Instead of having a small separate dining area in its own nook, have it continuous with the living area - no pinch points. That way if you have guests you can turn the table or extend the table into the living area - flexible space. In some of your plans you'll never sit more than six comfortably. Our dining room is 10'x11' and it seats eight with the table turned on the diagonal. We have to squeeze in eleven or twelve for Thanksgiving dinner. There's a nice big breakfast area in the kitchen, but there's a pinch point -can't join the spaces at all. And the LR is in an L-shape to the DR - but the LR is up three steps - arrgh! No flexibility! Which is what you NEED in a small space. You don't want this order of connection DR-K-LR but K-DR-LR. You could save a lot of space by having a much smaller, more efficient U-shaped kitchen. Save a lot on cabinetry and counters too. How many people will work in it at once? I'm the primary cook in my house; 8x11 workspace is plenty big enough for me. Your kitchen corridor eats a lot of space and those islands are really bulky - how about just having people sit at the table to socialize? I'd put the kitchen in one of those dining nooks in the plans and give myself a view while I worked. Your wanting a one-level house, and maybe having your parents live with you, maybe adopting or fostering children, makes me think you ought to consider an accessible bathroom. All your bathrooms look big enough if the layout is right. Look at roll-in showers. At least put in the blocking in the walls for handrails before the drywall/tile goes up. You and I have a lot in common with what we want in a house. Same size, passive solar, low energy use, healthy living conditions - I even want to move back to Western NC which is where my family is from. I just started sketching my plans - a two story, 40'x22' rectangular layout - the minimum number of expensive corners. I'm thinking of it in modular terms - on the west side, a 14x22 great room with dining area. In the 12x22 center module, foyer, stairs, and kitchen. On the east side, 14x14 study or ground floor bedroom, with an 8x14 area behind for accessible bath and laundry. Double pocket doors between great room and foyer and foyer and study - more flex space. Maybe have panels to close off the kitchen for more formal dining. Maybe a masonry heater in the GR? I know the interior walls will shorten the spaces - and maybe I can shave a couple feet off the edges. I've read though that you should build in 2' increments - eliminate some waste. Upstairs, master bedroom and bath over the study. Two more bedrooms over the great room. Window seat, gallery, bath in center module. Walls line up; the plumbing lines up. Strong enough joists and steep enough roof that I can finish a couple rooms in the attic if need or desire arises. So a really boring rectangular layout. Small by today's standards. I figure beauty will have to come from harmony of proportion, materials, colors. No mean, stingy narrow trim, doors or hallways. Actually there isn't much at all in the way of hallways. The foyer is a SPACE, not a passageway, same for upstairs landing.

This fails my #1 test: There's not enough 'back hall' space and no powder room at the family entry. (Via the garage door, yes?) Neither porch is deep enough for a table and chairs. (Need 12 feet.) We have skylights in the eastern slope of our screened porch to keep interior rooms bright in winter. Is the front porch private enough for use? Do you require screening against insects? Do you want to access a closet by walking through the master bathroom? (Privacy? Moisture problems?) I don't know if our master suite plan can work here, but this is our 'two closet' plan: Between our BR and bath is a short hallway with closets flanking it; pocket doors on the closets. Flanking the hallway door inside the bath are pedestal sinks. The toilet room, tub and shower are in a row opposite the sinks. There's a lot of 'walk-through' space in this plan with its long hallway and the great room. Play with furniture placement using cut-outs. I take it the stairs off the kitchen are to a basement. If you plan to use the basement for anything that would involve non-family, you may prefer stairs in a more public area -- and away from the MBR. Will you use the DR? If not, it becomes a sort of furniture showroom, 'on display' from the hallway and foyer. (You said you were trying to cut the square footage.) I wouldn't care for the interior kitchen; some don't mind. I'm OK with the other BR wing and I like the big eating area in the kitchen. We are happy with 9-foot ceilings. Is the garage big enough for any equipment your DGD may accumulate in future? Will you need to store porch furniture in the garage? It's helpful to see 'North' on plans. You may want more windows in the house.

Ok, so if I was to scrap the dining room.... Could I put the basement stairs and a seperate laundry room in that space? Would that be okay and where would you put them? I could shrink up the dining room and bedroom/office closet about 2 feet to line up with the foyer/front door line, so it would be straight across instead of bumped out. Then I could use that square footage to make the breakfast area to be the same width as the family room. Would that free up enough space? So that would make the breakfast area 11'8" X 14'. Is it ok to have it one big space with no breaks in the wall lines? I would then rework the mudroom/garage entrance and bedroom nearest the garage. I guess my main thing would be what do I do for a window beside the front door now? Obviously we wouldnt put a triple there, like it was in the dining room. It would be a window in the laundry room now, so what kind of window should it be to make it look right?

jejvtr, tell your friend that house is just adorable!!!! we have a 1926 house (plainer but similar). our kitchen remains separate from the dining room (no door, but a doorway separates them). i understand where she is coming from. some things that i can add (having redone our old kitchen) are: 1) that by living there only part time, she seems in a good position to do this kitchen in slow fashion which is best for a lower budget and an older kitchen (our DIY budget was around 10K. and our kitchen is actually larger than hers--includes the old porch they had). if possible, can she put a temp kitchen in place in the dining room, remove old grandma hutch to storage, and rip out the present kitchen to the studs? then she will know very quickly whether it's best to remove or keep walls, etc. that pocket wall could hide a beam or something, who knows. 2) i have learned that walls that seem illogical in 1920's houses have their own logic that is not visible at first (must remove plaster). Even though we wanted to change them at first, after looking inside, we have often chosen to leave things right where they are and NOT for historical reasons! ;-) 3) if she opens the room to other spaces, she loses her wall cabinet space, so i understand that. 4) at least she still has a radiator, our kitchen rad was removed by the POs and replaced with.....no heater at all. good luck, it is challenging. kren