les917 - the answers are no and no. No TV, and we cannot (and I don't think want to) move the fireplace. nanny2a - thanks, you are totally right. The coffee table is shown slightly in the wrong spot. I envision it being a coffee table sitting in front of the large sectional (hence wanting it to be the length it is). It will not be sitting in the center of the room like shown. Does anyone see any concern about clearance between the chaise and the fireplace (where one would walk to go from center of living room into the dining room). What kind of clearance do you think is needed/what is the max length and width I could get away with for a chaise/daybed in that area? And does anyone see an issue with the fireplace sitting in the middle of the room, and nothing really being oriented towards it? That is one of my primary concerns with the layout I've put together...

Where you room will or will not open is a personal preference. Think about - if and how you entertain, who you entertain and how frequently (especially if kids or grand kids are involved), and how much access do you want to different rooms. My MIL can watch (and unfortunately hear) the TV from her kitchen. When we visit with all sibs and grandkids her open kitchen to living room is a nightmare to me. But this is one week in the year and I know that she and her husband, who are alone or with one or two visitors at a time, love to be all in one room. I grew up with a larger eat in kitchen. With your layout you will have that. If you open to the living room those in the kitchen will have access to the LR and vice versa - sound, noise, smells. That would not go over well in our house. But, because of a tight house floor plan, we did open the kitchen to the dining room AND added an island with seating. I love cooking with friends and kids around the island. I know others hate that. If we didn't have island seating, anyone visiting would be on the other side of the room in teh dining room or uncomforably hovering around the kitchen. So - layouts are about your life style, sound/noise/smell access and views (i.e. seeing beyond the room to something nice and/or making the space seem larger become of the opening. One thing I will suggest - if you have a nice view and can afford it but in a large window or two medium windows (or more if you don't mind losing the uppers.) We put in a two large windows with a transom over our sink and love it.

I want to be logical, and not try to design my whole house around a dream kitchen, but alas, I am after all, TKO. Talk me down? I am flailing here, as you will see. I feel your pain because I'm in nearly the same position as you except it's my roof lines that are driving me batty. I've gone through countless iterations of what I want on my first floor and because I have fewer room needs than your plans shows, meaning fewer combinations, I've tried my hand at playing with orientations in order to achieve my multiple goals. What I'm finding is that no matter what I do, when I pull on the string in one place the rest of the tapestry is affected, so design, as I see it (I'm no professional) has to flow organically, one feature flowing naturally into the next. I'm sensing that you're hitting that same wall - the combination of shapes/orientations isn't working throughout the whole house. I wouldn't hesitate for even a moment in scraping a plan that you don't feel completely comfortable with and I wouldn't for a moment think that you're illogical for building a whole plan around your kitchen. I'm pretty much doing that right now. What I found was that the kitchen was the room that was/is driving me the battiest, so if I start with a blank slate (still mindful of my conditions, which in your case would be the underground garage plus other points) and then play around with the kitchen shape + workflow + adjoining rooms & features and get those issues mostly settled in the kitchen then the rest of the house can flow outwards from there. I noticed that your architects original plan had an angled section and that he put secondary rooms in there, leaving the primary rooms in the traditional square/block pattern. The square rooms are definitely easier to work with. Your attempt at a compromise put a functional room into the angled wing and this created an awkward junction between the family room and the kitchen right at the kitchen. Why not continue the angle with the kitchen included and then try to use the space where the two wings of the house meet in a way that serves a purpose. So my words of advice to you are to break the problems down into individual problems and then try to solve one at a time before proceeding to the next. Count on a 3 steps forward, 2 steps back type of process as you'll find yourself going back to what you think you had solved which now presents as a problem due to something you've just done, and then begin the process again, one step at a time. I don't know what you want to accomplish with the kitchen design, but one thing I would try is to orient the kitchen with the family room. In your crooked picture, find the point where the DR meets the kitchen and draw your 45 wall starting there. Then draw another 45 line right at your door, losing the little window wall to the left of the entry. Now the awkward angled space is right where your pantry and closets are located and it is here that you can hide the awkward space into secondary rooms. You have a lot of room to work with in your kitchen space, so mix it up, try things that you normally wouldn't, and may well reject, but try these new ideas in order to see how they play out and how they affect other aspects of your plan. Try bumpouts, try peninsulas, try a banquette, try a bay window, try an irregular shaped room (beyond just a room at a 45 angle to the adjacent room.) Most importantly though is to spell out what you want in your kitchen and which of the designs that you posted most speaks to you.

Please understand that you need to show an ENTIRE room and some of your furnishings to get solid advice. The picture you provided is inadequate. Good design comes about when every piece relates to everything in a room--walls, floors, lighting, rugs, style. etc. Doing things piecemeal just winds up with a new Design Dilemma.