I would like to see even more of the existing layout and how the different levels relate to each other ... to pool, 'down' to game room, 'up' to bedroom, to garage, etc. Is the pool on the same level as the existing kitchen ? Is it right by the house or across the yard ? Is there any type of patio, covered porch, or deck off of the back of the house now ? Where does the driveway run - do guests park by the front door and come in that way, or does driveway have them parking by the garage entry ? Do the stairs at the front door go up ? Up to what ? Where does the door go under the stairs at the end ? Also, what are the dimensions of your existing furniture and any appliances you will be re-using ? What about items you are planning to purchase ? I am concerned that you may not be allowing enough room for clearance around your breakfast table because I do not know it's dimensions. Take the size of your table and add a minimum of 36" on all 4 sides just to edge/slide past or scoot around seated diners. You need 44" on the sides to allow someone to walk past a seated diner. In other words, if your table is 42"x60" and you add 36" to each side, you need a minimum of 9'6"x11'0" totally clear area just to scoot around seated diners. I am thinking something totally different than the plans you have shown. To get you thinking outside the box . . . . How about if you carve a niche out of the existing LR for a more formal entry with walls and doorways so the first thing a guest sees when they walk in the home is not the mess in the kitchen. Use the current Piano room as the family room overlooking the pool area. Put the baby grand in the current dining room and the dining table where the butler is currently. The table will run long ways from the front of the house to the rear. Open this new baby grand/dining space up as much as possible into one long room or, even better IMO ... depending on the size of your dining table, move the wall a couple feet so that the new dining end is longer and the baby grand end is smaller and they are separated by a wall with a wide doorway or arched opening. If the new dining space was 11x15 or 11x16 instead of 11x13, you could easily have a dining table 4x7 that would seat 8 and have room to pass around the end of the table to the doorway into the new family room. I imagine the new baby grand room to house the piano and some limited seating. A much better view when a guest first walks into the house. : ) Where you currently have the living room, it will now be somewhat smaller because of losing space to the foyer. Use the old living space for a combination keeping room with breakfast, desk/homework, sitting room space. The remainder of the current living room along with the current kitchen/breakfast will be the new kitchen. In my experience, most people congregate around the kitchen at parties and gatherings. This layout would make the kitchen and keeping room one big space which would be a great area for entertaining. Between the new kitchen and the new dining room (old butlers) will be a wet bar and storage space similar to what you have shown on option B. Be sure to also carve out room for a coat closet, vacuum storage, toys storage, and a designated space where mail/bags/junk, etc can land very close to the garage entry (but be easily hidden by cabinet doors or something if someone comes over). Depending on the pool and patio location, it could be nice to turn the double windows at the end of the of the old butler/new dining into French doors opening onto the patio. It could also be very nice if this was opening to a covered Lanai or screened porch.

Haha, a lot of guessing from afar. I lived in Santa Mo for many years. I'm a bit north now. I've owned several houses and have done remodels a few hundred miles to the north. But I haven't built any houses. A close friend did a massive remodel of a 3000 sq ft house on the Balboa Peninsula a couple of years ago and I talked with him a lot about what he was doing along the way. But my advice is that of a former neighbor and homeowner, not someone with firsthand experience. I think building to code should be just fine. As for "leaky", no. I wouldn't allow your contractor (or the architect) and their work to be sloppy but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Tell him you're looking for quality work but it doesn't need to be as if it were in the Midwest or East. In the design, be sure to have enough west and east facing windows for cross ventilation. A few opening skylights can be useful to vent out hotter air. A heat recovery ventilator is overkill, you can open windows the majority of the year, even on heating days, as you know. My friend in Newport uses his A/C pretty regularly and he's got the beach one block in one direction and the bay one block in the other. so I think you would use yours too. I don't think having a minisplit unit for 1000 feet downstairs would give you the kind of air circ you'd want to have. I'd opt for conventional heat and A/C, and make sure you have enough return air coverage upstairs, that will be your real cooling target and you need enough ducting and airflow there and back to the hardware for it to work well. Good luck.

I would likely keep the peninsula because I have loved my U shaped kitchens, but put it at regular table height with a deeper overhang than standard counters. That will allow you a place to eat or work while seated which may be useful as you age, but allow for some under counter storage, important in a small space such as this. I have yet to experience a comfortable regular height counter seating area due to my short legs and the stools being built for larger folks, and have at times resorted to eating standing instead, so I am biased. It sounds like your main dining area can be outdoors. I second the suggestion to be sure that the bathroom as well as width of hallways and doorways are accessible for wheelchair and walker accessiblity as that may allow you to remain in your home for longer. I might do some tweaking to get rid of the hallway to make access easier, and perhaps change the bathroom entry to the end of the kitchen. As someone who has watched two sets of relatives unable to remain at home due to insufficient accessibility as well as now being confronted with an illness that puts us in a similar position, you won’t regret making everything accessible. Also consider the indoor to outdoor transitions and how easily they can be managed with mobility issues.

One of the reasons we, and most of our neighbors in this part of rural western Canada, tend to prepare for worst case scenarios is that we can't count on uninterrupted electrical service (usually because of weather, or birds) and don't have high-speed broadband. Our internet service is also prone to weather-related outages. We have an incubator filled with duck eggs at the moment and the generator at the ready, since we're expecting some heavy wet spring snow tomorrow, the kind that takes down trees and power lines. Our rural area of the province was one of the last to get broadband, and while we still marvel at the speed and ease, it's nowhere near as fast or reliable as it is in the larger urban areas. Right now, one of us works in town during the day, and three spend most of their time, all day and through the night, with farm chores and calving. If all five of us were home, with at least three out of the five of us with pandemic-related school and/or work at home requiring internet, we'd be totally out of luck. At the moment, I'm the one who's mostly using internet, dealing with orders for beef, lamb, broilers, eggs, and heritage wheat. One thing that I haven't heard mentioned in the past month or so is the high cost of cell phone service in Canada compared to other countries, https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-canadian-cell-phone-bills-are-among-the-most-expensive-on-the-planet