thank you for your reply! we've decided to pass on this particular house, though it would have made for a killer reno project. if i was to buy it i'd want a fireplace in there with a big table to gather round and work at. i think lavendarlass nailed it when she called it romantic rustic,lol. the room at the top is a nursery and there's a small screened porch attached to the front of that. i'd totally make it a dining room with french doors into screened dining porch. but it's too far from town, i need to get closer for my business which is about to take off. when that happens i'll have much more of a choice so i'll wait it out.

Okay, so here is what I would do if this were my house. I threw in something you didn't ask for (and don't have room for in your budget), but it is a real improvement, so you might consider it for the future. 1) To give you the open layout and specifically the sight lines from the kitchen to the family room, I removed the wall between the current living and the current family and the wall between the current kitchen and both those rooms. It's my best guess that the wall between the current kitchen and the other two is load-bearing because you have a long skinny house. If I'm right, I'd suggest flanking the kitchen island with support columns like this: I actually think you should consider doing that anyway if you don't need the columns for support. Having a little visual separation from the other two rooms would be nice and help the banquette belong to the kitchen a little more. 2) I moved the kitchen, dining, and living spaces all around this space, but I think this layout is really the best. You want easy access from the garage to the kitchen for when you're bringing in groceries. It's best if the dining room (the neatest/most formal room of these three) is the first thing you see when you come in the front entrance, and while a fireplace is a luxury in any room, it's the nicest in a room where you can cozy up on a couch with a hot mug of something. The handy thing about keeping a similar layout to what you have now is that it keeps the kitchen where you already have it, so all the plumbing is already there. 3) I used up the current dining room space by giving you a direct walkway from the garage into the kitchen, and I gave you a large combination mud room/pantry. I didn't know where the window was in the current dining room, so I didn't suggest a layout for that, but it should be easy enough to create two separate zones in the space. 4) Because the window in the current dining room would be blocked whenever the new pantry is closed, you might consider skylights above the kitchen. 5) And now for the bonus suggestion. When I started this for you, I was immediately struck by what a long trek it is from the bedrooms (where laundry is created) to the laundry. Lots of doorways, lots of obstacles. I was also struck by the odd location of the half bath. Your guests would be walking through another room by very utilitarian/messy stuff to use the bathroom. If this were my house, I'd be sending my guests down the other way to the full bath instead, so really that half bath is only useful to a person doing laundry. I was separately struck by how your smallest bedroom's need for a closet was the only thing standing in the way of a nice, straight hallway with way more storage. And then I got to thinking that the smallest bedroom was really a perfect size and location for a laundry room (which wouldn't need that closet, so the hall could straighten out). The smallest bedroom even already has a wall full of pipes because of the adjacent bathroom! The current laundry room is bigger, making it a better size for a bedroom and a nice location for a guest bedroom (more private, doesn't need easy access to laundry). And since the half bath is already there, it's already plumbed. Add a shower, and bam, you've got a really nice guest suite. Even after removing the square footage for the full bath and walk-in closet, that room is 12' x 13' (compared to the smallest bedroom's 10 x 10), which fits a Cal King. You could get one of those super-deluxe full-height air mattresses and keep it in the walk-in closet when you don't have guests and use the room as a home gym or other activity room if you have a hobby. As I said, though, your budget is tight for just what you had in mind, so the laundry switcheroo would be for another day if you like the idea.

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Don't remodel before you move in! Wait 6 months at least to learn how the kitchen works in the house you're buying. Too many times people have a need to remodel immediately and then once they've lived in the house, wished they had done things totally differently. For example, you may decide after living in the house for 6 months that you hate that the kitchen has no natural light and that there might be a better spot for it. Also where does the doorway lead that you think right now you want to close off? Basically you're just repeating what is already there and trust me, there's a better layout. However live with it first so you understand what works and doesn't work. What you think you want to do, doesn't work. What is the age of the house? (going from the photo that shows ~18" to closer to 33") 33" is still not enough prep space.