I'm lost about what you're going to be working with.

((((((HUGS)))))))

Stacy, it will all be fine. Of course, you're not going to move. You're going to remodel your house bit by bit over time, the way most people do. Once and done is great in theory, but it's expensive. You can add the garage later. But...how much would a carport cost? It sounds like you're in a heavy weather location. Would a covered carport or porte cochere fit the budget and suffice until you can build a proper structure with walls? Just to keep the weather of your heads while you're unloading groceries and all.

I agree with Rhome, however. Can you give us some more information about what you have to work with for your kitchen?

Are you near any ciites or out in the middle of nowhere? Is there an IKEA near you? Would you consider doing an IKEA kitchen to keep the costs down? Or were you already at IKEA level and can't cut further?

In general, I would start by breaking the wants into phases. It sounds like the kitchen is first on the list, but can you make your desired footprint, with the bump and all, and save money on the finishes?

breezy, I don't think GC ourselves would work well enough to save $100000+. Our contractor generally does all the framing and finishing himself and trades are SO hard to get here. We were already buying the plumbing components and kitchen cupboards ourselves. We had planned on assembling the cabinets, painting ourselves and doing a lot of the demo. I am considering having someone else estimate on a scaled down version of our reno. I would have considered him before but he didn't want to tackle as big a project as our 'dream plan'. We've seen the quotes for trusses and foundation work for our 'dream plan' and those numbers don't really fluctuate.

It's funny, because I thought of your reno and all of the re-figuring you've done when I was typing out my pity post above. Thanks for the sympathy!

Rhome, I'm great at being confusing, aren't I? Basically if you chop 11 feet plus the garage off the right hand side (southside) of the house you have our existing house. We are open to almost any configuration for the dining room/family room kitchen area but I think we'll need to stay within our existing footprint. I need to figure out how to maximize space and create a more functional kitchen. Don't you love my portable yet plumbed in dishwasher?

I will get some drawings up as soon as I can get DH to scan them at work. Thanks!

We had a similar situation only dh's cousin was the gc. He gave us a ballpark and sat with us with the architect he recommended for all planning sessions. It took 10 months to plan and get a variance with the town. The entire time I would ask for updates on our budget every time I saw him, while also buying all the fixtures, appliances, etc... He told me I was "uptight" and not to worry. 2 days after our variance was approved and after paying almost $6k for plans, he announced his revised estimate which was $120k over budget! Long story short, we had to wait another 3 years and save some money, cut back on plans and find someone who was not gouging us. We are almost done with the reno and came in approx $50k over our the original estimate. I feel for you as I cried my eyes out for a while and had to live with boxes of materials crowding an already smallish house.
On the bright side, the extra time gave me even more time to plan and our current plan has improved in some ways from the old one despite not getting as many whistles and bells.

Today's task is bill-paying, so plan-playing is much more fun and will give me a break. It's sad that he got your hopes up so high... I had a houseplan before this one that I still miss sometimes. But we can only do what we can do. And what you can do is better than what you have...So we'll work til we find it. :-D

dianalo, I hear you! We already have our building permit and development permit and $3000 worth of blueprints. My problem is that we have already put this off for 6 years just trying to find a contractor!

Plllog, sorry, I replied just as you posted. We actually have an existing detached garage that we were going to have moved to a friend's farm. It's fine structurally but it floods every spring because the concrete work wasn't done properly. Everything then freezes to the floor. Moving and rebuilding the garage was my contractors plan since the location of the existing garage interferes with the proposed doorway (you'd have 3 feet between the garage and the back/main entry door) we've never parked in the garage because it has an ancient overhead door and it was always too full of our gardening equipment. We just bought an 8x12 garden shed this week to help with that problem.

We were already using ikea cabinets, partly for cost, partly because they work well with our existing hardwood flooring. We are 5.5 hours from an Ikea/major city, in NW Alberta, near the start of the Alaska highway so we are rural. There are few trades up here because most able bodied men who don't sit behind a desk are working on oilrigs. The times I have had to hire stuff done we have been exceedingly disappointed which is why I was so happy to find our contractor, he built my SIL's parents house and did a full basement reno for my brother and SIL and his work is *perfect*. I mean I wanted to cry when I found out how cheaply my parents had reno's done on their winter home in Palm Desert. I'd import their workers in a heartbeat if I could, they actually took PRIDE in their work. Nobody NEEDS the work here in the same way and it shows.

Oh, dear. With so much already cut close and DIY it makes it harder to cut things.

Strange questions: How much would it cost to deflood your existing garage? Would it just be relevelling the floor? Or replacing it? Perhaps you could come up with a plan that's less dreamy, but made a new entry porch or breezeway in that three feet next to the garage. I don't know the relative costs of moving/building a garage vs. replacing the floor and building a breezeway. I can imagine a big savings, or perhaps even costing more.

BTW, re PDFs, you can open each and take a screen shot or capture. Or you can use one of the free online PDF converters (but be careful about which one, because some are phishing sites). Or you can get a free web account, like at Angelfire, among many others, upload the PDFs and create HTML links to them (this isn't hard). Actually, you might even be able to use the "Optional link URL" box.

ya gotta wonder if they are all really under estimating... or figure you'll come up with the $s once the job is in process.

a tighter watch is needed on it - each day if necessary. If they can't do the figuring properly, I wouldn't trust them with the work.

