Consider adding a vestibule with some coats storage

Who designed the house--you, an architect, or is it a stock plan? Have you already broken ground?

Added things- The porch looks too narrow to be usable. Is it 4 foot wide at least? The seating side of your island doesn't have enough overhang of 12-15" and the aisle won't have passage clearance with stools.

Looks like you can easily enclose the porch to become a foyer with closet. To make up for it, you can design a front deck or patio.

You say "building" in the present tense, so I'm assuming things are already started, and you need to stick within the space shown.

As such, your options are limited. My best thought:

- Move the door to the center of the house so it opens in front of the stairs. This isn't ideal because your entry space is small ... but it will allow guests to enter into that bitty space and "have a view" of the living room before they enter it, which will give more of a feeling of "arrival".

- Can you extend the porch so that it feels more like a room? It wouldn't give you actual entryway space, but it would give -- again -- more of a feel of having "arrived" at the house.

- Of course, this means moving the porch steps too. You want your stairs to "point to" your door. This will also make the porch (even if it isn't enlarged) better because you'll have a path to the door ... and a sitting space for a pair of chairs; whereas right now you have a divided space.

- Downsize the door to a single. Note that the double door on your plan actually touches a piece of furniture. Not good. Additionally, the double door draws more emphasis to the entry ... which isn't what you want at all.

Looks like you can easily enclose the porch to become a foyer with closet.

You can, but then you'd lose half the windows in the living room. I don't know if I'd want to give up that natural light every day ... for the sake of the front door guest entry. You use natural light every day; you don't have guests every day. The question is, what's the OP's priority?

"nothing would work because of the space"

Well, you've successfully identified the problem. This house is simply too tight and the stairs appear to be a building code violation.

The landing occurs at the top of the 10th riser. If the risers are 7 1/2", the landing would be 75" above the floor and the bottom of the landing might be at 67". That's not only a head knocker, typical building codes require 80" of clearance. Even if the risers were at an uncomfortable height of 7 3/4" the clearance would only be 69.5"

To achieve 80" of head clearance (but still with an unattractive dropped ceiling) and make the entrance better, add two treads to the bottom of the stair, push the front house wall 2 ft. out onto the token front porch and place a 3 ft door in line with the stairs. Its not great but its better and its code compliant.

Unfortunately the garage would only be useful for a pair of mini coopers. Put this plan on a copier and enlarge it to 120%.

Are you aware that there are so many problems with this plan--double entry door, narrow front porch, lack of living room space for furnishings and circulation, an unworkable stair, garage, etc.?

Can you start over?

And, is there no half bath on this first level? Is this a single family home or a duplex?

I don't think a front door opening into the living space is necessarily a bad thing.

here is one house I've been in where it works

I'm confused about the second kitchen behind the first. How many people is the house for?

I rather like Jonathan's vestibule, with the door facing sideways instead of the street. I would have it open completely to the living room, perhaps just a wide cased opening. The front door would open sideways, but it does give a nicer entrance and a little more room at the bottom of the stairs. It appears you don't have weather where you are, I don't see any closets or space for jackets, umbrellas, wet shoes, etc.

Well, you've successfully identified the problem. This house is simply too tight

It is tight, but it's a typical entry-level tract house.

No, you can't do the above. You can't walk up the steps to the center of the porch, then turn to the left to enter the door. Just doesn't work.

here is one house I've been in where it works

I don't see any closets or space for jackets, umbrellas, wet shoes, etc.

Yes, another problem.

The plan could benefit from a lot of improvements. I'll also give you the least expensive smallest change that will deal with the double door problem. A single wide door with two sidelights. I like the idea of exchanging the porch, which has only decorative value, for added living room space.

The porch entry idea is great but it doesn't allow space for adding two treads to the stair. There is no substitute for more space and the porch seems the easiest place to steal it..

@RES

Where do you see a problem with the stair and landing? Why add 2 treads?

With an 8' ceiling and a reasonable 2nd floor platform thickness, 15 risers is about 7-1/4" rise. 16 risers would be more comfortable.

In my opinion the author of this plan has intentionally shown the space under the stair landing as open when it should be shown as closed since the code required headroom cannot be achieved with only 10 risers. Its a bait and switch tactic.

The drawing is simply wrong and to correct it you have two options:

1 - enclose the space under the landing

2 - add 2 treads to the bottom of the stair.

This is what the choices look like:

Once this decision has been made its time to think about the front door.

I wood also be suspicious of the rest of the design and he people who are selling it.

I wish you good luck.

Good advice here! I have had a house with a door opening into a living room, it’s not comfortable when people who you haven’t invited come by, like salespeople.

Give yourself a pat on the back for catching that now. I'm not sure what the dimensions of each room are but the layout reminds me of my first house which was probably built in the 50's. I hated that layout. Sorry, let me rephrase that, I HATED that layout. I LOATHED that layout. Seriously, I still have nightmares about trying to fix that house and I moved out of it 30 years ago.

