kitchen designer to plan those areas//niches around the kitchen.

I can sense your frustration. I'm sorry if I added to it without meaning to. It just seems like you have a lot of cut up spaces with lots of doors. Some areas look to be bigger than they need to be, like the mudroom and office. I wish I had a suggestion for how to make it better, but all I can offer is some encouragement.

Only you know how you'll use your house. Don't let the architect design the house for HIM. It's maddening when you're paying him to come up with ideas when you feel like you have to go back and re-do the work for him. My DH isn't offering a lot of help with our whole house reno that I'm GCing with two small kids. I know how it is to feel like you're floundering around for help and making no progress.

Take a deep breath, listen to some of the knowledgeable people here, and develop a new approach with your architect. When you're ready with some new ideas, meet with him again.

Herbflavor has an interesting idea. I wouldn't trust my kitchen design to an architect anyway, even if you were really clicking with this guy. I couldn't find a good KD in my area so I designed my kitchen with the help of this site. Were you planning on using a KD?

Marsee - listen to breezygirl. She's really been through the ringer. When she first came to this site, her kitchen was in a completely different part of the house then where it ended up after lots of discussion on this site! It took a long time, and lots of back and forth, but she is finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. You will get there too!

It's not so much that there are too many sinks, but that there seems to be lots of redundant space, and I just want you to think about that. Do you have an image of the entire first floor? That may help.

On another note, please change the privacy settings of your photobucket account. Perhaps put all home related images into a public album that can be viewed by us, but your other images into private albums. When I clicked on your above image in order to see it larger, I was taken to your account which showed pictures of a baby (I'm assuming yours) and what may be vacation photos. I'm an honest person, and I like to believe that all the posters on this site are as well, but you never know who's out there.

Marsee- Don't get frustrated. This will get worked out. It just seems (even though I am not a layout expert), that you are trying to do too many things in one area. I have some ideas for you so bear with me...( i am in no way a layout expert...)

Questions first-
1. what is the purpose of the sink in the mudroom? What is the purpose of the sink in the pantry?
2. if you are just using the "office" as a bill paying center, It seems that it could be smaller.

My thoughts are this: I think the front hallway is a little weird. There are many cuts and turns and I think it would be better if it were straighter. Have you given any thought to shifting the front door to the right by a few feet so that the coat closet can be on the left wall? I think this would accomplish a straight hallway into your home which would allow for a better entrance. The powder room and bathroom would remain intact in their location. Then, I think you really want a hallway from the garage to the kitchen. I don't think you want to have to go into the locker room to get to the mud room and to get to the office. I think if you combined the mudroom and the lockers, this would allow you to have a hallway that would lead to the mudroom and garage entrance (which I think would be visually more appealing). I think the entrance to the office could be off this hallway. If you did that, you could cut the pantry space from the office and allow entrance to the pantry from either the kitchen wall or the hallway wall. I didn't layout the kitchen appliances with much thought other than the showing you that the appliances have much more room if we eliminate access to the pantry from the kitchen wall.

hope this helps. please excuse the rough sketch.

{{gwi:1799866}}

at the same time, take it to:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/build/

you will get views from architects experienced in dealing with the dilemmas you have.
ANd, they will have ways of saying things that may connect with you.
Don't disappear.

--

a front door that nobody will ever use is a great concept for a philosophical debate.

i wish i had answers for your questions, but all i can offer is a path to go get answers.

if i had responded to your first post right away, i might have said to consider having a peninsula instead of the island, and some more wall behind, let's say, half the length of the peninsula; it would make the opening to the GR smaller but still fine fine fine. And you could also have an island, by making the peninsula several feet shorter than the current footprint of the island. Best of both worlds. The peninsula could have a second sink. The fridge could be behind the wall separating the GR from the kitchen. In the plan posted in your first post, everybody will have a view onto the pantry door (a dumb view), and yet the person standing at the sink will have no view onto the GR. The main idea behindmy suggestion is to galley-ize the kitchen floor plan Just A Little Bit, because galley-izing usually creates a more efficient workspace, more operability in the range of a few steps. It would eliminate one of the openings to the kitchen. Another way to galley-ize the kitchen is to go long on the other axis, down to the garagem and have an entrance where the pantry is, for food incoming and garbage outgoing. (the office and locker space would be reworked and the door to the lockers would be removed since you already have a door to the mud room).

i agree with the posts above, that you have some open areas that are undefined and some enclosed areas with tight corridors and doors galore.

marsee for the record, i'll admit that i did not read each post solowly and carefully. neither you nor anybody should feel i have taken a shot at anything they might have suggested.

Hth

I deleted those pictures. Thanks for letting me know. I forgot they were saved in photobucket.

I have spoken to my architect and he will work on all the issues we have been discussing. Redundant space is the last thing I want. I definitely don't want to pay for it! Thanks for all your help. I will post again once I get more feedback from him and hopefully we can get these problems taken care of. Thanks so much for all of the comments and I hope you guys can take the time to look at my updated plans once I get them. I will also post in the building forum.
Wish me luck! :)

Marsee- good luck talking to him! Remember, if the architect is not on the same page as you (design or layout wise), its ok to switch. Maybe someone else in their office can understand your wants/needs better. Keep us posted! I want to see how this turns out because I think it has awesome potential!

I originally asked for the lockers to be in the mud room but Arch keeps saying to leave them in a walk way.