I feel your pain. We gave our architect our budget and drew up plans only to have them come in at bids twice our budget. I don't understand how architects can be so out of touch with building costs! Disappointing, yes, certainly. Nonetheless, you and I can do great renovations within our means...sigh. Anyway, a popular layout I've seen is if you make the windows by your bench angled and put a round dining table, either with all chairs or half chairs and half bench seating, I think you could work the plan within your 26 foot area. You can even get a round table that has leaves to open into a larger oval for larger gatherings and keep it smaller and round for everyday use. I will try to find you a photo of what I mean tomorrow. Good Night!

If it makes you feel better, i messed around with an architect for nearly a year and once I took his plans to bid they came in at nearly 4x what I wanted to spend! He was all into roof lines and window alignment... when in reality, i already have the nicest back of the house in the whole block. (This is an urban neighborhood where one sees only the front facade!).

Been there done that but perhaps not on such a large scale. We had an architect make an addition plan that ended up being bigger than the original 1100sq foot house. I was stunned as he pulled out this fancy little cardboard model and showed how each room would work--it was a dollhouse for a grown man. DH's eyes came up and met mine and we were two deer-in-the-headlights, the stupid kids we were.

We deleted an entire story of his design, pulled the basement 1/2 story out of the ground, and went on to enjoy the new space, which was mostly DIY. Five years of DIY.

The death of a visual idea that you've made into a near-reality in your head is hard. Party you're mad, partly you're embarrassed, partly you're too disappointed to even fess up to yourself as to how much energy seems wasted and how hard restarting will be. Been there done that also.

One simple idea for your project once you get back in the saddle is to forbid odd sized things. Only full-sized, standard sized things, including dimensional lumber. If it's a special order, think again. It's a challenge--since you're working with a relatively small original house, it's tough to make redefined spaces work--but now you've got the added challenge of keeping things within much stricter bounds. Spendy stuff and details that added wonderfulness in the original overpriced plan are now things that have to be achieved by sleight of hand--how to make things SEEM roomier, how to make parts of the plan do double duty, how to give the place seeming effortless elegance using yet-to-be thought through workhorse elements that in retrospect will be so self-evident it is hard to believe everybody doesn't use them.

Years ago I was at a party where there was an arrogant architectural student. I discussed the standard-size challenge with him and he accused me of thwarting the creativity of the designer. Give me a break.

Read Sarah Susanka's "Not So Big" books, Better Homes and Gardens, and Country Life instead of Architectural Digest and such; stop looking at anything that gets you thinking big. Modest and utilitarian and well built is the new, wiser alternative to McMansion. Cruise the internet for images from remodelers with good ideas. If you're a potter, you're already a free spirit, probably, so don't let your airy side override your earthy side. This is a moment for a real soul searching.

No one gives you a badge for spending more than you can afford, especially not your children or your future self.

P.S. A small kitchen requires some household rules. "Nobody stands behind Mom" is one of them for my old kitchen.

And as you are retrenching, give yourself permission to repaint that existing kitchen in a jazzy new color and add a piece of art for some distraction from the cooking stuff. Put some of your pots in there and tell yourself "I am tougher, more flexible, and more fabulous than I ever thought I could be."

Ah, thanks, everyone. It does make me feel better that this sort of thing happened to many of you, at first I was really beating myself up for being so stupid but it would have been much worse to discover our budget discrepancies 1/2 way through the reno.

At this point it isn't even about saving up to do this reno in the future. It would be absolutely ludicrous to put $300000 into this house, whether we had it or not. One of the nicest, newest houses in town is listed for $320000! While this is definitely our home for the next 10-15 years it may not be our forever home (DH and I both have dreams of moving someplace more arts oriented when he retires). Our house now is fine in a lot of ways, nicer than many of our peers but that has more to do with our own sense of style than money. I still think we have the worst kitchen though! I think we could live here happily with the kitchen renovated and the basement finished. I get feeling guilty, I know a lot of families that have raised 5 or 6 kids in a house this size and both my husband and I really disdain rampant consumerism.

Florantha, I have loved the Sarah Susanka books for years and they were the inspiration for the posted blueprints. I think you'll see the inspiration in the built in desk (which I am still doing even if I have to do it myself, darn it!) and in the bench bumpout with transom windows.

I think your quote, Florantha, nailed exactly how I feel:

'The death of a visual idea that you've made into a near-reality in your head is hard. Partly you're mad, partly you're embarrassed, partly you're too disappointed to even fess up to yourself as to how much energy seems wasted and how hard restarting will be.'

Plllog--now that we are keeping the existing garage we will indeed look at trying to deal with our spring melt problem. We put weeping tile on the offending side and that helps but I think we have to do more but that is something we can do this year or next year since it will remain separate from the house. We would re-do the doors and windows at the same time. The garage door is functional but it's a single door set in a small double garage and it's SO old that we can't change frequencies on the remote. Every time the ambulance station across the street opens their door, ours goes up too.It's also very unsafe with no sensors.

Thank you all so much for your support, I can only hope to give back a portion of what I have learned on this board. (This is the part where, if we were on a different board, I'd pass out all the hearts and huggy smilies)

(From the Read Me thread's topic of posting pictures)

While you cannot post a PDF file directly into a message, you can convert it to a JPEG (JPG) file using one of the free "PDF Converters" found online. One such converter is the "Neevia Document Converter" at the link below.

Neevia Document Converter:http://convert.neevia.com/pdfconvert/

Once your file has been converted to a "JPEG" image, save the image on your local machine, upload the picture/image to your photo hosting account, and post the picture/image here. To convert your PDF file and save it to your local machine:

1. Go to one of the free PDF converters found online

Follow the directions on the site you are using. This will include specifying the PDF file to convert.
Once the PDF file has been converted to an image/picture, save the picture/image to your local machine. The steps to do this depend on your browser:

From Firefox:

• Right click on the image

• Select "Save Image As..."

