Whether his wife ends up using it or not, Mike has himself a nice man cave. I think changing the position of the ladder is a good move--going up, there is now a feeling of spaciousness as you approach the loft instead of the wall, there's one less open side and the ladder isn't in the middle of the small room, the desk is better on that side, and continuing it as an L under the stairs now seems more useable. It's a nice one-person room for the activities he has mentioned that he does, and his wife will probably end up doing her art work in the basement. Anne

Thank you everyone for your time and great feedback. Let me try to answer some of your questions and clarify a few things… The kitchen and current dining space combined is 11’5” deep by 23’8” wide. Our budget is around 20K and we could and are willing to do some plumbing or move a gas line for our oven/stove. We recently replaced our dishwasher and oven/stove. Our fridge is still fine but could be replaced if necessary (but we don’t want to spend 6-10K on a new counterdepth fridge). So the budget would be primarily for cabinets, countertops, any plumbing or gas line work, etc. We are one of the largest houses in the neighborhood so we aren’t wanting to spend a ton on the kitchen and overprice the house for the area, but for the size of our house our current kitchen is not working (we only have one drawer for silverware and then a small 12” drawer for utensils…it’s just not very user friendly or functional) and needs redone. We tinkered with flipping the current kitchen and dining space but run into some problems. 1) The large 72” wide picture window in the dining space is only 29” up from the floor, so it would be below the cabinet and countertop. The smaller 36”x36” above the current sink would likely need to be altered to fit the space more appropriately. We have stucco so it is a lot more involved and costly to change window sizes or placement leaving us pretty much stuck with the present windows. 2) We have soffits above our current kitchen cabinets that we were hoping to be able to open up but we realized the one along the top wall over the sink is filled with plumbing from our 2nd floor main bathroom as well as HVAC. Too costly to move for our budget so it would have to stay and look out of place all alone over there without cabinets or something else to help camouflage it. The one along the shorter wall can be taken out and we plan to do so in order to have taller cabinets on that wall. There was a wall between the kitchen and current dining room that we took out (only a small 30” deep stud wall remains next to the fridge). We have a standard fridge and would like to try to decrease the amount of space it takes and projects from the wall. We realized there is a double wall on the right wall in-between the kitchen and bathroom. We have decided to move the fridge there because we can recess it back 3-4” making it appear closer to a counterdepth fridge. Our current “living room” acts more like a family room for us, but we also just refinished our basement in the last year and that area serves more as our present family room. Since it is a large room, it would be a bit awkward to put our kitchen table there and have some extra space in the living room that leaves us wondering how it would be used. Our current “family room” with the fireplace is a room we don’t use because our fireplace isn’t functioning. It is merely a room we walk through in order to access our backyard and why we thought taking some space from the room for a mudroom might be a good option. Our current kitchen table is large (40x72) with a bench and 4 tall/high back chairs. It takes up a lot of space in the current “dining room” space and why we were tinkering with a smaller table for the kitchen and moving the larger table to a new dining room in the back. However, it does make sense that we would likely no longer use that second table and would be a wasted space. @emilyam819 Yes, we will be removing the small stud wall by the current fridge to allow more freedom in the design. Please see note above about the wall removal and possible fridge relocation. @latifolia Our current dining area is the left part of the open space in front of the large picture window. We are considering putting a smaller table there so we can still have a place to eat yet have more room for cabinets and then moving our large kitchen table to the back room with the fireplace. It currently is an unused space as the fireplace is nonfunctional and why we are considering making a mudroom back there as well. But we understand dining rooms often go unused so maybe that area is better served as a den or office space like you suggested.Our laundry room is in the basement as we have a laundry chute and don’t have the room to put it on the 1st or 2nd floors. @Cherie “Too bad you can't remove the walls.”—I know, right!?! It’s so frustrating! But we have sulked about it too long and need to accept it and move on, but it is such a bummer in our books!

IMO remove the cabinet by the stroller and install anice big armoire for coats shoes etc. As for anything else the kids take it to their rooms ours did it for years in a samll house .You have a ton of space right there for all kinds of storage .

II like the desk entirely hidden behind that wall, but this is better for Zoom calls. You need to be facing a window for the natural light to be on your face. You can use a ring light on cloudy/rainy days but if it is sunny, use the natural light. That also leaves the wall to your left for a new office storage piece like a credenza or file cabinet. If the glare from those windows bothers you when working, get some custom bamboo shades at Lowe's in a shade that picks up the caramel color in the rug. A new ceiling lamp and a brass floor lamp for the corner by the sofa will look great.Move the round brass table to the entry side of the sofa for a bit of bling to be seen as one comes into the space. Also add a lamp to your desk. Try not to use the ceiling light, for a warm and cozy feeling. Ceiling lights are great for seeing how to clean the space, but they do not enhance the ambiance unless they are interesting to look at. And speaking of visual interest, the map isn't that. If you need it for your work tasks, move it close to the desk. I would be something fun and colorful to hang 5" above the sofa. Don't forget a trash basked if you don't have a shredder.