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.

We are beyond disappointed in our architect. It has been a very frustrating process! I feel like we are at the point of no return though. We will be speaking with him tomorrow and we make a final decision then. To answer a couple of questions: the two staircases are bc the one in the playroom leads to an attic bedroom and the one in the mud room is going to a home office above the garage - it was supposed to be moved to the garage but wasn’t (more frustration). The Murphy door will likely be removed. I so badly wanted it to work out and thought it’d be a really cool feature but it’s making things more complicated. Again, the centering of the door was my idea to help the elevation work a little better. I would love for him to play around with the porch area/foyer to “make it work” but that’s just not who is is. Had I known this, we never would have hired him. Luckily I have a friend who has been very helpful (done most of the design work) but we’re both stumped here. Thank you everyone for the replies! If we end up changing dramatically I’ll post an update.

I'm back again...the architech couldn't make it this weekend to go over our options, but he did mention briefly that we couldn't expand the sq footage of the house, however, we could narrow it. He gave me a couple options: 1) close the front porch (4ft wide) to create a more "entry feel" like the suggestion above which i previously thought not possible....but how will this make the exterior of the house look when the garage and the front door align with each other? 2) move the door slightly closer to the stairs instead of the middle just like the suggestion above but my mom does not like this idea because of Feng Shui and also she believes in double door entry which can bring lots of good luck (can't say no to mom) Below is the layout of the first floor and the exterior of the house. Please ignore the second kitchen, that's another unit that can't be touched. Note that the 2nd floor has bow windows on top (we can get rid of the bow windows per my architech if need be). The arch windows on the bottom look funky i know--we are gonna get rid of arches too. Thank you all for reading, any advice is so greatly appreciated.

If accurate in your drawing, I am assuming you are leaving the space behind the sofa for a walk way. I’m not in favor of that because everything is off-center. Position the rug directly in the middle of the room, sofa on long wall, love seat under back windows and to balance the two seater on the other end, add two chairs. Ikea piece to the right of the fireplace and something above it to balance the window. Remove the brown table left of fireplace and add a smaller Ikea piece in white for this effect: (except mirror goes over larger piece).