• Save the image on your local machine

From Internet Explorer:

• Right click on the image

• Select "Save Picture As..."

• Save the image on your local machine

Upload the pictures to the web somewhere (photohosting account such as Photobucket or elsewhere)
Now, follow the steps in the thread linked below for posting pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: Posting Pictures

Some cost reducing and kitchen reno-enabling ideas:

1) For a small, Susanka-inspired house you have a lot of sq. ft devoted to hall and circ. space. in your plan. I know you live in a cold climate and may need some enclosed buffer spaces at entrances, but I think you should consider trimming the hall square footage.

2) Move the office to the basement.

3) Fit out a fantastic clothes storage room in the basement in order to reduce the need for the big closet in MB.

4) Bathrooms (overall size of all) are large for size of house so see if you can reduce some of that; install a nicer powder room in the basement if needed to keep guests out of MBath and children's bath.

5) Your kitchen with its big island-with-seats immediately adjacent to the dining area strikes me as a place to share functions and retain/gain space for kitchen functionality. Big islands with seats work best in larger spaces, and your plan (as drawn) needed to make your smaller house into a sufficiently large one in order to accomplish that. If you eliminate island seating and keep seating around a nearby table, you have gained a lot.

6) I agree spending 300K on a house this size, in your areas as you've described it, probably doesn't make sense. But even 200K may be a stretch. (I realize you'd hoped that 200K would net a larger house, as well as an upgraded kitch.) Have you considered how much is sensible to spend on the kitchen all by itself? That might be a good thing to contemplate, so you can see how much each proposed portion of the project costs and judge the appropriatness of each to your house.

7) Think about what you can do yourself, or learn to do yourself while working on the immediately pinching problem: the kitchen.

8)Set out a tentative budget cap for the kitchen project all by itself. Don't consider anything else, for the moment. You've gone through the steps of creating the kitchen design once, so it will be easier this time around. You may need to consider balancing increased size or complexity against the cost of higher-end hard goods like appliances, etc. And also against what's right for the house and your other financial needs.

9) You have been saved, IMO, from a design mistake: the built-in desk as it drawn. Not that they aren't v. desireable, but a) it's just around the corner from the "office" (duplication of purposes = waste of precious square feet in a small house) and parked where it is now the chair would be in the hallway traffic path and unpleasant to sit at and often in the way, as well.

10. The desk issue illustrates that when looking at design ideas, whether online, in books or mags, you have to keep tacking back to your specific building and not fall for pretty things more suited to other spaces (desk, big island right next to dining space, etc.)

11. I am so endlessly flogging this book, you'd think I'd written it, but I suggest you hunt up a copy of A Pattern Language by Christopher...

Oh milkomum, I could cry for you too....so sending many hugs your way ((((Hugs)))

You have been given some good advice in the former posts and I don't really have anything much different to offer.

You said you could be satisfied with a kitchen remodel and finish the basement....so that is what you should do.
I was looking at your present kitchen and without a floor plan, it is hard to really tell much about it...but I know you need storage badly. If you use the present footprint, could you get an over-the-range MW to free up that cart space?...put up more cabinets in the wall of the frig, etc?

My DH is an architect, but also is a contractor....he says that most architects "draw pretty pictures and don't have a clue what the cost of building them"....and it sounds like that has pretty well happened to you. I know one thing that he always tries to stress is...keep the roof-line as straight and simple as possible and keep the pitch fairly low..don't waste space in an attic...every peek and valley is $$$.

I don't know your taste...(granite, etc. or could you live with laminate?)... but could you buy mostly everything yourselves?....your windows, doors, cabinets, counter-tops, flooring, lights, faucets....all of the things that you will need and get someone to do the framing?...you can control the costs much better.

Are you paying your contractor by the hour or cost plus?
I can not imagine putting that much into a house in a rural town of 1500....you would never be able to sell it, should the need arise.

You will get good info here on this site and some could probably guide you through being your own GC.....but for now, fix the drain of the garage, spruce up the kitchen, and make some livable space in the basement and do the rest as finances permit.

I wish you the very best of luck and please keep us posted 'cause we care about you~~...but post pics as soon as you can.

Buehl, I re-rendered my blue-prints to show the existing house and DH is scanning it in. I'll add the old plan as well. Thanks, I know you're always helping people post. I'm leary of ever downloading anything online onto DH's laptop so I generally let him do it.

liriodendron, perhaps you didn't realize that we are NOT doing the plan as shown.

1) For a small, Susanka-inspired house you have a lot of sq. ft devoted to hall and circ. space. in your plan. I know you live in a cold climate and may need some enclosed buffer spaces at entrances, but I think you should consider trimming the hall square footage.

The majority of the hallways are in the existing house. We never did plan on re-doing the existing hallway, existing bathroom (the main bath) or the 2 secondary bedrooms. When it's -45 Celcius, one needs proper entry ways. Imagine 4 family members with ski pants 2 pairs of winter boots, numerous winter coats, baskets of mittens and hats a hockey equipment bag (mine) and figure skating suitcases (my girls) and you have an idea what our back entry looks like. We have never used the front door for anything but trick or treaters at Halloween since we park on the side yard near the back door

2) Move the office to the basement.
That would be a great idea but despite what I kept telling the draftsperson it isn't an office, it's a bedroom. At the moment it's a spare bedroom but we are trying for another child.

3) Fit out a fantastic clothes storage room in the basement in order to reduce the need for the big closet in MB.

Yes!!! This is what I plan on doing with the new scaled back reno! I think it's really smart to have it right off the laundry room/downstairs bath.

