Your plan is cut off at the top. Can you repost?

C H click on plan it enlarges although it is still too small to read

decoenthusiaste Thank you for all your good advice and your time!

Of course the baby is starting to crawl, so we’d like to have good space for him to move on 😊 but we also see the value in waiting and dreaming in the meantime. We also started ideabooks and figured that we’ll be able to do some things while we plan for others. That’s why we really appreciate the advice of the experienced Houzz-ers.

Now about plans some of which we are ready to implement right away and some for the future:

1. Structural change #1 we need will be actually returning the hallway from Master Bedroom back to where it used to be. This will resolve the issue of obnoxious draft in the Laundry Room from the heater above. That in its turn will leave us with a tiny LR or we might even move LR elsewhere (garage is an option.)

2. Now about the access to as well as the size of master WIC. You noticed it right away! That's exactly a HUGE minus in the layout and the reason we are thinking about actually moving it into another space and dedicating this current space to the Bathroom #3 adjacent to the Baby's Room (bedroom #2) and the LR. That will resolve another issue of not enough Bathrooms. They can be connected. Yes, we know, there are pros and cons to having bedroom/ laundry room together, but in our case it might work. The sewer and water are already there! Or we can make it possibly separate- with a door from that Bedroom #2 right into the newly formed bathroom, but not sure about this because of different reasons. That's structural change #2.

3. Structural change #3 We also see an option of moving WIC into the part of the current Dining Area (the door from the Master Bedroom is already there) while dedicating another part of current Dining Area for the Pantry Room that is VERY needed. Below you can see hand made changes to the plan :). This will resolve four issues: we get a Pantry (1), which will resolve the small sized Kitchen issue (2) and a bigger WIC (3) which will also mean that we don't have to go through the Master Bathroom (Hooray!) every time you need to change.

What do you think?

That leaves us with two options of having either front room for entertainment/ dining or having the family/ dining room multi-purpose space. Both are good options with garden views and a lot of available daylight, but there'd be a better natural flow from the Kitchen into the Family/ Dining multi-functional area adjacent to it which is also close to the patio/ garden entertainment/ BBQ area. With big windows these areas are very much interconnected and kind form a General Dining Indoor/ Outdoor Zone, including the Kitchen, Family/ Dining Room, BBQ area, and Patio with Garden. Any ideas?

There is still an issue with the entrance/ foyer area which right now is not organized at all. Should it be screened or zoned otherwise?

#2. As your family grows, I think you will appreciate a larger laundry over a 3rd bathroom. Can you use part of your proposed bath #3 to extend the laundry and bump out the wall into the baby's room some to make a closet for him? Consider a new design for the guest bathroom so it can also be entered from the baby's room. I think you'll need a tub for bathing him and a vanity. That hall closet can be incorporated into the bath footprint too so there's room for a tub and the door.

#3. That looks to be a pretty big pantry and WIC. Consider pullouts for the pantry when you reno the kitchen (see above.) That will still allow the "north" part of the dining room to be your WIC, and part of the "south" to be a closet opposite the guest bath, since you don't appear to have much storage.

You'll have to figure out how you'll actually live with a toddler. Will you entertain with dinner parties much? Will you need a separate "formal" dining room and living room, or can multi-purpose rooms work for you? Will you tend to dine casually most of the time? Would a table incorporated into an island that extended into the family room area be more your style? I think you may be evolving for a while, and children do change things!

https://www.houzz.com/photos/kitchen/query/island-attached-table/nqrw

As for making the garage a living area, that depends on your vehicle situation. Soon gas may be too high to justify multiple cars, so it could be an option. If you have photos of the interior entry, please post.

Dear decoentuhsiaste, first of all just wanted to thank you again!

Now to answer some of the questions:

#1 In the attic

#2 The laundry room is very important as it is already :) but thank you, you are right! The jury is still out there for the option of BR #3 and the LR in the Garage or the bigger LR. The closet in Baby Bedroom #2 is already there on the Guest Bathroom #2 wall. We are considering streamlining this Guest BR #2 eventually, but not sure if we should have the wall down between the toilet part and the tub/ sinks part of it. If we decide on adding a third BR, then it will make sense to also get rid of one of the 2 BR #2 entrance doors (and one more door between them. I know, too many doors which take away the space.)

#3 Totally agree about not enough Kitchen organization/ storage space

Again, we really appreciate what you do and help direct us and make think and answer these questions for ourselves!

@decoenthusiaste like deco said, how do you get into master walk in closet? Also where is sink(s)?

in the whole scheme of life, children crawl for a very short time. I would not revolve your entire design/priorities around that. We had different Floors for each child. Most not ideal for different reasons. They all are fine. For the first kid you scrub and make everyone sanitize their feet. lol. By the third, you know they are going to survive so you don’t worry about it. We barely had any baby gates for the third one! my how the outlook changes. Are the carpets such that you can give them a good scrub? Or too far gone? You could consider area rugs as a temporary solution? Or rugs for certain areas and don’t let baby crawl over entire house.

take a step back and look at the big picture. What are your home goals? Do you need a living room and family room? Sounds like you are getting overwhelmed with all that needs or could be done. (I do too.) Breathe. One step at a time. Set budget and work backwards. In a perfect world w unlimited budget, you’d do all this before you moved in ( or buy a house already done). Sounds like you can’t, so work w what you have.

as a side note, are you having two Sets of grandparents and guest friends all staying with you at the same time? One bath is fine for guests. That would be low priority for me.

Dear @Mamaham, thank you so much for your thoughtful post! That's experience :) speaking, somebody who knows a thing or two about child rearing.

As for the layout, we do have some answers and some we don't, but that makes us think about it. And yes, the carpeting HAS to go. Right now looking into what we need to do first since we are realists. So, just like you said, one step at a time. Thanks again!