Thanks for all of the reviews. I will make sure to change the swing of the bathroom doors and will most likely make the pantry door a single outward swinging door. As for the family room, it's 18 x 18'2 including fireplace and built-ins. I'd like it a little bigger but we're tweaking an original plan and trying to only make minor changes to keep the costs down. I think since it's an open plan, I'm ok with the size. I've measured the size against our current family room and I've seen pictures of the family room in a built house and it seems large enough. lyfia, I hear what you're saying about the location of the laundry room but it doesn't really bother me. As for the front porch, I think it's 7' but that is the one last thing I have to confirm. I agree that 7' should be the minimum. Yes, we'll change the french doors to sliders. That works much better. gobruno, I hear what you're saying about the bedroom with the small dormer as the only source of natural light. Unfortunately, in order to keep the elevation the same, I don't think there's much we can do. I'm going to look at pictures of larger dormers to see if we want to make them larger. There are skylights in the playroom but I think we're going to add a large dormer instead. Thank you all for the reviews!

Yes- we have almost exactly the corner pantry set up you have, strangely enough, though on the side opposite the fridge we have a double oven (did you not want double ovens as part of your remodel? Just a thought ;) ). I do like it, though in my last house I had more of a long & thin walk in pantry that I preferred b/c of easier access to the shelves. In the current one, we have a narrower set (?2ft wide) shelves to the right when we walk in and then the left side wall is longer (4 ft) so the shelves kind of tuck toward the back (if that makes any sense- there is like 8" between the side of the right hand shelving unit & the front of the rear end of the left hand shelving...no idea how to explain that). Therefore, I have a little trouble seeing what is back there (I'm only 5') and have to pull out a stool to dig around on the upper 2 shelves. I have a lot of junk in there that I really need to store elsewhere which would free up space. I also have to keep the larger appliances in there (stand mixer, crock pot, electric griddle, etc) because I don't have room in my regular cabinets. I purchased some plastic bins to try to organize my different categories of pantry items and also have found the metal racks that slide onto shelves ('undershelf baskets') to create a little shelf under them to be very helpful for things like napkins, tin foil, saran wrap, boxes of plastic baggies, etc- makes better use of higher shelves that have wasted space up top.

I agree 100% with groveraxle on the way to get started. In addition, I’ve been thinking a lot about the appearance of your living room being so long and narrow. I think something that helps create that feeling is the darker color on the back wall. Generally, dark colors feel like they recede, and light colors tend to come forward, so with the darker tv wall, it makes the room seem longer and narrower than it actually is. If that doesn’t bother you, then it’s not really an issue. But if it’s something that you’d like to address, I’d suggest that you paint that wall the same colors as all your other walls. Or, do something interesting with that wall to create a stronger focal point, and do it in such a way that wall seems to come forward a little bit, or even helps to make the room feel wider. You had mentioned earlier the idea about adding some stone to the wall, you could also use wood, tile, or wallpaper, depending on what appeals to you most. I don’t know if the stone is considered out dated or not, but I was certainly able to find sample photos of it here on Houzz, and if you love the look, I don’t think it matters if it’s “in” or “out” because trends always cycle around, and some of the best designers are brilliant because they know when to break the rules. If you don’t have a fireplace, I think a stone wall could be an outstanding choice. Here are a few looks for your consideration: This one features a full wall of stone, but see how nicely the paint color echoes the color of the stone, so the attention is drawn to that wall because of it’s texture. You could get a similar look with wallpaper or a subtle stencil design if you don’t want to do stone. I think there’s too many floating shelves here, but one or two on each side of your tv could be a nice place to display some smaller art, candlesticks, glass vases/art, a collection of some kind, and/or small scale plants. Notice how tall the drapes are to create greater height in the room? This one is probably close to what you were referring to about a center column of stone on the wall. Notice how it comes into the room by a few inches and the sides are finished. It feels like a fireplace. One of the special things about this design is the warm lighting under the floating console which keeps the look very modern. With the raised wood (bamboo I think) panels and strong horizontal lines of this wall treatment, this really expands the feeling of width in the room. And with this look, you need almost no ornamentation. And this one I included, just to show you how gorgeous a console can be all on it’s own. The style of this look is timeless and will never go out of style. And again, styling of the console is very simple. Just a low round bowl of what looks like one kind of succulents. Very clean and modern, but very organic feeling too. Let us know what look appeals to you, or post some other photos that you’re inspired by. The better we understand what your tastes are, the more helpful we can be. :-)

That really leaves you with the current arrangement, replacing the grey chair by the front window with kid stuff and leaving the floating living space opposite the TV. I'd really look into rerouting cable so the TV can be where the large art piece is. It's not usually very expensive and will be necessary in order to keep your walkway from running right in front of the tv.