I'm not sure about the cost/benefit of the 2' bump out on that side. Doesn't do it for me personally but hey, you have to live there. Won't really give you a lot of usable space in the kitchen.

2' off the back could get you a usable island, but that's a natural spot for a deck + screen porch, which will cost plenty after you design and extend the roofline back there to cover it. Thats' where I'd spend my $$$

Design by GW committee should get interesting.

What I was thinking with the 2' off the side was mainly for the laudry room. In the current plan it is 5-6 x 8-2. The one suggestion I heard in a forum from someone w/ this plan said the one suggestion they would make would be to make the garage and laundry room bigger. Adding 2' makes it 7-6 x 8-2, and the garage roughly 22x23. I was thinking about making the laundry room a little bigger by bringing into the garage a little. So the 2' was just the result of that. Guess you could bump out the kitchen to make even with the family room, but not sure if I can afford that change too. Thoughts?

It would really help, us and you, for you to redraw the kitchen on graph paper with the 2 ft added so we can see how that will change things. Right now I'm only guessing at the kitchen dimensions, but it looks like the island will be fairly narrow. Will you lengthen it to go with the additional 2 ft?

THe problem in the plan already is that the island is between the fridge and sink. This will cause challenges when trying to get drippy meat or the veggies you want to prep from fridge to sink. I don't think you'll have a wide enough island to support a prep sink (maybe, though), so if you can't add a prep sink, I'd swap the wall ovens and the fridge to remedy the 'barrier island' situation.

I wanted to say that overall, I really like the house plan. Nice choice. It is very hard to help with kitchen layout without specific measurements, esp. the size of the island. The first thing I thought was that you need a prep sink on the island.

The second thing that I thought was that the desk is in an awkward location for carrying items to the butler's pantry and dining room. With the 2 ft. extension on the right side (I agree, the laundry room can't really be too big) it may allow you to move the fridge to the top wall, between windows and dishwasher. That would allow a nice flow from fridge to sink to cooktop, and make it easy to access from the kitchen's eating area. I would then consider putting a desk where the fridge was.

Thanks for the inputs. I agree I need a drawing on paper w/ layout. Since, I haven't purchased the plans, all I know is the kicten is 10-6 x 13-4. So if I add 2', it would be 10-6 x 15-4. As it stands now, I am guessing the island isn't big enough for a prep sink or anything (narrow as you mention). 2' wider would be nice to make the island wider. With just adding 2' to length, I think I would make the island londer 2'. Thoughts?

Only thing I was thinking with the desk, is that if I move it to where the fridge is, if someone is at the computer, then the space could be tight up against the island w/ a chair.
Thanks again for your help.

You could probably gain space within the current footprint for the kitchen by sorting that powder room/laundry/mudroom/pantry complex out. The kitchen is already decent sized and the other area takes up a lot of real estate.

palimpsest, what to you suggest? I kinda liked having the mudroom w/ pocket door into laundry, a nice pantry, and bench and hooks in the mudroom. How would you change it? Thanks again.

DNA, regarding making your laundry larger, a question that occurs to me is what would that allow you to do there that would be worth the cost to you? Where would you be folding your clothes as it is now? Where if it were 2' longer? I don't see you ironing in there in either case, or would you if it were larger?

Regarding a screened porch, that's a very site- and lifestyle-specific question. Also climate. Not off the north side of the house in almost any climate because it'd be too cold and gloomy much of the year. Important to remember, by the way, that the north exterior of a building in almost all climates is not inviting and people tend to avoid it. Since most people in this country don't use front yards for enjoyment, and people are drawn to comfortably sunny areas, having the back yard to the south and front to the north works well. However, how much do you hope to use that front porch?

In any case, sunshine will be blocked on the front of the house by the porch, no matter how oriented, making sunshine into the rooms at the back especially precious, and whereever you put a screened porch on the back would make the adjacent room a shadowy interior space. Inviting much of the time anyway, but where's your bright sunny spot to relax in?

Screened porches are wonderful, though, and if it were my home, and ignoring critical but unspecified site and neighborhood factors, the two places I'd like it would be off the master bedroom wall in back, with doors somehow from the living room and from the bedroom (how about sleeping out there in summer or just sitting and listening to the crickets before bed?) OR at the end of the front porch with inside access created from the entry (do you really need that big closet? :). I can see spending long hours there enjoying the views out across our graciously sized front garden and neighborhood. Maybe not so much if our neighbors' boat and trailer are parked 10 feet away, though.

A third possibility depending on site, views, space, and whether my cars could be kept from view might be off the kitchen side. A very attractive corridor inviting people out from from the center of the house and the kitchen could be created there with some thought. On the right site, that could be ideal, taking advantage of whatever views/assets there were, or could be created, on that neglected side and making the house feel very large.

The patio's easy. I'd have it right where I could stroll out the kitchen in the morning with a cup of coffee. If that were the north side, I'd put some attractive plantings by the house to admire and shape the view from inside (with birdbath?) and set the actual sitting area in the sunshine a bit farther out.

Hope my fancies spark some of your own.

Its nice to have a butler's pantry, a pantry, a desk area, a mudroom and a separate laundry room and powder room, but all those things seem to be taking away from space you want in the kitchen. Also any plan that has one angled area in it is going to have real estate dedicated to that.

Could the mudroom and laundry be combined? Do you need a desk in that location? Do you really need a butler's pantry at all? Could the powder room be configured so it is smaller? Could the bench for shoe removal be in the garage? Do you need a walk in pantry like that one or could you have a reach in somewhere.

You may want to have each of these features, but when you start talking about customizing a plan by adding square footage those are the types of questions you have to ask.

I have never done a single kitchen or bath where expanding the actual footprint of the house is an option. I work on urban houses that are built to the lotlines and may not have Any yard at all. I have worked on houses that are on 12 foot wide lots. That is the Widest part of the house on the OUTside. I am not saying this for any other reason except that I have to work within the square footage given, I can't even *consider the cost benefit analysis of making the house bigger. So, try to treat this plan the same way: this is how much space I have, and this is my wish list. Can I make it work? What can I give up? Do I just need to look at a different house plan altogether?

Rosie, thanks for the sparking some ideas. I wish we had good views to take advantage of some of the ideas you are speaking of. I will use it when I look at the lots and orientation.
palimpsest, thanks for the suggestions to work w/ what I have. Do you think there is room under the stairs to move the power room to since there is no basement? That would allow the mudroom and laundry room to be combined/open, so the benchs move to where the power room was, and you can have a folding table, desk or something along the wall next to the sink (like you pointed out I lacked rosie)? With that, could then aford to just widen the kitchen 2' to make even w/ FR and get a bigger island w/ a prep sink? Thoughts?