4) Bathrooms (overall size of all) are large for size of house so see if you can reduce some of that; install a nicer powder room in the basement if needed to keep guests out of MBath and children's bath.

Well, like I said, the main bathroom isn't changing, it's already been renovated. The master bathroom is no longer happening. So that leaves 4 people getting ready in a grandiose 7x8ft bathroom. The plan is now to put a full bathroom in the basement, the water lines and toilet are already in.

5) Your kitchen with its big island-with-seats immediately adjacent to the dining area strikes me as a place to share functions and retain/gain space for kitchen functionality. Big islands with seats work best in larger spaces, and your plan (as drawn) needed to make your smaller house into a sufficiently large one in order to accomplish that. If you eliminate island seating and keep seating around a nearby table, you have gained a lot.

We are not doing the big island anymore. The entire reason I wanted a big island is to get all the activity OFF the kitchen table. On any given day our table is covered with 1-2 laptops, crafts and homework. Our girls aren't old enough to stick in their room unsupervised with glue and sparkles (unless you're cleaning!)

6)...

oh and I am still putting in a laundry chute in DH's closet, come hell or high water! I grew up with one and we even put one in the house we built in the city before moving back up north. The laundry area/toilet is right below our current master bedroom (the room on the bottom right)

You are adding about 14 x 40 or 50ft (I can't read the measurements) to the house that includes a kitchen and a (or two) bath. My guess is that you want the second bath redone also.

I have done way more remodel that I care to admit and my ball park estimate is usually an under estimate in everything we have done.

I am estimating in hugely rounded ball park ways. Where we live, the blue print would cost somewhere from 200k to 400k off the cuff. 10-20k for the little bath, 20-40k for master bath and 50K-100k for the kitchen (depending on your finish) if you did not bump out. If you bump out of the existing foot print, then you have to add about 50k minimum for foundation, framing, siding, windows etc to match the rest of the house. My guess is that the little bump out for your seat in the dining room is minimum 10k by the time you added windows, matched the siding and finished the interior.

If your bid is 300k, I don't consider that outrageous. My guess is that includes painting the entire exterior to match the new siding on the add-on, painting the entire interior, refinishing the hardwood, new carpet perhaps, new doors and retrim/mould the entire interior to match through out. The cost just goes on and on.

It is actually cheaper to build a new house than to remodel an old house. If you have the lot, you should price out a new house built with the finishes that you want. You should also price out the house with a tear down or near tear down and build new. You will be surprised at the incremental difference between the prices.

I wish I had done that before I was too far into my remodel money hemorrhage. If we had the funds in the beginning of our remodel road down that we ended up traveling, we would have done better by tearing down and building new. Because we have a rather nice view from our property, we are still ahead. Without the view, it would have been much much cheaper to build completely new rather than remodel over 20 years....

You need to let the lot and location determine how much to spend on your property.

Stacy, could you just open up the dining room side of the U, and continue the cabinets along that right of page wall? It might not be dream house-ish, but would it be functional?

plllog, that's the best solution that I could come up with too :) I mocked it up with the ikea designer and it actually works fairly well. I had pull out pantries flanking the fridge on the interior wall. By design rules, it still makes a tight doorway but it is positively roomy compared to what I have now.

I am sorry we seem to be miscommunicating. I did realize that you posted the earlier, now no longer possible plan at the top of the thread. I was just trying to point out changes from that plan that might make a new one better, or more palatable (places where additional space might be jettisoned.)

I do think that my rec. for the book still holds. The point of reading the book (in your present situation) is to sharpen your appreciation for the most critical elements of a great house plan. You probably have some existing ones (that you may not now recognize and would want to retain), and other ones that if identified you can easily incorporate. It's more than just a set of rules, or even best practices, for buildings, but a way of seeing and understanding what works. As an artist/potter, I think you will "get" the book more easily than most, as well.

I sympathize with your sense of frustration over the length of time it's taken you to get this scheduled and the jolt of having to pull up at the last minute. I have lived in this house without an updated kitchen for over 20 years. For a many years it seemed that always just as we were ready to start some enormous life challenge (serious illness, job loss, death in family, etc.) would brew up and our reno would be put off, again. I have cried my share of bitter tears over the damn kitchen.

I live in a quite cold climate in northern NY (Z4) -balmy by your standards, I realize - but I still have to contend with serious winter, so I do understand the need for entrance buffers. We lumber around this farm in so much winter gear and padded stuff I sometimes feel like the Michelin man. Not to mention the snow shoes and heavy boots and skis that are stacked in the mudroom like cordwood, among the pellet fuel bags and real cord wood which are our only source of heat and stored in there too!

One thing I was wondering about - will the bench bump out be a comfortable place to sit during meals in fiercely cold weather? I find sitting very close to windows in the winter (especially if not dead southern facing - are you far enough north than you have really attentuated daylength?) to be feel drafty, even without infiltrating windows. The draft is just from the air flow within the house along the colder window surfaces. I prefer to have the sun shine into the room and then sit in the sun pool - that feels quite toasty. At night we need to draw thick insulated cutains.

FWIW, 20K for cabs seems pretty grand for me (not for many on this forum, of course, just speaking personally) but myabe that's because it's 20K Canadian. You mentioned IKEA ...? Is that an option for you? If you don't like their doors, but still confined yourselves to standard sizing of the boxes with custom doors/drawer fronts (one of good options for cutom doors is actually in Canada) you could get the doors painted (you can do that yourself!) over the summer and then get them assembled while it's cold outside and...

