Part of floor plan, zoomed-in.

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Since husband works at home some, turn the dining room into his home office, so the kids can have his current back office as a play room away from the napping ones. You can open a door onto the deck and put the mudroom in there as well. They can also play in there while you and hubby are watching TV in the sunken den. Use the front study as a breakfast room with the round table. Eventually you could close the current dining room/future home office on the kitchen wall to expand your kitchen so you can have an island and a more efficient space. Turn the living room into a quiet sitting room or library where you can entertain, since the sunken den will be family space, sometimes cluttered, and always a tripping hazard for guests to step into.

I would remove the walls around d the dining area and the second coat closet. Then configure a mudroom in the FR space. What is the white space in between the sunken den and screen porch? Could that allow for moving the slider to that location for access? So you could use that whole area/wall for mudroom?

@ decoenthusiaste I hadn't thought of adding a mudroom to the back of the house. See! This is what I'm talking about! You guys have really interesting ideas.

We go in and out of the garage on a daily basis, though, so I'm not sure how it would work to have a mudroom somewhere else. Like, would the kids have to exit the garage, walk around the house, and go in through the deck to make use of it? Or walk through the kitchen and dump it in the back of the house? Or would it mostly just be for my sanity, so I had a place to store stuff and put things away?

@ mnmamax3 What does removing the walls accomplish? Is it so we can turn the dining room table and have enough space around? I think even with removing that wall between the current DR and the hallway) it might look weird for the table to protrude out because there is a difference in flooring. The hallway is slate and the current DR is hardwood.

The white space is outdoors. It's where the cellar door bulkhead is located so we can't build on top of it. Though I like that idea and I've often though it would be nice if we could reclaim it.

It probably won’t work, but can you cut your family room in about half? Make part of it a mud room? There seems to be a natural line to create that flow and that room. I just don’t know what that does to your screened room?

Or, can you take up some room in your garage to make a mud room? Or move that entry into the house from the garage and make a room in back of the garage and use up the vestibule too, to make it?

Lastly the wall across from coming in the garage door, could you do a wardrobe type system, like you see on ikea? To store shoes and coats but look like furniture?

@ ykindschi I think it would be ideal if we could split the current family room into two, because you're right, there is this natural divide. We could then use the back half as the mudroom and the front half for homework or my husband's office or something.

The main difficulty with this is that we have this vaulted ceiling and architectural beams that run the length of the room. My husband really likes this feature and would be sad to lose it. We would also lose a lot of natural light that comes in from the french doors in the back of that room.

Consider removing and permanently closing off the door from the garage to the dining room and require that all traffic into the house from the garage go through the screened porch and create your storage space for boots/shoes and coats and hats and umbrellas and back packs in the corner nearest the kitchen window.

I can't tell the dimensions of the garage and I don't know if you can move anything around, but...

To solve the mudroom dilemma, could you move the stairs to the top of the vestibule and put a door in there? Then, you could expand the vestibule over the area where the stairs were (and maybe even the entire width of the vestibule - perhaps the vestibule could even be a little longer). Put in some cubbies/bench/closet and then you have a narrow mudroom to drop boots and shoes.

You can't split the Family Room in half. You'll end up with a 10' x 10'-ish Family Room! Useless.

Ignoring budget...I'd move the door to the Family Room toward the right wall (by the entrance to the screened porch). This is where the budget gets a beating...that means reconfiguring the kitchen. But it gives you a straight shot from the garage door, and you could steal less space from the Family Room and build 7 cubbies.

But, ultimately, you've got a boatload for room. Two office/study rooms and 3 public gathering spaces is a gracious plenty.

If it weren't for the fireplace, I'd suggest dumping that family room altogether and putting a big mudroom there and the laundry and the half bath and demoing both of them and move the study door to where the toilet is now. That would also give you better room for the kitchen table.

Yes, Claire, I was thinking it would give you the extra space for the dining table and allow you to take some space from the FR for a mudroom. But the flooring change will make that a no-go.

The main options I see left to get you a mudroom in a useful space is to take over a portion of the existing screen porch (blue) or add a bump out (red). Obviously the blue option is the most cost-effective as the roof and footings are already in place, but you would lose a good portion of your screen porch. Switching around some of the function of a couple rooms as suggested will help too...

