It's a long walk to a lot of the house, we realize. Heck, we both have 10 pounds to lose. :) The secondary stairs by the kids' bedrooms upstairs leads right to the kitchen so I have a feeling that's where we will go down. Which means walking through the mezzanine more. Still undecided about the roof. We went to look at some models today that had similar great room concepts. They had flat ceilings with some nice coffered details instead of the gable roof line we plan on doing in that room. So now we are thinking that may be a another option.

I thought I would post an update and thank all those who offered suggestions. We ended with a version of #3. We still don't have a table for the corner of the 2 couches, but have a place holder there. We plan to put a natural wood table (cheap black place holder now to see how we like it) behind the kitchen backed couch that can have 2 stools and will then get 2 small ottomans to place under a table we plan to place in the window that will also have a few lamps and plants. (the huge dog bed is only there for a temporary dog guest....) We were very pleased to see there is plenty of room to walk around and we both enjoy how we live the other 90% of our lives in this room -- watching TV, surfing, and listening to music and reading. No recliners, but the coffee table is natural wood and metal and is fine for putting feet on and even sitting if needed. It also has 4 huge drawers for laptop storage, games, books, etc. If anyone has window treatment ideas -- feel free! The room needs some color and patterns. The rug is black, sage, tan, crimson. The shelves are a work in progress....

Benjesbride, what you say regarding dining/island makes sense, but unfortunately I have ~11'x16' space to fit in the kitchen. If I decide to rotate the kitchen the way you say it, then my kitchen island will be quite small. I too started out thinking of a longer island and thus came up with option 2, and am not able to find pictures to tell me if that would look ok or not. Secondly, currently the plan is that the Great Room will be mainly conversation area. TV will be in a separate room, so no need to consider TV-watchability. Mama Rachel, your idea of spice kitchen is great! That's the kitchen I started out "wanting". I had to abandon it halfway, however, because of space constraints. My whole house is ~2200 sqft, therefore allocating disproportionately large amount of space to the kitchen would have meant I gave up on some other priorities. Mama Rachel : regarding powder: we decided to ditch the powder because of the availability of full bath on that floor, which otherwise will be guest bath. We also wanted as much storage as possible, therefore decided on having a storage rather than powder. Anyway, here's the original plan. Note that we added ~5ft towards the courtyard and some square footage along top wall (which is facing backyard). I am working on sizing of the entry right now, because I think it's a bit too big for the house, but that space will NOT become available to the kitchen again due to the building rules.

Thanks everyone. Unfortunately I don't have the dimensions but asked my realtor to reach out to the seller. We close next month. But that door is the only door to the backyard so it will be used frequently. Will it look odd putting the tv on that wall with the rectangular window? We have a 60" so it's pretty big. Was worried if we put a couch there it would be too close to the TV or that it may block the door but the room is certainly big enough so perhaps if we place the couch in the center it won't be an issue with the door. If I do that, any suggestions on how to best fill up the space on the sides since it's a long room? Thanks for the suggestions!