I think I had the same idea as Plllog. Instead of a peninsula, run cabinets across the whole right wall, as they were in the new addition...But I wonder if you can remove the fridge wall, also, and maybe extend the bottom wall of the kitchen to the left, elongating the hallway and getting more wallspace for fridge, and maybe range, like in the dream plan?

This is the plan I had in mind yesterday, when I promised you drawings today (Sunday). I obviously didn't get to them and I apologize. If I ever get to bed, maybe I can give them a try tomorrow!

kaismom, I agree, the estimate, while high is not unreasonable for the work that had been proposed, I saw the breakdowns and many of the sub quotes. We would have only been doing 1 bathroom, the center bathroom is existing and newly renovated. The proposed addition had been 11ft x43ft5" + new garage(the 14 feet is the existing space between the existing house and existing garage)Sorry, DH cut off a lot of the measurements when he was scanning

liriodendron--when I had clicked on your name to copy and paste it into my post so that I would get the spelling right, it took me to your page which said you were in Venezuela, I assumed you didn't know much about winters! Sorry to presume. :) The bench bumpout would have a high transom windows because I agree with you, who wants to have a cold back sitting in front of glass? The east side of our house where the bumpout is gets little to no weather as our winds, rain and snow come from the west north/west 99% of the time. We have the advantage of having a house that is situated well for passive solar, the soffits block much of the sunlight in high summer when it's hot and in the winter when the sun is lower on the horizon, it dips inside. I have a hard time taking pictures in our house because we have too much light! Of course I'm one of these people who doesn't have a blind or curtain on any common room windows. Our kitchen windows face south. I think that if we do a true upholstered bench seat it should be fairly cozy. I'm not tied to it 100%, depending on the layout we decide on.

The $20000 was an approximation for the cabinets in the old kitchen, from ikea, with all the bells and whistles (interiors, handles and I think the fan. The Adel Medium brown doors look amazing with our natural birch flooring and have the benefit of being an all wood style. DH and I had planned on doing all of the assembly ourselves and helping our contractor hang them.

I will order the book into the library although I'm not sure I'll get it in time. It can't be any drier than my modern art theory or philosophy of aesthetics classes right? ;) Thank you!

rhome, PLEASE don't apologize to me for spending time with your family! I took most of Sunday off from this too and we took the girls swimming. It was a great physical/mental break. :)

I've spoken to our contractor this morning and scaled the project back (he expected this). We will stay within the existing footprint unless we do a small bump-out on the east side. We'll finish our basement and put in a steel beam to get rid of teleposts. This is what my brother had the same contractor do to his similar ranch style house
last year and I know the total on that. His may even have ended up being more $$$ because the contractor demo'ed much of the existing basement and had to run all new electrical through closed walls. Ours is essentially a bare slate and we would have fewer rooms. We still plan on doing the exterior, windows, new siding, soffits and...

I know the islands and the table need adjustment for aisle sizing, but these are the rough ideas:

With this one, where I have a '?,' you could leave the wall shorter, or add another counter or storage unit...Seems like you wanted a place for a desk?

Would it be possible/feasible/desirable to close off the lower left hand corner of the kitchen? You would have to loop around through the dining room to get to the rest of the house, but it would cut traffic through the kitchen and it doesn't look like having that opening provides views and interactions with common areas, just hallways, closets and the stairs.

My estimate for your current foot print is about 25x45, not quite 1000sq ft minus the staircase. Typically, it is too expensive to move the staircase. Again, not sure of the exact measurements.

If you wanted to keep the existing footprint, then you can't really have 2/3 bedrooms with 2 bath on the same foot print and still have spacious common area. This is not possible.

You need to consider other solutions that requires looking at the entire house differently.

There are couple ways to get around this. You can combine rooms and make this floor bedroom be just MB and MBath +/- powder room. Then you move all kids bedrooms to the basement. (need window wells in the bedrooms for safety reasons.) This type of house is hard on families with very little children because the kids do not want to be far from their parents. However, as the kids get older, this is great because the noise is moved away from the more adult area of the house.

Again, a similarly, have 2 bed/1 bath for your girls on this floor. Use the front bedroom close to the family room as your formal dining room which allows you to have family gatherings. (the closets will be taken out and the space will be bigger and you will have to see if there is enough space.) then you have your MB/Mbath suite in the basement. (Again, you need to dig out a window well and you need to be okay with this..)

It sounds like you have family in the area. I think it is important to have a spacious gathering area for family events to take place. Do not give up a formal/useful dining room. This allows you to have a meaningful large gatherings for the holidays.

To save more of the integrity of the dining area... The storage behind the table and to the left of the main sink could be configured to look dressier, like more of a buffet. It could be pantry storage, dish storage, and/or pottery display space.

I like this last layout of Rhome's a lot, especially with the DR style storage on the left of the kitchen proper. If the bump out is still going in, and still going to be a bench, the table can use that seating when all the kids are around, or always, and move the extra side chairs into the sitting area for more circulation room between the table and counter seating. It's a very functional layout that lends itself to all kinds of different activities.

Could something like this work to separate the eating from other stuff for you, do you think? I'd want the island for cooking and the table for eating. For a lot of projects, it might be easy enough to do them at the table, move them to the island during the meal, and back to the table again to finish, but at that point they're probably small enough to work at the island during cooking anyway. For bigger, messier projects, I'm wondering if you might want to supplement with a gateleg table or something against a wall that you can pull out for when the table is full but you want a sit down dinner (rather than island break), and which could also work to expand the dining area for company.

FWIW, 20K for cabs seems pretty grand for me (not for many on this forum, of course, just speaking personally) but myabe that's because it's 20K Canadian. You mentioned IKEA ...? Is that an option for you? If you don't like their doors, but still confined yourselves to standard sizing of the boxes with custom doors/drawer fronts...

