Can we see a complete layout of the floor plan including how the entry opens to other spaces?

Are you dead set on moving walls even if not load bearing?

Thanks for your questions! Here is an updated floor plan. I fixed the directions of the doors open to the outside. The yellow lines show where the exterior wall was before the family room addition. It should give some ideas which wall might be load bearing. Since I mentioned laundry, I also draw it to show where the hookup is.

Moving walls is still an option but I hope it's minimal or not needed. Thanks!

Welcome to the Kitchens Forum Leiliah!

We have a "Read Me" thread for newcomers to help you navigate the Forum, to understand what we try to do here, and to give you access to other items of interest during your Kitchen remodel journey. In that "Read Me" thread, we link to a series of Kitchen Design Best Practices/Guidelines threads as well as a "Layout Help" FAQ. I'll include the various links below.

If you really want to know what will work best in your space, I suggest you post a fully measured layout of the spaces you propose to change to help us know exactly what we're dealing with. In this measured layout, we need the widths of each window/wall/door/doorway and distances between each window/wall/door/doorway. The Layout Help FAQ has a sample measured layout so you can see what we're asking for.

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Layout Help - FAQ for asking for layout help. It has a sample measured layout as well as a description of the other information we need

Kitchen Design Best Practices/Guidelines threads - These threads explain best practices/good design guidelines for items such as work zones, aisles, island/peninsula seating, etc. These threads will help you understand questions/comments you will receive.

Read Me thread - Other, helpful information for using and navigating the Kitchens Forum. Especially useful if you are new to the Kitchens Forum.

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New to Kitchens? Read Me First!

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4306041/new-to-kitchens-read-me-first

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Layout Help:

How do I ask for Layout Help and what information should I include?

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2767033/how-do-i-ask-for-layout-help-and-what-information-should-i-include

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Kitchen Design Best Practices/Guidelines threads:

Kitchen work zones, what are they?

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3638270/faq-kitchen-work-zones-what-are-they

Aisle widths, walkways, seating overhangs, work and landing space, and others

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3638304/faq-aisle-widths-walkways-seating-overhangs-work-landing-space-etc

How do I plan for storage? Types of Storage? What to Store Where?

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3638376/faq-how-do-i-plan-for-storage

Ice. Water. Stone. Fire (Looking for layout help? Memorize this first)

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2699918/looking-for-layout-help-memorize-this-first

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I'm no layout guru at all, but I'm wondering if you just can't turn the kitchen counterclockwise and use the kitchen/dining room area for the kitchen, instead. If you don't use your formal dining room much, or at all, it's always an option.

It would require minimal, probably non-loadbearing wall removal

That leftover hunk of narrow kitchen could easily become an area for a kitchen table, the desk/hutch area, laundry, or opened up to be more living room. Or even build it out for a wonderful pantry. (I'd move that door by the entry over to one side to make better wall space in that area. Improves your options.)

I don't see it doing you much good to take a long, barely functional space and just make it longer. Cramming all your "wants" into essentially something not much wider than some hallways or bathrooms. Right now, you want to fit 10 pounds of crap into a 5 pound bag.

Just out of curiosity, do I read that correctly that with those bedrooms, you have 3 hall closets?

From what I can see, you're not gaining much, if any, functional square footage by adding part of the Family Room to the Kitchen. The Kitchen is still under 9' wide and it will still have a lot of traffic going through it from the garage and from the front door. I'm guessing that right now you have quite a bit of traffic going through the Kitchen -- Garage to Kitchen to Bedrooms and/or Front Door to Kitchen to Family Room.

• Would you be willing to move the Kitchen to another room?
• Do you need both a Living Room & Family Room?
• Could the Family Room be "split" to make a small Living Room on top and a larger Family Room on the bottom?
• Do you use your Dining Room often?
• Could the Dining Room be moved to where the Kitchen is now and the Kitchen move to the DR?
• What's the rectangle b/w the Living Room & Dining Room?

I'm just brainstorming, no firm ideas, just thoughts!

With all your wants, I think it might be wise to consult an architect or "talented designer" to work out the changes, which might include a total redesign of the public rooms, or not. It might be as simple as re-purposing existing rooms to give you a better flow and better arrangement or they might recommend moving a wall or two.

You don't have to do what they suggest, but I think at least talking to someone about what your goals are without dictating how to meet the goals might be your first step.

Thank you so much @CEFreeman_GW DC/MD Burbs 7b/8a and @buehl for your insights. I did think of some of your suggestions, but moving kitchen to a different location might just cost too much. The main problem is the foundation underneath the family room addition. It can be difficult to put in kitchen hook-ups.

