home4all6, I had an idea that could be a middle ground between working within your home's footprint and a MBR suite/kitchen addition. It is spurred by my memory of your comment that the FR addition was either built to be or could be turned into a first floor MBR suite. This likely won't be appealing to you since your children are still quite young but it won't be that many years before the idea of having some space between their rooms and yours will be quite appealing. Also, I don't know if this holds true for your area but first floor MBR suites are popular here because it means that people can stay in their homes longer. On to my idea: Build an addition for a larger eat-in kitchen, addressing mudroom, side entry stairs and PR issues at the same time. It's possible that an addition may offer up other possibilities for a PR location that won't require losing your home's center hall entry. I know you don't use it and wouldn't miss it but losing the central hall entry could be a negative for future buyers. Then, at some point in the future (that will arrive sooner than you realize), convert your FR into a MBR suite and convert the 16x13 room you are currently using as a MBR into a bonus room/media room. Is the existing laundry room large enough to be a walk-in closet as well? If not, you'll need to relocate this when you convert the FR into a MBR suite. Or perhaps include room for W/D etc in your mudroom plans. I don't know your market so please ask local realtors which of the potential revisions will make your home most appealing to future buyers. I'm not saying that's what you need to choose but it's good information to consider as you decide how to proceed. btw, this thread is coming close to the 150 cut-off so it would be a good idea to start saving all the information and suggested plans now before they drop off the forum.

You are right to worry about the garage door looking like a converted garage door. It will, and the reason is the placement of the framing. The header is considerably lower than the upper edges of the other openings in the facade, and there is nothing below the bottom edge of the door. The architecturally consistent thing to do (and it's not the cheapest way by a long shot) is to resize the opening to match the double windows to the left of the front doors, and installing a matching pair in the rebuilt wall. That means tearing out several courses of brick and replacing the structural elements inside the wall to support the narrower opening, adding the lower section of wall, reframing for the window, and filling in the brickwork. It's not easy to do, particularly when you will need to match the brick, but if you do it at the same time you build your addition, you'll have the trades already there to accomplish it. You already have a section of siding on the front of your house, and you could conceivably use the same siding to create the new window wall, but unless you are considering painting the house to make the old and new materials the same color (and that's a reasonable option), I think you will disrupt the balance of your front facade.

Okay so here is some background information. WHO WE ARE: My husband and I and two kids. Son 13 and daughter 8. We have two golden retrievers who are our furry children. They have beds and all. Our son plays hockey and anyone who has played or has a child who plays hockey knows how much room the hockey bag takes up. Our dogs have the run of the first floor but tend to lay in the laundry room area or kitchen. I think with the brick floor we have planned in the mudroom they will really like the mudroom more since it will be cool in the hot weather. Husband works. I am presently stay at home Mom although that will probably change soon as I will start back to work as in the next year or so. I am an avid gardener and get very messy in the garden. Thus the large mudroom for the hockey bag, two dogs, messy gardener. OUR HOUSE: Live in 122 year old shingle/victorian style three story home in historic district. We have to pass through architectural review board before we can make exterior changes to the house. Materials on exterior must match existing. I really like this idea because it makes houses look cohesive- no flat roof additions off the back of a turreted vicitorian but it does add cost to do stone exterior base, shingle siding, copper gutters, stone columns, matching windows....Given that, we do have some budget constraints on the interior. We want a great kitchen but reworking the whole first floor and relocating stairs or lots of plumbing are not feasible. We presently have a galley kitchen (the new eating area with table is our existing kitchen), laundry room, toilet in a closet and a butler's pantry. We are combining the three to get our new kitchen and then adding on in the corner to get a new laundry room/mudroom and powder room as well as continuing the existing porch around. I realize this configuration may not be ideal to the eye. I am looking for advice on the layout of the cabinets, appliances island etc... in the kitchen mostly. Advice on the mudroom is welcome but I am more concerned with kitchen. HOW WE USE A KITCHEN: My husband is the cook. He does almost all the dinners. So it will be a one cook kitchen with observers most of the time. I am the one who takes care of breakfast, lunch, snacks. I also do any baking that occurs but that is not an everyday event or a weekly event. Our kitchen is also the homework and project area of the house. I see us sitting down at the island or table to do homework or work on school projects/crafts. We entertain some but not a ton. I do all the laundry, cleaning and yard work and deal with the kids as far as homework, sports etc.. I also groom my own dogs. I groom them outside in the spring/summer and inside in the winter months. NOTE: The two windows in the dining area of the kitchen are almost full length. That eliminates the ability to put cabinetry along that wall except for the sliver between the windows which is only about 30" wide I believe. ZONES: As far as zones go I saw the counters on either side of the range as the cooking zones. After reading the zones information I see that my pantry location is not ideal in regard to my prep zone near the sink. I think that my prep and clean up areas are one in the same the way things are set-up. So now I see why you are all saying to add a prep sink at the island. Would you put it closer to the stove or down the end where the wine fridge is currently located? The refrigerator seems to be in the only spot it can go and it is out of the flow of traffic but far away from the cooking zone. I hope that this information helps you to help me. Please ask me to clarify is anything is still unclear.

