Will you be able to enjoy a view from the dining table?

I am not sure what the little boxes are in front of the word Mountain View, but I like the change. I have no issues with getting rid of a formal living room. The only issue that I can see is the type of foundation and whether you're moving load bearing walls, it could be quite costly to do what you're proposing.

Gee, I'd rather have the main living space where the mountain view is! Nice yo sit and enjoy.

Is this a trilevel or split level type of house?

I do not think this is a good idea. I think your living room/sitting room needs to be front and center to that view. Also, I don't think it's a good idea to have your only living space on a separate level from your kitchen and dining. Is the family room sunken or is it a half story down?

I'll play around with your floor plan.

Thank you for the quick responses! It is a split level - which is a new house type for us. We're finding it a little strange after a life-time of ranch or 2 story houses. The family room is down 5 steps.

We toyed with moving the kitchen to the current family room space, but that leaves the dining room on a different level.

Would love to see some other ideas!

Is that a sliding glass door between the kitchen and railing? Are you willing to move that?

Our last house was a tri-level. They are very restrictive. Thus we moved to a ranch :-) Were you drawn to this house by the view?

Do you have a photo of your dream kitchen that you can share with us so we can see what it looked like?

Sorry for all the questions! This is what I do when my husband watches TV.

What size dining table and hutch do you have? Are these precious pieces of furniture you must keep or can you buy different pieces to fit the space?

Have you thought about moving the dining room into the Family Room and taking over the dining space for the kitchen? It could be an island kitchen open to the living room.

The railing is on the kitchen level, separating it from the family room, which drops off about 5 feet. It keeps the kitchen open feeling to the FR, so we'd prefer to leave it open if possible.

We moved to an older neighborhood in CO to be close to the grandchldren. Looked forever for a ranch and just couldn't find one that also had the large workshop my husband wanted, so settled on a split level. I can understand how they feel restrictive.

Kim Ladin - thought about that but it puts the DR on a different level from the kitchen.

benjesbride, the questions are great since they come with new ideas! We have no precious furniture so anything goes. I can't say I have a dream kitchen in this space yet. Below is a picture of the last kitchen we did to give you an idea of taste. It was a galley, but only because that is what worked in the space we had. We bought everything but the cabinets on Craigs List. Don't know why the light in the middle looks so strange on this pic.

You are awesome for moving close to your grandchildren! I'm trying to convince my recently retired parents to do the same for our little ones.

Is the railing about 7 feet long?

The railing is a little over 8 feet. We love living close to them. Have made some sacrifices, especially on the house, but it is worth it!

Can you confirm the lengths of the red and green dimensions?

edited to add: Whoops, I think my guess on the green is way off.

Red is 25' 3" and green is 22' 10". Not too far off.

Thanks, Cindy! I think I have enough info to work with. This is very fun for me, so I'm glad you posted your project.

Thank you for jumping in to help. I've drawn this up every which way and this has been the best I've come up with so far. Having your help is fabulous!

I tried a few things and this is what I came up with worth sharing.

I know you want to keep the railing, but I think the kitchen is best tucked in that corner. Eight feet across is way too narrow for a proper dining room; that was where our dining room was in our tri-level and it was terrible with not enough room to squeeze by the table to sit at the end.

Our present house is pretty small (1200 sf) and we finished a complete gut renovation last year to make it as efficient as possible. My minimums were: Dining room 9'x12' with a 3'x6' rectangular table and Living room 12'x12-16' (roughtly a six foot sofa with two end tables and one or two armchairs.)

I rotated the coat closet to create a different shaped entryway that blocks the view to the kitchen and also a shallow pantry on the back of it.

benjesbride, Thank you for the drawing. I really like the entry you drew. We're going to tap into that chase closest to the door to see if it could be moved back a couple feet without major renovation.

I had previously tried putting the kitchen cabinets where the railing is now. It looks good on the drawing, but when I put blankets over the railing to simulate cabinets being there, it makes the family room feel closed off and dark. We actually spend more time in the kitchen during the day or family room at night so I hate to make it feel closed off. That version also didn't provide the pantry area for extra storage space we need for things like the vacuum cleaner, small kitchen appliances, etc.

Your options are limited if you want comfortable dining for 6-8 and a kitchen for two. You probably just need to decide if the opening to the family room takes priority over those two things.

Our family room did not have the opening to the main floor like many Tri levels have. The beauty of a trilevel is that the family room is only s few steps down. in our house I could stand at the top of the stairs and bend over just right to be able to see about half of the family room and check on the 1 and 4 year old.

Do you have a tv on the main floor? I suspect you might go in the basement in the evening because the tv's down there? we did the same. if you don't have a tv upstairs and you are a tv enjoying couple, you might consider hanging a tv on that left wall in the living room. How nice to sit and watch the view in the evening while you catch up on your shows.