When I first thought about remodeling the kitchen, it was mostly about upgrades (new cabinets, new flooring, new lighting, modern appliances) and more storage. The current kitchen is fine for cooking, but storage is very limited. I need counter top spaces for microwave, rice cooker, coffer maker, toaster, bread and fruits which can't go in the fridge (e.g. bananas). More drawers for utensils, gadgets, recipe cards, etc. And a pantry for cereals, snacks, drinks, half-consumed chips, etc. The need for more storage is the main driving factor to consider family room space. I threw out this topic, hoping to get some ideas I never thought of before, also expecting a reality check. If it won't work out with existing partitions, I will just focus on the upgrades and maximizing the storage for the kitchen.

I appreciated you reading through my amateur drawing. To @CEFreeman_GW DC/MD Burbs 7b/8a, there are two hall closets at the top and bottom of the hallway. To @buehl, the rectangle between Living Room and Dining Room is the fireplace built with the house. So I have two fireplaces, both pose quite an interior design challenge for me.

It seems you're hell-bent on using part of that family room for the kitchen, when it'd still be so long, narrow, and will not offer any space for your "like-to-haves." And as beuhl mentioned, it'll still be a traffic nightmare. What's in the space where your kitchen ends to the entry into the family room right now? It doesn't look like it's effectively part of the kitchen because of the two doors.

If you rotate your kitchen, instead, you still have water available from the other side of the garage, and if you put a laundry area in where the sink/kitchen is stuff now, the water already exists for that, too.

Are you married to that dining room?
You don't know if it "might cost too much" until you investigate. It wouldn't involve any digging for plumbing, and very minimal, non-load-bearing wall removal.

If you take some of that family room, what would you do with the left over space?
I can see closing off the existing (load bearing) opening, or just making a pocket door or something, into the family room and maybe putting double doors between what's now the dining room and the other end of the family room. Open up to that bay window. But, although that's not moving a wall, it is cutting into load bearing space. I'm here to tell 'ya, if this chick can do it, a professional sure can for not a lot of $$.

You're planning to put a lot of money into finishes in a space that isn't going to offer you very much. But I can see that's what you've pretty much decided, so I 2nd the idea of talking with a local professional. None of the ideas so far here involve keeping the majority of the kitchen in that narrow space.

A small breakfast table is in the space where the kitchen ends. The top part of the family room has been the play room, used to have kiddie table and chairs. Toy bins were stacked in front of the fireplace. The kids have grown so those stuffs were moved out. That part of family room is pretty much empty now.

I will definitely get professionals to evaluate and estimate the cost of different options.

Definitely consult and get an architect to give you ideas of what you can do. Our brief to architect was that the exterior walls had to stay, but any interior walls could be changed. We were a 2 bedroom house with a large family room and a living room. We ended up making the family room into the bedroom and closet for master bedroom (took space from another room for the master bathroom), extended dining room 4 ft and got a laundry space - all of this from a long weird family room. The living room was opened up to the dining room and into the kitchen, and the kitchen was extended into laundry room (laundry relocated) and very small bath (taken out as now have master bath). The kitchen is long and narrow (11'6" x 16' 11"). Ideal situation would've been to blow out the exterior wall to make the kitchen wider and change the windows, but we didn't have the money to do that. The kitchen is so much better than the tiny space I had before, so while not as wide as I'd like, it works. On paper, we lost living space, but what we have is actually functional now as we never used the living room and the dining and kitchen were too small and awkward.

Part of the family room was an enclosed porch and we have a cinder block wall under the floor as it's part of old exterior wall. We're on a crawl space, and the plumbing was easy to run through this cinder block wall, but for the AC ducting, we had to put a soffit in a closet to run ducting into the attic for that part of the house - rest of house the ducting is under the floor - it was a compromise as couldn't afford to relocate entire system into the ceiling. There's always a solution to a problem. Some of the walls we took out weren't load bearing, for those that were, we had beams put in. We also added walls in some places. We closed up a side doorway as kitchen couldn't work with it there and put in a new doorway to back yard where a window was.

We have tried to figure out how to fix the funky layout in our house for 12 years. We needed to let go of what we thought could/couldn't be done, and let an expert work it out. We've spent more than we would've liked, as we like more expensive finishes and added in projects (let's do the fireplace too!), but I do not regret a single penny that went into fixing the layout. We can now use all the square footage in our house. I never thought about it until an architect we interviewed pointed out that the old layout meant that large parts of the house weren't used and we were paying money for unused space.

You could swap kitchen and dining, and open up the wall into the new dining space, so it's more of an open area. I'd use top part of the family room as a laundry space (need to lose fireplace) and then bottom part of family room could be a smaller area with couch and TV to watch movies/play videogames and comfortable place to read, maybe even an office area or a bonus area for working out.