First and foremost, you would never want to eliminate a downspout. Not giving water an awesome way to escape from your roof edge wouldn't be helpful. If anything, it would be better to have a downspout that was not needed, or was being underused, as this causes no harm. Water spilling over the edge of an overused gutter (because it cannot escape through downspouts quickly enough) could potentially cause some "major" problems. "... the lot wasn't adequately graded to keep the water away from the sides of the house ..." In that case, the solution is to fix the inadequate grading. I doubt it was horribly inadequate so I doubt we are talking about that much. Given that your side yard is only a few feet in width, probably not more than a couple of inches difference in elevation would be necessary from the foundation to the lot line. (This is for the side yard only.) The other issue is getting water that falls at the back of the house to run from it and around to the sides, where it is carried forward by the proper side yard grading. Whether this is happening is very difficult for you to convey to me through pictures and words, especially when there are plants and things in the way in any photograph. You must just understand the concept and then be able to ascertain whether or not the proper thing is happening in real life, when you inspect the grounds first hand. Conceptually, the grade must fall away from the house in ALL DIRECTIONS, without exception. This may be nearly imperceptible to the eye, but it can be measured with a level placed perpendicular to the foundation walls. Water that runs away from the house must have a clear way to escape without being forced (by wrong grade) to return to the house. Likely, creating a path for water to escape from the house is going to be no problem at the front or both sides, since it requires little change or already exists with the natural grade. Where it could be a problem is at the back of the house, since there is a hill in the back yard running toward the house. There is an obvious potential conflict. In effect, you must create a "valley" (I'm using words that exaggerate what this would look like) between the house and the back yard hill. Water in that "valley" would run necessarily neither left nor right unless it were given some pitch in those directions. Typically, the "valley" would be highest near the center of the back of the house and lowest near the back corners of the house. This leads the water to run toward the corners. Once it arrives at the corners it is carried toward the front yard by the "valley" that exists between your yard and the neighbor's (his grade is pitched away from his house the same as your grade is from your house), and which corresponds with the side lot line. How much your yard's drainage correlates with this typical scheme is not possible for me to tell. But if you understand it, you can inspect parts of your yard and say "If rain falls at this spot, where will it run? Where is downhill from here?" The aggregate of how water would flow in all the individual spots will add up to if your yard has adequate drainage. If the concrete "trough" has an outlet -- a pipe at the bottom -- it is being used as a catch basin (drain). If it has no pipe, but just dirt in the bottom, it is being used as a retention pond (allows water to seep into the ground.) The latter would not be desirable in that location. If it is the former, the drawback is the structure itself ... its being in the way of beauty and use of the yard. If it is the latter, the drawback is that a lot of water is being slowly pumped into the soil next to your foundation. Either way, I would not want this thing in my yard. I'd want to figure out good surface drainage and then comply with it ... since doing that is not a big, bad, ugly, hugely expensive thing. (I'm speculating here, but it's based on what you've said so far.) If it's the case that your downspouts ARE emptying through underground pipe all the way to the city sidewalk, the drawback is that that's a lot of underground pipe, subject to potentially being blocked and failing right in the middle of any future storm. Yikes! What drain outlets you're seeing near the sidewalk at the face of everyone's retaining wall might just be drainage for the wall itself. All of the possibilities is not something I can ever know from afar. Someone must do sleuthing on site and make determinations about what is actually happening.