Finally, as I wrote, my parents are recently retired (well like two years ago.) They're 69 and 65. They are super healthy and active, daily gym going, traveling people but they are still concerned about just the sunken living room in their ranch as they get older. It's worth considering how this house will serve you as you age. Trilevels like these are horrible for aging in place (and as a thirty something with little kids the stairs and no bathroom on the main were my annoyances)

All that to say...I would renovate this house so it will appeal to the next buyer-- don't do anything extreme like eliminating a living room. If you find yourself tiring of all the stairs and separation in this house and the perfect ranch with a shop comes on the market you'll want to be able to sell this house quickly and easily.

How about a U shaped kitchen with the sink on the peninsula facing the view, You could have a sofa on the wall on the left with two chairs across from them or a sofa facing the wall with a sofa table behind the sofa. If none of your walls are load bearing and you leave it open, you might have a view from the dining room too. You could put a small TV on the Living room wall between the two chairs for light TV viewing. I used the 22'10" mark as between the start of the stairs and the wall on the left.

I like your plan! Just a few possible tweaks that may or may not work in your space.

And if the view isn't bad...maybe windows on each side of the range?

Lavender Lass, I love the windows by the range. Will definitely consider that idea.

Trilevel homes are very common here and nearly all of the ones I've been inside have a layout similar to the one Karenseb drew. It seems that's the best way to keep your kitchen open to the lower level family room while opening it up to the LR. I absolutely would NOT eliminate the living room. We wouldn't even have considered a house without a separate family room for our family of 5, and I suspect we aren't alone in this. Truth be told, we didn't even consider split or trilevel homes because they don't work with our lifestyle. We really prefer having a rambler with a full basement.

do you have a table near the railing now? Do you like that location? My experience makes me biased, but I would not want a too-narrow dining area tucked next to Tri level down staircase again; it's truly one of the top five reasons we moved.

Even if you have a narrow 36" wide table you have less than the recommended 36" minimum scoot-behind-seated-diner space and the stair creates a pinch point and it's really difficult to comfortably seat people in a dining area like that.

Before moving forward with a dining area near the railing, try seating folks around a table there and see if you can live with it.

I know we have had the argument about open vs closed kitchen/spaces, etc, before, but I always thought the advantage of having a separate family room from living room was that you could have separate spaces. To me it would be an advantage to have a separation where someone could watch TV, listen to music, etc and not bother someone else doing something else in the LR/DR. Of course I haven't seen your space, but I'd try make my primary hang out space the one with the view! I prefer BB's layout, but Karen's is lovely too if you want to preserve the opening. I personally wouldn't like the clean up on a peninsula right by the LR though.

Thank you for all the feedback. I was really hoping to hear that people no longer felt a formal living space was critical, but am happy for the honest critique.

I don't think you need a formal living space. Kitchens are living spaces, too...especially when they're large enough for counter stools and a dining table.

If you're on the lake, a larger family space makes more sense, IMHO.

That being said.... I forgot to add the plan in my earlier post. LOL No caffeine then, but drinking some now!

Lavender Lass, thank you for that clarification. I agree that kitchens are living spaces too.

benjesbride, we currently have a really small drop-leaf table pushed all the way against the railing, That is ok for just the two of us, but not something I'd want to use for more people and not ideal. In the proposed plan, the distance between the table and the railing is 70" and the distance between the edge of the table the first stair is 46".

lharpie, My hope was that the proposed plan built some separation between the kitchen and living space with the dining room and the stairs being in between. The problem with leaving the kitchen where it is and making an L where the railing is now is that it makes the family room really dark and closed feeling. The only natural light in that space is a sliding door. We could at some point add another window, but that would involve brickwork so becomes a much bigger project and one that we cannot DIY.

Lavender Lass, I just realized you did far more than add windows. I'm hoping you can share the reasoning behind a few of the changes.

- Did you move the stove to make it align with the sink or for some other reason? The view in the middle of that run would be of the neighbor's house, so not fabulous. If we don't put in the windows, would you still move the stove?

- I had not planned on seating at the island since there is seating both sides of it already. Do you think we need seating at the island too?

- Reason for moving the fridge away from the pantry?

Thanks

Cindy

In all seriousness, please consult a good realtor before eliminating a main level living area. Tri-levels can be quite difficult to sell in their natural state. I'm afraid if you do this you'll have a very difficult time selling this house for even what you paid for it someday.

We are in the process of designing our retirement home - and it will not have a separate formal Living Room. We have that now and ended up turning it into a catch-all room - it has a piano, a desk for when we're working from home and don't want to use the Library/Office, an old TV, and a sofa. We don't really use it much - except when we're working from home.

We also do not want a separate "nook" - if you have a DR, it seems redundant to have a nook as well! Most people with a nook rarely use their DR - so that's wasted space that you're paying the mortgage on every month!

What I'm getting at is that having duplicates of rooms is fine if you've plenty of space - like the McMansions that were so popular a few years ago (and may be making a come-back, at least around us). However, when you have limited space, I think making the key spaces usable and pleasant should be your #1 priority. What do I consider "key spaces" on the first floor?