Arch is wrong, you are right! Why on earth would you want lockers in a walkway? It narrows the walkway for NO REASON. And they naturally belong in the mudroom. You're right, and it's your house, so stick to your guns!

The office will only be used for mail, paying bills and filing. I definitely don't need a window in the office.

It sounds like you don't even need an OFFICE in that office. Assuming you don't have an incredibly complicated financial life and sixteen children to keep track of, all you should need to deal with mail, bills and filing is a desk with one or two file drawers. (If you feel like you need an entire filing cabinet, you're probably keeping too many papers on hand--as Suze Orman will tell you, you only need at most the last year's bills and papers immediately accessible; everything else can be stored, for example in those plastic file-hanger boxes with lids, which can be stacked in the garage or basement or wherever.) I think Orman even says you only really need the past three months on hand, as long as you know exactly where the last year's stuff is when tax-time comes.

Most people put a desk space like that in their kitchen or family room. That's how the mail stays off the island: it has its own designated place. If you want an easy way to hide the paperwork/clutter on the desk, get a roll-top or drop-front desk. Close it up and voila, the clutter is gone.

Here's one instant advantage of getting rid of the office: it lets you take your rectangular kitchen and turn it 90 degrees, so the short side faces the family room and you have a really nice long run of counters without the current pantry-door interruption, AND the kitchen is not as much of a major traffic area as it is in this plan. Remove the office, move the pantry--turn the kitchen so one short side of it shares a wall with the garage, and then put your pantry in part of the space currently occupied by the office. In other words the pantry would be at the end of that leg of counter, but deeper than the counter--as deep as you want, with the door facing whichever direction you want.

Good luck Marsee! Please let us know how it goes with him and show us any new ideas.

I like what ideagirl said about moving the lockers. Kids suiting up and unseating will be in the way of everyone else if they're in the hallway.

This is my updated plans that I have been waiting weeks for and I am not happy with them. I think the kitchen does look better and if anyone remembers my first post I did get rid of that hall way for the guest door. But now my mudroom/ office is so small I have no space for my husbands hunting and fishing equipment. I need to do more thinking and sit down with the architect once again.
Anyone have any suggestions for the kitchen? The only thing I really want to move is the wall oven. It is next to the pantry door right now and I would like it on the other side of the sink by the window. Any suggestions are appreciated for any part of the plan. I will also post on the building forum. Thanks.

I'm sorry, "mudroom/office" is a ridiculous concept. Mudrooms need to be able to be wet and dirty. Paperwork and wooden desks need to NOT be wet and dirty. And you certainly can't work in there while others are using it as a mud room.

So move the office. Put the desk somewhere else--it doesn't have to be in its own separate room, it could be in your bedroom or a corner of the great room or adjacent to the utility room.

And then, voila, you will have room in the mudroom for your husband's hunting and fishing equipment.

I agree. I wanted them separate but I only need a desk to pay bills and file paperwork but I do not want it out in the open! I have no clue where to put it. I want it to be right where you walk into the house so that I can drop mail and paper work on the desk before I get to the kitchen. I think I need to step away from the plans so that I don't cry. Sorry, this process is not going as smoothly as I expected.

Regarding the desk to pay the bill....
Where is your computer for the kids and yourself? You need to design a space for that. You will be on that computer alot! Give it a nice space with window and "indirect" natural light (to avoid glare). You want this place to be in the central area of the house so that you can keep track of your kids when they are young and you can see what they are doing later when they are school aged.

Do you really need seating for 7/8 on your island? It seems like bigger is better but if you are mostly leaving the island seats empty on your daily use of the house, then you will have not have a family cozy eating experience.

This house lacks a place of sheltering and closeness for a family. It has a hollow big feeling to the house. Not ony that, it is a large house with very few windows to let in natural light. Your biggest fenestration surface comes from the outdoor kitchen which is covered and you will have very little light from there.

I would try to create a place where you can be cozy and together as a family in addition to a grand space. A corner nook, a window seat with comfy chair in front of it so you can visit etc... You don't want to create a house where the only place of cozyness is in the bedrooms. You want the family to be together doing things that is more than just watching TV. Is there a nice little corner where you can curl up with your kids to read, play board games etc?

You have used a lot of corners in places where there is not much value to the corners, ie bathroom, shower and bedrooms. Corners are expensive to build. Corners can be an amazing architectural elements if used well. Big corner window with a nice seat under it, for example.....

Look at your master bath. This is a great use of bump out and corners. I would add the windows on the sides as well so that you have the drama of sitting in a bath tub surround by windows.

If you are going to spend the money to have lots of corners in the house, use them to give you corner window in the kitchen which would be to die for or to give you a corner seating with nook and windows. Currently, you have a tiny little window in the kitchen. What if you turned the kitchen around so that you have a large wall of windows which wraps to the corner window and the island looks out to the window. Even if you have the most boring view out the window, it's gotta be better than eating while looking at the range.

Where is the view and light in this property? That is the first thing you need to focus on. Build the house so that the light and the view is maximized. For example, if the outdoor area is the best light and view, I would put the kitchen where the gameroom is so that you look out to the garden from the kitchen....

Put the bedrooms in a simple rectangle. For example, push the kids bath up to the top right of the house. The master bath shower and kids bath share a common wall, the plumbing goes there and you same some money... Rework the main area to give it more interest with windows and corners. Once that is done, then you can focus on the kitchen.