LL: I love pink and green together. Especially those particular shades. Your idea would look incredible built out, but you are adding square footage again! ;) And oh, the sunroom got bigger... I love that! Mrs. Pete: Again, some good ideas. I think we are overbathed too, and trying to figure out how to remedy that. The master bath is a "split" bath, with a shower in one and a tub in the other, so really there is just an extra toilet. But the plumbing is an issue. My hubby really wanted his own "zone" away from all the girly stuff, so I'd love to accommodate his few requests, since I feel like I am getting so much! And I'd like to have the girls and boys have their own bathing space, however small. I suppose I could get rid of the powder room, but I've been advised against it and told that it will be hugely useful to have one in addition to the guest bath... especially when we have extended stay (over a month) grandparents stay. But the guest room/bath layout by LL from earlier might work really good as a dual purpose bath. Right about the fireplace, just a whim and likely will get cut. But I love the idea! Good toy closet ideas... I have some big plans for the storage, and yes, it will likely serve as additional linen storage/sleeping back storage, etc. and I think I will use your idea about the key! Fabulous. The "bump out" in the boys bath/closet area is actually the second gable coming off of the house above the guest area. The front elevation would look realllly weird to us without the continuous and prominent gable, and the designer is trying to get all the boxes to "line" up structurally for various reasons. I'm not sure saving 20-30 square feet here would really save us money, but I will look into it. The deadline: Big sigh. You are right of course. We can't actually "build" until next spring (winter creek restrictions) but the grading permit (and bidding) needs to be filed asap to get through fish in game during that time. We have a site approval deadline though that we are trying to utilize and it is already a few years old, we had to extend it already and it is on it's last leg, so to speak. The lot escrow took much longer than expected. So... do I make quick decisions and live with some "imperfect" designs and save a huge amount of money? Or do I wait for the perfect design, add 100K to the cost to build, risk a much higher interest rate, a higher cost per square foot (already a 30% jump for 8 months ago!) and live in a rental for another 3 years :(? (re-applying for site approval is expensive and opens up a slew of environmental restrictions that have to be updated and re-done which could actually prevent the build). I think the county would love to turn this back into agricultural, non-buildable land. We decided it's not worth the risk to wait. But... the benefit is my sweet husband is being very accommodating right now. :))) And... I have all this great help and support. The market here is such that we couldn't find anything close to fitting our needs without a major remodel (a nightmare if you homeschool) and addition, and even those were going for obscene amounts and cash only offers. Unique land situation for sure, but I'm still happy to have it! My biggest fear is that we wouldn't get a good basic first design to start with, but I think we are almost there, with a few tweaks. Once a builder looks at it next week, we should have some more cost saving ideas to implement too. I also think I can fiddle with the kitchen layout a little longer, since it won't change the footprint of the house.

Thanks for the responses folks...I do need to learn to think outside the box. Delta Breeze - I'm planning to put a tall hutch to the right of the front door, and my writing desk/hutch to the left of it. I do like the idea of the bookcase to the right of the window. I'm going to move it though, center the table and see how that idea works. I think the right side chair will be too cramped. I'm beginning to think the table being off-center from the window might be okay. Les917 - I had thought by doing the lopsided curtain/swag I could make an illusion that the table was centered over the imaginary window! The table would stay where it is now, it would just look like there was more window to the left. I love all the ideas you offered, and I do hope to swag the light once the furniture placement is set. Rob333 Thanks for the link. I can't wait to try it. This isn't really a dining room; it's just a breakfast/tea area so I can take advantage of the one bright, sunny window during our long, S.A.D., North Dakota winters. There will be a small eat-at island in the kitchen and the "real" dining room will be set up out on the four-seasons sunporch...eventually! GardenWebber (Love the name!) I think you're right about the table being too close to the wall. Here's a poor drawing I have of the room. It shows the dimensions. It's rather narrow and cramped. The room is just under 12' wide, about 24' long. The opening between the L/R and kitchen is just over 8' wide. The wall with the short bookcase is about 40" wide. The area between the front door and the corner of the south wall is 30" wide.