And if the light comes from the back of you house, to keep as much light as possible coming into that space, I might use interior transoms on both sides of the mudroom.

Things to do now; move hubby's back office to the dining room, move dining room to the family room, move breakfast table to the front study. Gather your budget and close the new office door into the kitchen. Then open a back door out the garage, add a walkway to the deck and a new door into the mud/play room. Later on you can indulge in some beautiful new furniture for the living room to become a sitting room or library for entertaining guests.

can you carve out some space by creating a longer area of entry in the garage, moving stairs to end, adding hooks on the backyard wall and making a small walk-in area for coats, etc? I can't tell how much room you have in that right side stall for taking space from parking a car, etc... This is crude mark-up in photos, but hopefully you can tell the relocated placements.

I agree that your fireplace room sounds like the most interesting space, so losing any of that to mudroom would not be advantageous.

I only browsed the comments so may be repeating something here. My biggest problem with this floor plan is that the kitchen is buried in the middle of the house with no natural light, and basically acts as a big hallway.

So...what about: 1) moving the family room to the den; 2) creating a mudroom adjacent to the screened porch and garage; 3) pushing the wall with the bay window out flush with the dining room wall below and creating the kitchen in this space and the dining room, with lots of windows on the left side of the plan; 4) moving the dining room to the living room space, across the entry hall from the relocated kitchen; 5) leave the study where it is for a quiet "away" room; and 6) leave the office where it is furthest away from the rest of the house.

@ cd7733, Thats an interesting idea. How much space do I need for a built-in banquette? Not sure how accurate my floor plan is. I have 49" between the edge of the kitchen counter and the opening to the sunken den.

@ ykindschi Until this morning I would have said that was not possible. My husband parks on that side of the garage because his car is smaller and my minivan won't fit. If we extend the platform a bit and add walls, it will be a tight squeeze for my car. That said, I rearranged some junk in the garage today and I can juuuust barely squeeze in with my minivan and close the garage door if I need to. I'd have to really plan on the space to see if I could fit cubbies in there, and also figure out how to heat it. The garage gets so cold in the winter here that no one would stop to take boots off unless it was more comfortable. But it's a possibility.

@ RappArchitecture You hit the nail on the head. There is very little natural light in the kitchen. We have a tiny window but outside is blocked by two walls, so it does stay dark during the day. I've added lots of lights.

Can you clarify: With your step 2, where do you envision the mudroom? Inside the current family room? How would that work with the beams and the vaulted ceiling?

In the rearranged plan, what happens to the current kitchen? Is it just the hallway? Or is it all opened up into one giant kitchen? I'm very intrigued although I suspect my pockets aren't as deep as some of your clients.

@Claire

I think you could easily fit a 16.5” depth backless bench and a 30” wide table (total combined width of table & bench 46.5”). This would give a couple inches of clearance for tucked in chairs opposite the bench.

Some ideas which use all your rooms. I've (optionally) opened a new door that creates a traffic path that keeps people from passing through your kitchen on the way to the rest of the house. Add a table and your mud room can double as a spot for messy crafts etc. The TV room is away from the stairs, or if the kids are doing crafts the mud room is also away from the stairs. The only structural change would be the new doorway, and an easy-to-clean floor in the new mud/craft/messy play room.

Claire, yes the mudroom would be where the right side of the family room is now. The kitchen would be where the left side of the family room (with the pushed out wall) and the dining room is now. Most of the space where the kitchen is now would be circulation, although the kitchen could push into this area as well. Perhaps a walk-in pantry might fill part of this space.

Close off the door from garage to family room and add a door from garage to the screened-in porch - it's practically begging for it. Porch = mudroom. Voila.

@ course411, I'll have to give this a bit more thought. At the least it would involve turning the screened-in porch into a three-season room. It can get pretty cold here in MA. Not sure how excited kids will be about taking off hats and boots outside...

Claire Any comments on my suggestion above? If you omit the optional new interior door opening, you just need to move furniture.

@partim, A lot of this may work well. We actually do have toy storage in the closet you mentioned already. It's out of the way and keeps the little kids from getting into everything. Once the new floor goes in to the sunken den, I'm going to try moving everything around and playing with the layout and I'll give yours a go to see how it works in person. Thank you!

In the 32 years I've lived in my house, the use of our rooms changed a lot. it's good to keep an open mind about spaces! Let us know how it works out.