Move.

Or put all the main living, cooking, and dining, downstairs. And leave the upper level to the bedrooms.

Split levels are never cheap to remodel, and the results are always less than satisfactory unless massive money is spent to completely reimagine them.

Move.

Did you just buy this home or remodel it recently?

I can't imagine you are getting out of any addition type of work for under 100k. (probably significantly more). Particularly in metro DC.

100K is a drop in the bucket for what you’d spend in the DC area to do much of anything. Either love it, as is, or don’t buy it.

If you buy it, you’re buying location and schools. Not amenities. 1200 sf poorly built postwar cracker boxes inside the beltway go for darn near 1M. Split levels give you a bit more living space than a ranch with a traditional basement, but are not friendly to renovating without a large budget because of the split design.

OP, it is very, very expensive to add a small bump out.

I have a small kitchen with the stove up against the wall separating the dining area from the kitchen.

In my remodel, I ran the cabinets into the dining area for storage as well as increased counter space. I have a tall cabinet at the end closest to the kitchen with a door which opens towards the kitchen so that I can store my food processor and KA mixer. I have another tall cabinet framing it which would be able to store brooms etc. It looks like a hutch so it doesn't look as if I have a kitchen in my dining area :-) but it functions more as additional kitchen storage. I could post a visual if my description doesn't work.

Do you need 5 bedrooms? Perhaps extend the kitchen into the dining area & have an eat in kitchen and/or change the bedroom next to the dining area into the dining area.

If you can afford to lose the main floor bedroom, I'd make that bedroom into the dining room and put an island in what is now the dining room. It will give you more counter space - make the kitchen area bigger, add storage and seating for the twins to have breakfast and do homework in the coming years. It avoids moving cabinets and plumbing, but adds to the kitchen. Cheaper than adding on.

Alternatively, just continue the kitchen cabinets under the dining room window for more cabinets and counters. Then a smaller island facing the windows.

Either way - kitchen moves out into current dining room, bedroom becomes dining room. And you don't even have to touch the current kitchen. It can stay just as it is.

I would live with it for a while. It's nice clean and updated. If you don't need that bedroom I would eventually move dining into it and expand kitchen

If you bought a few years ago I think investing would be safe. Friends purchased in Alexandria va. 2011 for 300k put on a decent size 200k addition and listed last fall for 1 mil and were under contract the next day. Today I believe you might be at risk of a bubble burst in your area and you are buying high an already flip like remodel so investment protential is possibly maxed out. Keep looking or settle and wait at least a bit to see how your market continues forward.

Not a pro at all but I would consider carrying the kitchen into the dining space. Unless you want it as a formal dining room I would configure it to be one big eat in kitchen. If you still need a formal dining room then change one of the bedrooms to do be that. You would have the benefit of the lovely light from those windows too.

Really if sink was row was shifted 2 ft further down it would make a world of difference. The sinks just to cramped but if you added a another 24" cabinet it would give you more space between sink and fridge. Then at the end by stove out a small cabinet 15" maybe so you have more space to set things. In the dining room it looks like there's a wall into the hallway there is remove the part that sticks out so dining room could be shifted down a bit. Buttt I think the fridge is to cramped there that's going to be a busy area so it may be best to just rework it all. Live in it first

It'd sure be easier to see the possibilities if you had more accurate and to-scale floor plans.

Happy that we could give you ideas to get your creative juices flowing! I love it when this forum works!

Just get graph paper to start.

^Yes, show all measurements including window and door openings. When you finish the diagram take a pic and post. It is the easiest and quickest way.

Why not purchase a home with a good layout in the main living areas but an old kitchen and reno that home? It seems a shame to reno a kitchen that is already updated (the cost of which is reflected in the purchase price), as you end up paying for that kitchen twice! If you do renovate, that monster fridge is part of the problem and needs to be replaced.

• Here's the plan - I was faced with the same dilemma - small kitchen with limited counter space and storage as I actually cook :-). I don't have a window so I didn't have to style around it but I definitely didn't want it to look as though the kitchen was in the living room - my floor plan is one large space.

This is the layout - the cabinetry to the right starting with the tall cabinet is the back of my dining area.

This is not my kitchen but the layout is identical to mine before I started remodeling. I took down that wall next to the stove and moved the stove slightly to the left so I could have landing pads on both sides. The tall cabinet starts approximately where that short wall to the right of the stove is in this picture.

