I think before anyone can offer assistance, you need to provide layout with dimensions plus pictures AND your budget.

In general remodeling to the extent you are considering is quite costly and often more than purchasing a home in the configuration you want unless you live in a neighborhood in which the land values are so high that people are in the market for tear downs and remodeling opportunities.

I will get on that this afternoon, thanks Helen! We really love our neighborhood, and our lot is sublime, it's a dream come true. The neighborhood is steadily becoming more desirable and is on the fringes of two very sought after neighborhoods that are now exceeding capacity. We bought for $160k and have $135k left, and could afford $200k in renovations. We'd prefer not to move, and we don't want to change the upstairs at all. I'm sure many people will say we should just move. In our idealism, we'd like to say that we don't plan to move, we intend for this to be our forever home.

That's quite a leap in terms of more than doubling the amount you have invested in the house.

Does your neighborhood support a $360,000 home?

I am in Los Angeles and so tear downs and gut remodels are not uncommon as people buy for the value of the lot in many desirable areas and those "desirable" areas keep enlarging here because land within a relatively easy commute can't be created. However, only a local realtor would really know whether a specific location is in the category supporting that kind of remodel.

Adding into your equation is the cost and aggravation of a remodel. I am finishing up a gut remodel and it took eight months when it was supposed to take three months. It cost me a good amount to rent a place since living in it during construction was not a viable option. I moved in about two weeks ago and it is still not functional due to ordinary glitches like wrong hood vent sent and cabinet finish work not being completely done - which means that I really can't actually move anything back in.

HI -- First , find a good Architect and start a plan , then go from there . Then let us give comments on the result if you have concerns or need further ideas . Sometimes prior ideas can confuse you . There are fabulous talented people here on Houzz but I think starting with an Architect is the way to go. They have lists of people here .

Thanks! I think we will do that :) I guess it never occurred to me that they could do multiple concepts - shows you what a noob I am!

We will definitely consult with a local real estate agent! The way things are going in Madison, its unclear if the neighborhood will boom in the next 20 years, as many other up and coming ones have done in the past 20 years, or if it will stay as it currently is, with homes between $150-200k. My parent's home was purchased in a neighborhood like my current one, for $60,000 and and is now worth over $400,000. But that is where a real estate agent can help us, of course RE trends and predictions are the name of their game.

The floor plan shows the entire main floor? No living room?

If my ideas are possible:

Could you make the bedroom, hall space and the area ( is that the present kitchen?) at bottom right of plan into one master ensuite? Turn the present dining room into a band new kitchen and the area right next to stairs becomes a dining area?

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Turn the full bath now into a 1/2 bath and put w/d where the tub is now.

if i've learned anything in almost 40 years of buying homes.... its MOVE. to overbuild for your neighborhood in hopes that some year it will pop.... just silly. sorry. you are being silly. save idealism for non-real estate transactions. : )

get a valuation for your home. go to open houses for homes in the range of your current home + what you'll spend on construction. moving is a pain but its over in a couple days. construction goes on forever.

A consult with a good architect can help, even if you decide not to go ahead with using them or doing the project at all.

You should be able to better use the space you have. Don't move. It's your dream house! :)

Thank you ninigret for telling it like it is! I so appreciate straightforward advice!

Also thank you Fori, for appreciating our dream.

Here is the upper floor, which we don't see the need to change. We'd like to preserve the house at 3 bedrooms, as we have a young boy and girl who will eventually want their own rooms :)

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Here is how we use the downstairs now. We also have a basement that has washer/dryer in it.

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I think you have to hire and architect and reconfigure your living/dining bedroom on this floor

in order to provide you with what you need

I am attaching an image with a possible layout that will provide you with seating.dining prep areas and plenty of storage, it may be a good starting point and hopefully will help you visualize it

HI -- Here is what I would do if I was doing this house . The new stairs were put in the wrong place . Both set of stairs should have been together .. Looking from front to back .... Right side - entrance ( Front door) with coat closet and the up going stairs on the right (old dining room wall ) going back and over the old down going stairs location ( they stay ). Now the back right is the bathroom ( using old kitchen plumbing ), laundry and mudroom/closet and back door exit . This opens the whole left side with living /dining and the kitchen ( using old bathroom plumbing ) in the back (old bedroom ) This will have to change the up stairs floor plan a bit and the Architect can draw the changes . Just reverse the front bedroom plan . Then if you add a small addition off the back of the house , that could be a new bedroom. Now you have to think about if the cost this is worth it for your area . You could just sell and move or rebuild a new house . They make wonderful pre-fab houses now that are real houses and not like a trailer .

I would move.

MOVE.
Spend a day with a realtor who knows greater Madison.

You can only make a silk purse from a sow's ear with a lot of cash and time.
There is no shortage of under $300k housing in nice/fun/pleasant neighborhoods around Madison WI. Look at the close in suburbs (Middleton, Verona) for lower property taxes and better schools and services.