Thanks for the ideas and questions. Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I’m reworking my plan and really trying to take Marcolo’s ice-water-stone-fire into consideration while doing it. I’m probably not going to be able to do much more work on this until after Thanksgiving. I will probably start a new discussion with my new layout sometime after the holiday. I’ll post a link here when I do so, hopefully, you all will pop into the new discussion and give me more of your great insights. Individual responses to you all, below. I fear my responses sound argumentative but I don’t mean them that way. I just don’t understand where you are coming from and possibly need more clarification to help me see what I’m missing. Thanks again: hollysprings said: It's confusing as to what area is ''kitchen''. Is it the laundry area? If so then more than half of your appliances arent actually in the kitchen. Is it the area at the top right? Same thing. You've got stuff that you need that isn't where you need it. Either way, I don't think that takng down the wall is doing you any favors if it leaves the whole house so ill defined. @hollysprings: Right now the laundry room is just a big catch-all room which also tends to collect clutter (which drives me batty) and traffic route. If I had a use for the extra space in the laundry area, it would make sense to keep it but I don’t. I don’t sew or do any crafts that would require me sitting in a separate room to do. At 8X16 it's really just a big, wide hallway that is almost as big as my cramped 15.5x10.5 kitchen (see photo in one of my posts above). So it makes more sense to me to eliminate the big hall and put that space in the kitchen where I need more of it. Or do you mean the wall we’re taking down in the picture above, between kitchen and dining room? I don’t understand why that’s not a good thing. The kitchen is too small to expand or make many changes to the current layout, feels cramped, and the dining room is too small to be very useful either. It seems that I then just have two rooms that both function poorly. What am I missing? ---- aloha2009 said: Have you considered removing the entry wall also, since semi-imposing on access to the front door would happen only when you are seating a full 12 people (3-4x/year), I think that would open up some options for you. It would really open up the entryway, unless you are against that. I'm not sure why you are against having your stove be a focal point. Many, many,kitchens make the stove/vent the focal point which looks great! My current kitchen the frig is the focal point. I've yet to find one kitchen pic with that. I understand your love of your windows. I personally am going to add 8-12' of new windows in our kitchen into our medium sized kitchen. With or w/o the new windows I have a functioning kitchen. There's give and take in any kitchen remodel. @aloha2009: I’m not fond of removing the entry wall. I really dislike front doors that just open into the house itself without some kind of separation from living and entry areas. I’d also like to avoid that because I really like the original wood used on the entry side of that wall. It would make me sad to see it go. The prior owners already removed too much of it as it is, imho. I could make the stove/hood the focal point or I could have nice, lighted cabinets in that same location that show off some of my fun collection of serving pieces, pitchers, and my colorful “in-between” dishes. If I have a choice, I’d rather have the latter. I’m not big on appliances as focal points in general. I was really striving for more of an “un-kitchen” look, as much as practical while still having a functional layout. ---- laughable said: It will be really helpful to see your plan on graph paper. It would also be helpful if you labeled your graph paper with letters and arrows in reference to the photos taken. Label your photos: A, B, C, etc. Then label the drawings where the pictures were taken with an arrow showing the direction you were looking when you shot the picture. Like this: A---->, B---->, C----> to help us get a better feel for things. : ) I've popped on and off a few times trying to see where your thread might go and to see if I could offer any help. The one thing that comes to mind is to ask if you can put the washer and dryer anywhere else since it seems to be eating a major portion of your kitchen. Can it go where your coat closet is, or in a bathroom, or in a part of a bedroom, or in the basement (and install a laundry chute)? Anywhere but in the kitchen, LOL. We'll be able to help you more with the graph paper version, surely. @ laughable: After T-Day, I’ll work up something like you suggest with photos and such. Thanks for that suggestion. I’m surprised that the laundry area is bothering people so much. I just don’t see it as an issue. I have no place else on this floor to move it. If we put it in the coat closet, we’d have no place for coats and I see no good place to build a new closet. The bathroom isn’t big enough. I LOVE having it there as it’s close to the bedrooms, close to the kitchen where I spend a fair amount of time, so I never have any laundry piling up. If I moved it in the basement, it would be inconvenient and I know I’d keep forgetting to move the laundry along. Plus, it would mess up the Man Cave. Except for more pantry storage, which I don’t really need, I don’t see what else I would even use that space for. I mean, I guess some of the stuff I do now have in a cabinet in the basement could come up to a pantry area there but this is stuff I seldom use or things like the huge package of Costco paper towels which, because I don’t use them much, takes me about two years to go through. I’m just not convinced that the convenience of having seldom used items closer to kitchen outweighs the huge inconvenience of hauling laundry up/down stairs. Plus, I am in my late 50’s and we hope to age-out here. Carrying the laundry up/down may not be as easy when I’m 80 as it is now. Or maybe doing that will help keep me young, lol. If it helps, we are planning on putting a counter over w/d and then adding some louvered, bi-fold doors to cover the front. Does covering them up help make you more comfortable with placement?

Thank you Bev for giving me the visualization I've been lacking! It really helps! I agree that the colors In the painting have been giving me difficulty. I may try to move it into the DR or another room, but it is quite large, so I'm not sure. In any case, you have helped me feel bolder about getting started on this project. Thank you!! Chucksmom: I I00% agree that if you love something, it doesn't matter if it's "out". In my case, I do think I'm tired of the colors and need a change. Since the whole house needs painting, it seems like a good time to implement these changes. The chandelier was something I really loved for a long time, but I need a aimpler look. I have a friend who wants it and it will be perfect in her DR. Kippy: I've always thought it was strange that the furniture faces the stairs. Maybe it's partly why the room feels weird to me. That and the high ceilings make it feel cold. We actually never use that room other than when there are large gatherings that spill into that part of the house. We all congregate in the FR. Kitchen and backyard, though the cats like to curl up on the sofa!