Canadian dollars are the same as US dollars these days ($1.01 Canadian = $1 US), so it's not that. I agree that $20k is spendy for cabinets for a non-luxury kitchen this size. Ours is a U-shape, or really almost a G-shape, a bit larger than that and we got a quote for custom cabs from an Amish kitchen place for only like $12k. Are there any Amish in Alberta?

If not, I agree Ikea is your best bet, and if you don't like their drawers or doors, check out the Drawer Depot (link below). They were delightful to work with when my mom refaced her kitchen and that part of the bill (i.e. the doors, drawers and slides--not including painting or installation) was, I swear to god, only about $1300. And that was for solid birch doors and drawer fronts with solid maple dovetailed drawer boxes, and Blum soft-close slides. Also, there are no estimates or overruns with them; if you have the measurements of the doors and drawers you need, you can plug them into the website, choose your wood species, style etc., and see right there exactly what it will cost.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Drawer Depot

Mikomom,
Your current house in the existing foot print has no space for mudroom and pantry/storage on the main floor.
Is the closet by the front door (to the left wall on the PDF file) adquate for your family as the dump-it area?
What about an unheated breezyway between the existing garage and the current house footprint where mudroom and storage can be. (this is prob too expensive...) Just throwing some ideas out to you.

It looks like your garage is detached which means that you cannot use the garage as the mudroom/pantry/storage to the house.

Before you start the kitchen remodel, you need to create a house plan that works for you. I am not sure if the house plan works even if the kitchen would work as drawn by Rhome.

I know it is difficult to raise children in a cold climate with limited space.

I bought this book (and others by this author) a number of years ago when it came out:
Small Spaces by Azby Brown. He is a US born architect living in Japan. There is lots of inspiration for using space vertically (when horizontal space is limited), and dual use of space. Finishes are stark, and beautiful, though the book is old, everything looks classy and fresh. I have also read the other books mentioned above, this one differs and has other ideas, too.

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Spaces-Stylish-Ideas-Making/dp/4770020848

Detroit - I love the look of that book!

Milkomum - I have zero to offer except gratitude on your behalf for the amazing assistance from so many posters. MM, obviously this is a horrible blow but I just want to say that the surrounds you describe sound mind-bogglingly luxurious. You have traded off a headache of a house for ideal on the land. I am thinking of the words of a friend of the family's, a therapist: pick up your options. In your head while you're grieving for the bigger house that might not happen immediately, at least, don't forget to credit the wonderful surrounds that cause you to put up with the failings of this house. I'm only saying this because feeling the rush of pleasure for the outside- stuff can sometimes give you more energy to deal with the difficult inside-stuff. Every little rush of inspiration helps.

Go Layout Gurus Go!

Mikomum
I wish you the best.

I keep checking back to your post because you are in the same situation that we were in nearly 10 years ago before we remodeled.

We made many trade offs because we decided to stay in our location. The location trumped our decision because of the light, view, site in the lot, proximity to the city, walkability etc. We are in the city, so an average lot in a nice area cost about 200K. There are no lots per-se so you end up with a tear down or a huge remodel. A view lot would be even more.

We worked with an architect for nearly a year to get the house plan that we needed/wanted that satisfied many requirements of modern life. We spent a lot of money to make it happen. We could not bump out for many reasons. This is pretty common where we live. It looks like it is not as common where you live. this puts you at a disadvantage in terms of over building.

Our house had 2bed/1bath plus the living area on less than 1000sq ft. We added second floor which has LR/DR/Kitchen for the view and light. (we live on the top floor!) The bedroom floor became 3smaller bed/2bath plus mud/laundry area. I needed 3rd bedroom on the same floor because we wanted to keep the family on the same bedroom floor as long as possible. The trade off was that the bedrooms are tiny by today's standard. The kids have a huge play area in the basement to make up for it.
There are always trade offs. I have been there. When making decision, you need to realistic and honest about how much space is not enough. Clearly, your kitchen is NOT functional for you in the given amount of space and layout. You need to be just as honest and realistic about your other rooms.

Even though you feel that the kitchen is what you need, you need to think beyond the kitchen. You need to imagine living in this house at various phases of your life with kids at different ages. The house has to "reasonably" work for you in every phase. It won't be perfect but it has to work reasonably well.

One of the big short comings of the ranches from the 50s to 70s is that they did not allow enough space to the public rooms. They were undersized relative to the similar sq ft houses built of more recent.

Don't rush into the kitchen remodel. You will regret safricing the house for the kitchen.

In my opinion, you really need a reasonable entry/mudroom/storage if you are living in a cold climate. Where will you put all your coats, boots etc.
Can you enclose the entry porch?
How do you get into the house?
Breezeway or screened porch can take some of the pressure off. My MIL in NH has a large screened porch off of kitchen which has many pairs of boots laying about in the winter. These are relatively cheap to build because you do not need full foundation and the space is not heated. Screened porch does not even need electricity.

I am just posting quickly, my 93 year old Grandma fell yesterday and has a very bad break in her upper femur. We're waiting for surgery today, in a hospital an hour from here so I may or may not be on, depending on how things go today. I'm not thinking with enough sleep to respond sensibly to everybody (I will though,later, and THANK YOU!).

Rhome, I really like that last plan, it's similar to the one I e-mailed you but tweaked it keeps all the elements that I love. Thank you!!! I didn't think I still had room for an island. I couldn't figure out how to get uppers in that wouldn't take away from the windows.

The collective 'you' convinced me to keep the desk out of the kitchen and I think it will still work at the front door closet (which, again, we don't use as a clothes closet since we never us the front door.)