• Kitchen
• Dining Room
• Family Room
• Powder Room
• Entry - either Mudroom & small Foyer or large Foyer with Mudroom-like furnishings
• Laundry Room - if your bedroom is on the first floor

If you're over 60, I would add:

• A first floor bedroom
• An accessible full bathroom - you could eliminate the Powder Room then, but I would rather have some privacy for my bathroom
• First floor Laundry Room

.

I would focus on the key rooms - make them great and the lack of duplicate rooms won't matter!

How high are the ceilings in the Family Room? Would it be possible to build up the floor to make it level with the rest of the first floor? If your family entrance is off the Family Room, you may need to do some other work, but I thought I'd throw the idea out there!

This layout preserves all but about 26" of the family room opening width. You could have an island with or without counter seating. You might go without so you have more storage space.

I'm not too familiar with the type of house you speak of however is there any way to "steal" some area from the Family Room?

So what to do in your situation and the comments to keep or not keep a FR and LR? IF, your planning on staying there for 20+yrs, DO WHATEVER YOU WANT AND FORGET ABOUT RESALE!! Luckily for me, I'm a "Mutt" and can, have and will do the big construction projects as I did with this house, as well as the small projects, much like you and your husband.
YOU'LL NEVER PLEASE EVERYONE WHO "may" BUY YOUR HOUSE but YOU WILL PLEASE 1 WHO WILL ONE DAY LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID AND IT WILL BE THEIR DREAM HOME!! It may take 8+yrs as I've found out, well it's a long story but the point is, if your not going anywhere, you like the area and the neighborhood then do whatever you want that makes you happy.

It's too bad you couldn't extend a side wall, or bump out kitchen wall a bit which can be done without a foundation or major problems. 3' to 4' max, seen it done on a very expensive home and it looks like it was there all the time.

As I'm sure you know, don't rush into anything. You said you used a cloth to block off a wall, have you ever used cardboard to simulate furnishings?

I do like your ideas, I'm just wondering if the LR area could be used or part of it? Is the view available in LR?

For those who aren't familiar with tri-levels...this is a pretty typical railing between a tri-level basement family room and main level; there's a 1/2 story difference. In our's and our neighbors' homes the basements had less than 8' ceilings with bedrooms and bathrooms in the level right above the family room level.

cindy - is the whole house brick or just the family room/garage level? Could you cantilever a 12 foot bump out on the family room end of the back of the house?

I added the stools at the island...because there seems to be room. And you could talk to people at the island, rather than to their backs, as they look out the window.

The fridge...I moved the fridge so it would be closer to the stools at window (seemed to be good snack/drink area) and to balance the pantry. With the kitchen open to everything else, it's nice to keep all the heavy/tall sections from being stacked together. Although some might like it, I prefer the balance.

Moving the fridge also allows you to keep the dishwasher as is, without being in your main work triangle...so you can easily unload and place dishes in china cabinet.

The windows on each side of the range are mostly to balance the light. Rather than having light on two sides (opposite each other) light on three sides is more cheerful....and it breaks up all that cabinet space. With the pantry, you should have plenty of storage : )

And FWIW, my SIL lived in a tri-level and they rarely used the formal living room (even with kids) and almost always ended up in the family room. Kitchen/nook overlooked it, as you have.

They ended up making the living room their formal dining area for holiday dinners...and also because the nook was small and the main access to their deck. I believe they put a bistro table there and had it for morning coffee or kids' snacks.

Benjesbride - that picture and description is exactly what our house is like. There is no way to borrow space from the family room.

Buehl, I wish we could make them be on the same level, but it is impossible. The ceiling is only 8 feet and the bedrooms are directly overhead.

Neither of us are anxious to put an addition on the house. It's already a bigger house than we wanted in retirement - lots of square footage but not arranged well. We put an addition on our last house and it ended up leading to horrible project creep, so we've vowed not to do that again!

A huge thank you to everyone for the feedback, designs, advice.

Hmm. Make the family room the living room. The dining nook by the mountain view Windows is for the two of you - the more formal dining table area is for when you entertain larger groups. A third place to eat at - the island - may be overkill.

Rocky bird, we will spend a lot of time in the kitchen/dining space. We have good windows facing the mountains now, just not spending much time looking out them. The space off the family room leads to the garage. The bedrooms are all on the top floor, over the family room.

Cindy, I'm wondering about some type of banquette seating by those mountain view windows, a combo dining room/living room type arrangement with the kitchen along the back wall and an island also facing the view. Or an island facing the view with the table part of and coming off the island, so you'd still have room for some comfortable seating by the mountain view window.

I should clarify that I'm not talking about a "formal" living room in my post above. We just prefer to have a family/media room in the basement, along with a casual living room adjoining our kitchen. We have a large informal living room where the grownups usually hang out when we are having friends over, while the kids tend to congregate in the basement family room to play games or watch movies. We don't have a TV in the main floor living room so that someone can be upstairs reading or playing the piano or practicing their cello or violin without being disturbed by someone watching TV.