If you live in a climate with wintry weather, having that front door set up is awful. Very time you open the door ( and you are opening your door into in your furniture,) that cold air rushes in like a scene out of Doctor Zhivago. Guests have nowhere to take off coats and shoes and the floor in that area takes a beating from salt and snow and mud. And the same thing applies to an air conditioned room.

Secondly, every time you have to come downstairs to go to the kitchen, you have to weave your way through the entire house, through the living room, through the dining room and into the kitchen. Not sure what age you are or if you have or plan to have babies or young kids, but if that is the case, then at 2 am when you are running downstairs for a bottle, or hot water for a croupy child. you have to complete an entire circuit through the house. Conversely , coming through the kitchen from the garage you also have to complete that circuit in reverse. If you are carrying a sleeping toddler, he will be awake by the time you do your circuit up to bed.

Is there no powder room on that floor? I don't see one on the plan, so if I am missing it ignore the next statement. So you are in the kitchen ( or you are there with a toddler )and someone needs to go to the bathroom. Again that sprint around the circus to the stairs and upstairs.

I just know i"m going to have nightmares about trying to fix my first house again tonight.....

Thank you all for your great advice and input.

To answer some of the questions that some are wondering. There is a laundry room next to the dinning room, a full bath and a guest room after that. As for a space to put shoes/jackets and such, i was thinking of putting all that with the closet space that i had under the stairs.

As for now, this is what i'll do:

i'll enclose the space under the landing- excellent advice @RES

Remove the water heaters and making the pantry cabinet slightly smaller to create more space for the garage and turn the steps in the garage the other way to create more space for the smaller car

And as for the entry way: I'm not sure if it would be possible to change the door to a different position since doing this will alter the exterior of the house; however, what else can i do right? I have contacted my architech and he will be here this weekend to help me create a foyer for this home. I'm so extremely anxious about this...I hope I'll be able to sleep tonight because I don't think I want nightmares like @Waverley66 has described. =)

I'll show you the new sketch shortly.

Relax, architects do this routinely and there's always a solution. Enclosing the space under the stair allows you to leave the stair alone and consider putting a vestibule on the porch and you now have a closet under the stair. The simplest solution is to move the door and porch steps to align with the stairway but no one can be sure without seeing the front elevation.

The kitchen space is tight but I've designed tighter ones. There's a lot we don't know. Are you allowed to alter the front? Why is the first floor so high above the ground? Could the house be made a foot wider or longer? Tell us the what, when and where of the project and post the entire design.

Or just wait and explain it all to your architect if he/she has the necessary skills to offer good solutions. I never know what that title means on the internet.

Do they include a translator?

They look like a drafting service, you don't need a drafting service. Claire's only comments on Houzz are promotions for Outsource plan.

It was probably a drafting service or a builder's nephew that designed the house.

They look like a drafting service, you don't need a drafting service. Claire's only comments on Houzz are promotions for Outsource plan.

SPAM

I'm back again...the architech couldn't make it this weekend to go over our options, but he did mention briefly that we couldn't expand the sq footage of the house, however, we could narrow it. He gave me a couple options:

1) close the front porch (4ft wide) to create a more "entry feel" like the suggestion above which i previously thought not possible....but how will this make the exterior of the house look when the garage and the front door align with each other?

2) move the door slightly closer to the stairs instead of the middle just like the suggestion above but my mom does not like this idea because of Feng Shui and also she believes in double door entry which can bring lots of good luck (can't say no to mom)

Below is the layout of the first floor and the exterior of the house. Please ignore the second kitchen, that's another unit that can't be touched. Note that the 2nd floor has bow windows on top (we can get rid of the bow windows per my architech if need be). The arch windows on the bottom look funky i know--we are gonna get rid of arches too.

Thank you all for reading, any advice is so greatly appreciated.

I see no negative to the enclosed porch and the garage in the same plane. You need a better entrance.

I see some more space to capture for better function. The entrance from the garage includes two steps and about 14" of rise. his isn't necessary or beneficial for function. Remove those and raise the garage and drive. This will also allow you to remove steps at the main entrance to help with no porch.

Move the entry landing and door from the garage 11-12" into the garage to the position of the first step down. Remember you removed those two steps. Move one or both of the utility component cylinders in the left corner of the garage area to space under the stairs. OK.

Reduce the depth of the pantry next to the garage entrance by 11-12". The reduced depth is more functional for accessing anything stored regardless. What we're creating here is more space on the garage side of your island. You need that space for clearance with the seating you are indicating.

Looks like you're stuck with it.

Are you by any chance building in Toronto/GTA?

You are so lucky to have a second kitchen upstairs, ours is downstairs and not a contained one. A second small contained kitchen is very common where I live, and if I were building a home and had the room, it wouldn’t even be a question. They keep everything so contained and all of the smell and grease vented perfectly. Some call them wok kitchens, others, frying, grilling kitchens. i would love one as I love to cook on super high heat and don’t because of the mess..