Or take out the wall separating family room and put the kitchen on that wall. It'd be an L with top of the family room/kitchen and then down past the side door. Island in the middle facing the dining room. You probably could have a seating area too by the bay window. Laundry area could be in current kitchen sink area if close off that entry doorway. That would be a great use of the space. There's different ways to open up a space and cost depends on if use pillars to support, partially open up, is the beam exposed or completely in the ceiling etc.

Hi @Nicci, your last paragraph really hits home. I should change my mindset and let an expert work it out.

This is my first remodeling project and I'm still learning the process. To be frank, I don't have an idea how to start with architects. Did you interview more than one architect? Can you talk to multiple architects before committing to one? Thanks.

"Did you interview more than one architect?"

Yes, you should -- just like shopping for any service.

"Can you talk to multiple architects before committing to one?"

Yes, you can. Again, just like shopping for any service.

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There are several good ones on the Building a Home forum. As I recall, there are also a few threads that discuss how to choose an architect.

Building a Home: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/build

This is our first remodel project and we've certainly learned some lessons. We interviewed 4 companies - 2 design build firms and 2 architects. DH's uncle is an architect in another state and he was our sounding board as we went through the process, and gave suggestions on floor plan. Ideally, we would've had him do our house, but we couldn't afford it.

We liked one architect's design portfolio, but decided we didn't have the money to do what they could've designed to really take advantage of their creativity. One of the design build's firm work was more in line with what we knew we could pull off. The floor plan they came up with is a good use of our space. If we had unlimited money, we would've gone a different option.

Be prepared to consider options. We were dead set against touching the 2 bedrooms as we needed the space to live in, but the weird walk-in closet in one bedroom was the perfect location for the master bathroom. There were 2 closets in this room and it was minor change - building a 5' wall to close it off from the bedroom and creating a doorway in the other wall for access to the master. This one change made the entire layout work.

We did consider minor changes, but they didn't fix underlying problems with layout. That's why people are suggesting you consider relocating kitchen or opening up some walls. Yes it is more to do that, but it costs so much to do anything in the first place and it may be worth it. You won't know until you check.

I third or fourth the designer/architect thing. You've got this idea in your head, yet anyone who bothered to post here is telling you it's not efficient, nor practical.

I think you might be surprised to find a "professional" gives you similar options and then you can decide if it "might cost too much" vs. actually being worth any $$ spent to make the house work better. Frankly, it's just a poor design.

Permit me to quote Nicci:
"We did consider minor changes, but they didn't fix underlying problems with layout. That's why people are suggesting you consider relocating kitchen or opening up some walls. Yes it is more to do that, but it costs so much to do anything in the first place and it may be worth it. You won't know until you check."

Gotta be an echo in here.

I'd be very interested to find out what the different ideas architects or designers come up with. Be prepared to pay. These same ideas are going to cost you, vs. getting them for free here. But the pros can also tell you how to best utilize existing utilities, etc. We couldn't without seeing things in person.

Best of luck. Quoting again:
"You won't know until you check."

Here's an idea keeping the kitchen in its current location.

I moved the laundry to the entry hall, added a pocket door b/w the LR and bedroom hall. Moved garage door to the right, so you can have a long counter in the kitchen. I'm not sure about the family room side, but I think you may be able to fit a small desk in front of the window if the window height permits and add a wall mounted breakfast table if fireplace can be modified.

I would close off the opening between the entry and the kitchen making it a U-shaped kitchen. I would also relocate the w/d to the entry closet if possible because having everyone walk through the kitchen to the w/d is really disruptive. I would also make your family room your living room since you probably spend most of your time there and make the long narrow family room the dining room. If you do that blowing out the wall between the current living/dining to have a peninsula with bar seating would be great assuming there isn't anything in that wall preventing that.

Adding on to Sena01's idea, could the door to the garage be moved down towards the fireplace? You said there's a step by the fireplace, but maybe some of it could be taken out, so the door can be moved. Maybe take out the fireplace all together? That would give you a longer cabinet run on the garage wall. It is still a difficult space, as so narrow.

When you look at your floor plan, it's unbalanced with the small kitchen and large space of the living + dining room + family room. Everyone congregates in the kitchen, so the smallest space has the most use. We had the same issue, which I didn't realize until I saw a whole house plan, our family room was 1/3 of house and the kitchen/laundry/2nd bath were tiny. Relocating kitchen may not be that much extra on a kitchen remodel if you're on a crawl space. I wasn't going to move sink to keep plumbing costs down, but it wasn't much more to move it as had to redo some of the pipes anyway.

That's a nice floor plan!! Everything she wants is there.

Wow, it is so amazing how changing one wall can do!