I should say once again though, as there is some confusion, we are NOT changing the bedrooms or the central (and only)main floor bath, other than the windows. They have all been renovated since we moved. The back entry, while not ideal, is better than 95% of houses this size/style and I have that weird little walk in closet set up to hold a ton, cycling it for the seasons. We may add a small porch at a later date. I think if we finish the basement as nice as my brothers with a bathroom, as well as the common areas upstairs, I could be quite happy in this existing house.

I will come back to this thread when I am able to.

mikomum, sending best wishes from another part of rural Alberta : ) . And I hope your grandmother will be better soon.

I can understand your pain -- we have had a five-year plan for the past 17 years (oy...) to build a new house on our farm. My husband is a builder as well and other people's projects have always had to come first. We were finally on schedule for last year when my father in the US died and everything came to a screeching halt. We decided to postpone for a year, and then my mother died. We have spent almost as much time away from home (and farm and jobs) with family emergencies in the past 18 months as we have at home, and are woefully behind with all sorts of work, but hope to start on the new house before the end of summer.

The one thing I keep consoling myself with is that as the years have pass, our family and house needs have changed, and so have our plans. We would have built a very different house 12 years ago, a house for a young family without taking into account our home schooling or our aging. We also have a very small, one-bum kitchen too, but I now have three kids -- almost 14, 12, and 10.5 -- who like to cook and help in the kitchen which makes things challenging AND crowded. For several years when they were little I gave up canning because it just wasn't safe -- the kitchen was so small and they were always underfoot. And of little help is the very small and narrow eating area, which still has the very small and narrow table I had to buy as a single woman because it was the only table that would fit in my tiny NYC apartment. If you had told me then that my family of five would be crowded around the tiny table more than 20 years later, I'd never have believed it! The new house will be much more suited to our present and future needs and the kitchen will be much nicer, I think, since discovering GW. So that's the silver lining I've been clinging to. I hope you find something similar to help you through this!

PS We have a basement entrance to our garage, and that's the entry the kids use and where they keep all their winter and chore clothes, which definitely helps to contain the mess and all the stuff. We have two sets of winter jackets and boots for all of us -- one for town and one for chores. Plus lined coveralls.

PPS The Canadian dollar has actually been above par for a good long while, with the going rate around $1 Canadian = $1.02 U.S.

Becky

Mikomum, it sounds like you have a good plan of action for the whole house, and a good potential for the kitchen. Let it go and be with your Grandma. All best wishes for her to have a speedy and easy recovery.

I hope your grandmother can get surgery quickly and she has a speedy and complete recovery.

Your most recent post clarifies what you have to work with. This one
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg0414105728875.html
has IKEA in a galley layout open to the public spaces.

I have read quite a bit about living small not Sarah Susanka small which is really just smaller than mcmansion (if you read her books you'll know what I mean), but Manhattan, Tokyo, and third world city small. I have lots of family living in NYC for close to a century and visiting there has been a large part of my life. The most efficient use will be to remove all of the barriers in the public spaces to the left of the front door, install a galley type kitchen on a long wall with a long island separating it to the dining area, storage on the dining room side of the island (no eating bar, duplication of service) sink in the island, living area beyond the dining table, all built-ins in this public area in the same cabinets as the kitchen.

IKEA is a GREAT choice. you can easily use 12" depth cabinets in various sizes and shapes with glass and regular door fronts to cover an entire family room wall for storage and hanging a flat screen tv and match the kitchen. they had a sale 10% off cabinets, and it went up to 20% with purchase of three appliances. may be worth the wait for the sale, a sales associate told me about it, it was not initially on the web site.

Will look for good news from you soon.

All this stuff will all be here all the same, later. Your grandma's health is of immediate, delicate importance. I'm trying to picture northern Alberta to send good wishes! All the best....

I'm back, it's been a long, long week. Grandma made it through surgery, had a few really bad days and is only now starting to want to stay in this world. Thank you for thinking of her, she's such a fighter. I'm fortunate that the local hospital that she was transferred back to is literally across the street (to the east, the left side of my plan)

My contractor is coming by this week to take a look. I need to get everything finalized this month as I want to buy my cabinets when IKEA has their sale July 12th. I hope it goes well although I have talked to two other contractors just in case, although they couldn't start until the fall (and I'm not as sure about their work, I'm just investigating)

rhome, I've been playing around with that last plan. The only thing that I'm trying to get in on the far left side of the sink, is at least one pull out pantry. I will have some more decorative storage on either side of the bench bump out. I can store some bulk food in the basement but I don't want to be running up and down continually like I am now. Is an island going to chop up the space too much and be a barrier or is a small one ok? I have geneous hips to navigate! Do I still need a prep sink or is the additional counterspace on the island better used as just countertop? Argh. I wish I could do a screen grab of the plans I've been working on the ikea software!

Glad your grandma is doing so well!

I worry that you might feel like you're eating with the cleanup counter behind you in the dining room if you don't do some sort of intentional decorative cabinets there.

I don't worry about the island, because I don't know how you'd get as much workspace without it...Unless you want to start walling it off more, which will chop up the space even more than an island, it seems. With the island instead of walls, the space is more fluid/flexible.

Prep sink...Not technically necessary, as in you could live without it in a kitchen this size...but I believe it would be highly beneficial and you'd enjoy having it. If I have the scale at all right in the drawing above, it seems you still have lots of prep and baking space beside it.

I watched one of those hgtv shows yesterday where they installed IKEA cabs. They seem to go up rather easily - nifty set up! and the drawers also seemed very easy to put together. great parts to divide up the drawers available. I missed the part of them putting the actual cabs together (if they showed that part). They did show putting on the kick plate - and that was literally a snap!