One example:

A couple gallons of paint, install new lighting fixtures, and DONE.

@Anthony -- you kind of finessed the bedroom issue, though -- are you making it a walk-through space from the rest of the house, or putting it next to the front door, or...? You can't redesign just one part of the first floor! where's the living room?

I wouldn't spend money trying to fix a bad floor plan. $$$$$$$$$$ with no return on your investment.

I'd stay in the house for now, and when you decide to separate your son and daughter to each have their own room you can use the office as your third bedroom, either for yourself or for one of the children.

Then the office function can be combined with either the play room or piano room.

You might benefit from reading some of Sarah Susanka's books. She has some good thoughts on making spaces function as multi-purpose rooms.

We are finishing up a whole-house remodel, which we have been doing (DIY) since we moved here two years ago. It's a lot of work. And what we have done is mostly just cosmetic, with a few bigger projects (kitchen, a couple of various walls removed) thrown in. I know it's not something you want to hear, but I will also say what so many others are saying: move. Find something closer to what you want, and then go from there.

Having said that, I have a good friend who literally tore down her house and rebuilt, just because she loved the location/neighborhood so much. Only you can decide what it's worth to you. And if this is your forever home, what does it matter if you overbuild? But it does limit you, because you never know what will happen in your life 10 years from now, or 20, or 40.

If you decide you want to stay, you're going to have to start with a completely blank slate for your main floor. No preconceived notions. No "working with what is there." Your bedroom might end up in a totally different place, or it might not. Your kitchen may need to be moved. This is why getting an architect (while expensive) will be money well spent, because they can look at it with fresh eyes.

You are talking about massive amounts of money, months of inconveniences, and so much stress. You have two small kids... imagine living for even a few days with a partially disassembled staircase, which would need to happen if the staircase was moved, like many have suggested. Or going without a kitchen for a month. Even something as simple as having the water turned off while they work on plumbing for a day is a much bigger deal for a mom and two small children than for older kids and teenagers who are at school at day.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

What’s the possibility with the basement? Can you make some living space down there? And have the stairs already been moved, or you want to move them?

When we moved to this house, we were told by a very knowledgeable realtor (knew our neighborhood better than any other agent), that we could not over-build our neighborhood, but we could over-build our house. She said anything we did must result in significantly more square footage. We followed her advice 34 years ago, and she was right!

A bad floor plan can only be fixed by gutting the entire house and installing support beams where load-bearing walls were removed. While this appears to be done constantly on HGTV, it's usually not something that is wise to do from a financial standpoint. One would have to have inherited the house or bought it 40 years before, to ever justify such an expense.

You need to start looking at houses for sale. There is no one more sentimental about a family home than I am - I've lived in this house now for more than 34 years. But sometimes one simply cannot continue to poor money into a house with a bad layout.

We are living through a remodel right now. I'm not sure if some would consider finishing a basement a "remodel", but we're basically adding 1,000 sq ft of finished space to our home.

It sucks. We have stuff everywhere on the first floor because everything had to be removed from the basement in order for it to be framed out, having new electrical added and adding a full bathroom (including the fun part of having the concrete floor broken and pipes added). It has been nearly 2 months and I cannot wait for it to be done! We have done everything we can to keep the dust and dirt to a minimum throughout the rest of the house but boy, is it tough. I couldn't imagine doing this on the main floor of our home.

Everything has cost more than we originally planned. Part of that is that we definitely are part of the "while you're at it" club (but it was for things that made sense, like adding a couple of extra outlets). Everything is taking longer than we were originally told, and we have been lucky and haven't hit a lot of snags. You watch HGTV and see teams of 10-15 people working on a house - that's not reality. We've had days where we've had no workers (which I was told from others that this is normal) and days where they're at our house for like 12 hours. Since we are living here during this, our lives have basically revolved around the contractors because things have come up where we've had to make decisions on the fly (so basically one of us has had to be here).

I talked to my husband very seriously about moving before we started this project. He felt it didn't make sense because the interest rate on our current mortgage is much less than interest rates now, plus we couldn't ask as much for our home as competitors just because we didn't have that finished basement. But now that we're going through it, I think he feels he should have given moving much more consideration.

And we're not remodeling for more than the cost of our home. If I had a $160,000 house, there is no way I would put another $200,000 into it, especially with what you want to do. Removing a very long load bearing wall is no easy task. I don't even think they make support beams that long - you're going to have support columns in the middle of your open concept (we have them smack dab in the middle of our basement so we had to change where we wanted to put things). We had to remodel our master bath and bedroom due to mold when my kids were little. That was tough enough; I couldn't imaging being without say a kitchen or stairs with little ones. We had to have the water turned off when they were installing the pipes - try explaining to your teenage daughter that she has to shower at her friend's house before going out that night.

Everyone keeps telling me all the hassle will be worth it, but I really wish we would have moved instead.

turn piano room and play room into kitchen