This is what the wall will look like with my tile choices. I am deliberately going with as much of a furniture look as possible with the cabinets so it just looks like a built in hutch one might see in any dining area only mine is configured for a lot of kitchen storage stuff. The area below the copper subway tiles on the right is a counter in the same granite as the kitchen which will function as necessary for serving.

Here's a better view of the new layout.

Spend 6-10K and get a built in refrigerator. That will solve a major problem with the sink. Add a bit of counterspace to the right of the range, and shallower storage out into the dining area beyond that. Put that fridge down in the basement for secondary storage.

What are those boxes shown in the floor plan, between the dining room and bedroom? I've circled them in red. If they are mechanicals such as heating ducts, it may not be feasible to remove that wall. So if you really want to be able to do that in the future, check that out.

This was my entire kitchen in the mid 1990s. The refrigerator was to the left of the sink in a U, and 26" deep including handle.

Two owners later updated with stainless appliances (a refrigerator and a range instead of a cooktop and undermounted oven)

Those two changes, especially the deeper refrigerator (but also the slightly deeper range) nearly ruined the function of the kitchen.

No I think the refrigerator is just very deep and they didn't give it any thought. Some of them are three feet deep now.

Optimally, I would use the top bedroom as the dining room and extend the kitchen into the current dining space similar to Helen's plan, but with the sink under the dining room window. Then maybe add a small peninsula with a some bar seating to the entrance to the current dining room to shield the sink from the front door. You'd have to figure out the bedroom wall first, though. If not, you could extend the kitchen and have a small dining table in the kitchen. A counter-depth fridge will definitely help.

I'd get out of this deal if at all possible. You don't really like the house, the kitchen is totally unworkable. It would cost a fortune to make it right and you would be overbuilding the house and most likely, the neighborhood as well. NEVER a good idea even if one has the money.

If you can't remove the bedroom wall, there may be enough room between the 2 boxes for a normal size door opening. That's what I have between my kitchen and formal dining room. So it may not be a deal breaker. Sometimes you don't even want the kitchen open to the formal dining room - hides the mess!

What about moving the doorway to the stairs to the living room side, closing up the kitchen entry and swapping the way the exterior door to the stairs swings?

With the newer cabinetry I’m guessing you’ll be able to match the cabinetry that’s there right now and combined with a new smaller fridge give yourself more cabinetry/counter room. It’ll feel much less cramped too.

If you haven't yet bought a kitchen table, be sure to buy one that you can use as a prep space. Nothing too delicate.

We have an oak harvest table, and it works like an old-time farm kitchen since we use it as a comfortable sit-down prep space when we have a lot of chopping or food prep to do.

We use cutting boards so we don't use it for cutting directly, but it's a wood finish that can get a bit wet for a few minutes and we just wipe it dry. Very practical.

That big honking fridge is what's hampering this whole kitchen. The cabinets across from the sink can only be 12" deep so you can get around the fridge. I didn't even notice the window next to the fridge until I saw the floor plan.

I would move the fridge across from the range, and don't turn the corner to the left of the sink - now you have both accessible storage and usable counter on the sink side. Better yet, move the DW to the left of the sink, out of the prep zone.

One the new fridge wall, you can put in full-depth cabinets, because you can walk all the way into the kitchen from the back door. You've gained a landing space for the fridge, more storage (preferably drawers), and the fridge is closer to the dining area. The 10' width means that kids can come in from outside and have plenty of room to get around you if you are using the stove, or the oven door is open.

Take down the wall next to the range, and add at least 15" of cabinetry and counter on the right side. Now your range is more functional. The down side to that is that the flooring transition - too bad they didn't continue the dining room flooring into the kitchen.

Good luck!

P.S. I am the Mom of 23-yr-old twin boys! The first 2 years are just a blur; after that, the benefits of having twins get better and better. They are not double trouble - they are Twice as Nice!

I have also read on Houzz and elsewhere that you can recess a refrigerator into the stud space of a wall, gaining 3 to 3.5 inches. Google it for different approaches. You either build it with a lintel above (like a door) or turn the studs.

Here's 2 Houzz articles to get you started. [https://www.houzz.com/discussions/how-do-you-modify-wall-to-recess-standard-depth-fridge-dsvw-vd~2474249 [(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/how-do-you-modify-wall-to-recess-standard-depth-fridge-dsvw-vd~2474249) [https://www.houzz.com/discussions/recessing-a-refrigerator-into-the-wall-dsvw-vd~2593953[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/recessing-a-refrigerator-into-the-wall-dsvw-vd~2593953)

There is also a Houzz kitchen forum that might be helpful to you.