I don't imagine the cabs would be very difficult in light of the ease of the other parts.

i watched because I've been thinking about using them maybe. I love the easily installed drawer dividers! I wanted to see if it looked like something I could do with very little help. It looks like it'd be possible to do.

here, these might help! Thanks Rhome.
The weird little island thing is supposed to be an overhang, garbage is in a pullout to the right of the sink and we would do a ge spacesaver under the cupboard next to the fridge:

The shelves would be a different style of open shelving to store/display the pottery we use on a daily basis.

This is the bumpout (we would do a built in angled bench seat)

I think if you're going to have an island that small you should consider a moveable piece of furniture rather than a built in cabinet. Something like this one from Napastyle.

I also would prefer the sink closer to the working part of the kitchen rather than centered on the window. It makes sense to have the DW in the dining area, but having a bit of visual separation would be nice.

plllog, I think you're right. I've been scared of that option because I don't want something else to clean dog hair from under! Some of those islands are really interesting. I bet I could commission something like that! Too bad they don't deliver here. I've always secretly wanted a green island.

I felt the same about the sink and dw. (Look, Plllog, we agree!) If you feel that is the best placement for them, can you do a paneled dw?

I'm hesitant to move the sink closer to the right for a few reasons. I know that that area will be used for breakfast prep (toaster, blender etc.) so I'd like there to be room for two people to work, at least momentarily, side by side. My other reasoning is that the dishwasher is accessible from both sides and front for the kids to put away dishes while I'm cooking. Does that make sense? I completely agree it would look better with a panel on it although we would only go that direction if we get an IKEA dishwasher and I'm not certain on their quality, I need to do more research. Of course ANY dishwasher is better than our portable yet plumbed in monstrosity that we have now!

Rhome, plllog, so glad I could bring you two together! ;) Do you think my microwave and garbage placement are ok? I'm especially concerned with getting the best spot for the garbage. I am so excited with the idea of not having to haul our garbage can into the bathroom every time we leave the house (our lovely dog's one vice)

Thank you again for all the help!

I just realized why I'm having a terrible time really understanding this plan. The squares don't mean 12" or 6", so I can't figure distances. I thought each one was 6", but when I count across, that would make the room 14' wide instead of 18'. Is there any way to draw the plan on IKEA and make the squares of the grid work for you?

Can you not order an ikea door that will work as a custom panel on another brand of dw?

Thanks, Mikomum. ;) Actually we often agree, and when we disagree it's usually opposite ideas for the same reason, which is wildly entertaining and gives lots of perspective to the issues. :)

The dishwasher placement does make sense for your reasons, though I totally agree about the panel. What about the trash though? The number one thing that moves the prep cook in the tiny kitchens I grew up in isn't the water, it's the garbage! I agree that having a kid crossing behind with clean dishes while you're working at the sink would be bad, but if you'll be doing the cutting, peeling, etc., at the island, it still might work to switch it with the trash. Just saying... Because if the DW works first from the corner (though only get-at-able from the sink side and front), then the garbage will be accessible from outside of the work zone, and the sink can slide over a bit.

This is all about your own priorities, however, and how your family works. Do try to eliminate any age specific issues (e.g., it doesn't take nearly as long for a 15 year old to empty the DW as a 10 year old), but you have to do what you know will work for you best.

Re the microwave, by the fridge is where I like it.

Are you sure the corner is the best place for breakfast prep? I've always put the toaster by the microwave, and find the corner a place where things go to hide (my corner is similar to yours in many ways). Rhome warned me that this would happen, and I opened it up as much as I could, but still... Actually, I do think the blender might be good in that corner, but in the plan as it looks currently on the page, I'd think the toaster would be migrating to in front of the windows... I'd try to keep breakfast to next to the fridge, though you might not have room for everything there in the amount of space you have to work with.

I met with our contractor again today. I think we're going to cantilever the kitchen out 2ft although that isn't final yet. Gaining an extra 2x18 ft is huge!

He's working on ideas to finish our basement laundry/bathroom/closet.

pllog---I *think* I understand what you're saying, do you mean to put the garbage in the island or on the other side of the dishwasher?

rhome---I've been trying to figure out if I can switch the grid scale on that plan but it doesn't look like I can (DH looked too). Also I'm not sure if ikea DW panels work on other models. I'm trying o find out. ikeafans is useful but it is the most difficult site to navigate, half the time I can't find the posts I want to see!

Thanks so much! I just wanted to add that Grandma is doing well, they have her up and moving in a walker/harness and she has her cath out, all really positive signs. I knew she'd turned the corner when she asked for me to get her eyebrow pencil and her compact!

Oh, thank goodness! If Grandma wants her make-up, thinks must be looking up. :)

I was actually thinking of switching the trash and drawer and DW, but I think, looking again, that wouldn't be a good idea because of the proximity to the range. So never mind. :)

OTOH, depending on how you do it, you might like to put the trash on the dining room side of the DW and the sink next to the drawers. That should leave enough space for tushes. The question is how you use your trash. I save most of my veg scraps for compost, don't use a huge amount of packaged products, and most packaging goes in our recycling (they take all plastics 1-7, all films, all paper, etc.). Unlike many people, I don't use the trash a lot during prep. I don't know if it would be too far away to be convenient for you. I just have visions of kids running through the cooking zone to throw stuff away. That could also be fixed by putting another good trash/recycle station in the seating area.

It sounds like the talks with the contractor are progressing well. Did he give you any firm numbers for the bump out?