Shades- After a couple of weeks of thinking about all this...I've decided to have a big, open kitchen/dining room, rather than a formal dining space. It just seems more 'farm like' and I think it will keep the living room from feeling too formal, too. Also, there needs to be more views out the back, since it's a nicer view than I thought. It makes such a difference, when you can actually walk up and look out those back windows! More cleaning and sorting, still to do, though. And, I've brought back one of the older plans (with lots of scrawling on it...sorry) showing the kitchen up front and the dining room open to the sunroom. It's actually a sun/screen porch area, without the back door. I have a new photo that shows what I'm hoping to accomplish. Still love the windows over the sink, corner wood stove with the brick surround, and the sunroom's corner banquette with the pergola outside. Also added a little pergola over the kitchen window...and maybe one, outside the living room. I really want a cottage feel to the outside, with climbing roses, wisteria, clematis, etc. So, here's a quick plan and thanks for 'holding my hand' through all this decision making! :) Plan, again sorry it's messy...I'll try to do a better job, tomorrow. From Lavender Lass farmhouse pictures Sunroom picture From Kitchen plans Kitchen window From Lavender Lass farmhouse pictures Dining area...love these colors From Lavender Lass farmhouse pictures Corner wood stove From Lavender Lass farmhouse pictures And, I know you like this desk as much as I do :) From Lavender Lass farmhouse pictures

Long-time lurker here, but new to posting. I thought I would tell you how we are opening up our kitchen (currently gutted now). We have a 12'x16' Formal Living Room immediately to the left when walking into the foyer. Behind that is a 12.5' x 12' Formal Dining Room. The kitchen (small 10' x 10' plus breakfast nook) is in back, next to the dining room, and the family room is on the other side of the kitchen. I entertain our family of 17 several times a year and I'm not willing to give up the dining room. However, the living room, to me, is a HUGE waste of space. Nobody ever goes in there. In fact, whenever I host a gathering, everybody gathers in my tiny "U" kitchen and I can't move to open the oven, cabinets, etc. It drives me crazy. My solution: move the DR set into the larger living room, which is open by columns to the foyer, and expand the "U" of my kitchen into the dining room. This allows for a longer peninsula with breakfast bar. On the far wall of the "old" dining room, facing the kitchen, will be a "bar" area and a desk area. I will be able to supervise my girls doing homework, being online, etc. all while I prepare dinner. Plus, it gives our guests an area to socialize while meals are being prepared. I should also mention, though, that we have a small study with french doors. This room, essentially, will be the LR, and will house the piano, two chairs and a small desk or table. I do think it's important to have some type of private, closed-off room. I recommend reading some books by Sarah Susanka - her theory of using the space more wisely, as opposed to needing more space, was extremely valuable to me.

Thank you all for your feedback and suggestions. Sorry it took us a while to respond, it takes a weekend for us to have enough hands to work on this and take care of a very active kid. We’re long-time lurkers here, so the FAQs are familiar and we used them, and some of the other internet lists of dimensions, in our planning. Benjesbride – thanks for posting the layouts; I’d run out of space by the time I’d pasted in that huge description and gardenweb would only let me include links. I’m reposting the diagrams somewhere more useful, and will add a few more in a moment. Buehl – yeah, we agree that less than 12” next to the range is too tight, which is why we’re here :). I went back and relabeled the diagrams to ensure we had the right measurements. Turns out we had missed 2 extra inches in width (it’s 160 not 158 – which makes sense as it’s a rounder #) – doesn’t help the range situation, but will help in other ways. I’ve also labeled everything down to the other end of the room, as I hadn’t expected someone (sena01) actually trying to render the whole layout for us. It’s a big room, fitting 60” of range shouldn’t be this hard, but really what we want is 96” of range+counter (18+60+18), and that’s trickier. Debbie B. – we are having fun with the space, and hope to have fun in the space. I’m sure there’ll be another kid down the road, and they’ll be expected to participate in cooking. My wife was cooking early, so it’s family tradition. I suspect, however, we’ll have them help from outside the work aisle. Funkycamper – buffet/butlery is the area left of the fireplace, 15-24” depth with the extra sink in pictures 1 & 2. Sena01 – thank you for all your thoughts on our layouts, and your recommendations. We hadn’t thought of switching the pantry door and it may be worth doing. It’ll depend a lot on whether we put cabinets on that wall (12” or 15”, as you’ll see in a moment we think there’s enough room). The closet isn’t quite wide enough to walk into so if we put cabinets there it probably makes more sense to have 2 shallow storage spaces rather than one extra-deep one. If we don’t put cabinets there, flipping it around makes a lot of sense (though visually it creates a row of doors). I’d also tried for a while to figure out if I could use its space for the fridge. I like the idea of the corner-sink. My biggest concern is the proximity of the range to the windows on either side (3”). I’d read that there may be limits on how close a range can be – any ideas? I notice you have relatively wide aisles in the layout, and I think there’s actually more width to the room that we could play with in your design. We tried it out one night this week and are entirely comfortable with a 41” work aisle. The passthrough aisle seems OK at 41, provided there’s no fridge on that wall. Continued in next post...

Hi Everyone, Happy Friday! . Not sure if I should be keeping the same thread but since your suggestions gave a North, I decided to keep it here so you could see the progress or maybe more dilemma. Let me know if it will be better to start a new topic.. After gathering all wonderful suggestions recommended here, my husband and I discussed and decided to go with a open concept and after 1 year or so ( test run LOL) decide if we need to close the Kitchen, this way we could add some cabinetry ( as suggested here) to close up the Kitchen a little bit. So, now my dilemma... Where should the kitchen be located. I would like to ask for your help as I can't visualize it properly and I need to have it defined before submitting the plans for the building permit. ( I wish I could just have it as TBD and decide after framing is done. LOL) I am attaching the two option, one is the most current ( kitchen beside the bathroom, middle of the house) and the other option is Kitchen facing the rear of the house. I understand the most common layout is the Kitchen where is currently located. Everything will stay the same and the only change would be the Kitchen I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience and helping us to decide.