How about something like this? It does involve changing doorways & windows. Increase the opening to the Front Hallway to 9'4" Eliminate the angled wall to the FR Increase the window width to 6' to maximize the backyard view This gives you: A fabulous view of the backyard while prepping (most of the time in the Kitchen, 70%, is spent prepping) Visitors (or you!) can gaze out on the backyard while seated at the island Visitors entering your home will see the backyard from the front door. However, a drawback is the sink will also be visible. But, if you get deep sink, you should be able to hide those dirty dishes! (This is the one time I might actually suggest *gasp* a raised counter! It might help some since people will be at a bit of a distance away when entering the house. Of course, if they come into the kitchen it won't, but then nothing will anyway. You also won't have a big expanse of work space on the island anyway b/c of the sink.) You have 76" of prep space (52" + 24") in a prime location...b/w the range & refrigerator and across from the sink Refrigerator & MW are on the periphery so they're accessible from the Kitchen as well as the FR and the outside. Snackers coming from the FR & outside will not get in the way of those working in the Kitchen. Eliminating the FR wall gives you more clearance for going into the backyard from the Front Hallway. It also provides a view of the backyard from the FR. Increasing the width of the doorway to the Front Hallway gives you more seating clearance. Drawback: No pantry space. There also seems to be a lot of wasted space in front of the slider...an area about 72" x 88". It would be nice if there was a way to put a shallow pantry in that area. So....what do you think?

You didn't ask, but I have some comments about the rest of the house. Which way is north? All the jogs in the front will make for a very expensive build, and I don't know that you gain a lot from them. If you could straighten out the guest room/study/entry/dining room wall, you'd save a ton. What is your climate? You have a tiny closet at the rear entry, and no coat closet at the front. No raincoats where you live? We live in coat/boot/mitten country, and I like having a bench near the doors, for putting on boots and shoes. You don't have room for that at either entry. How many people will live in the house? What's in the basement? Do you need both a full guest bath and a powder room? Your garage entry looks cramped, and could benefit from some more space - but the laundry room is huge, and you could steal space from it. The master bath doesn't have room (as drawn) for 2 sinks. You have no storage in this bathroom for an extra towel or roll of TP. Do you plan to put that in the master closet? The closets in the laundry have a lot of inaccessible space, the way the doors are drawn. Where will the washer and dryer go? It's best to have the dryer on an outside wall, so it can vent directly outside. You devote a lot of space for a dining room you don't plan to use much, and the study is tiny. What are your plans for that room? If you will spend much time there, I'd steal space from the generous guest room for the study, or move the entry and stairs to the right and steal from the dining room. Now, for the kitchen. The way the rear of the house is configured, you won't get much direct sunlight in the living areas, even if they face south. I would definitely plan for skylights or solar tubes in the kitchen and great room, and spend plenty of time working on a lighting plan. Most folks here are big on using drawers as much as possible. My favorite advice for kitchen planning is to figure out where you are going to put things in the new space: potholders, plastic containers, cooking utensils, pots and pans, glasses, dishes, spices, small appliances, etc. Things should be near their point of use. If you have more than one person in the kitchen, you may be bumping butts, if one is at the stove and the other at the sink - but aisle width may solve that. Will you have a microwave? Where will that go? With the range on an inside wall, it will have to vent through the ceiling. Make sure your vent hood has a large enough fan to get the air outside - and provide for make-up air, if necessary.

For a while I was in love with a house that had essentially that same kitchen -- and the kitchen is the reason I moved on. Without being able to see the whole house plan, I suspect the problem here is the kitchen's location. It is placed in such a way that it must function as kitchen PLUS hallway, and that just doesn't function well when you're talking about the hardest-working room in the whole house. My husband and I cook, but we don't cook together. So our preference is a smallish kitchen with everything in reach and no "pig paths" through the work space. We tried to relocate the garage entry door to the other side of the kitchen, thinking that it'd be okay to have an entrance area there on the side by the refrigerator. BUT that cut off all access to the bedroom, which was in the same position as the bathroom you're showing. If you love the rest of the house and are determined to fix this kitchen, I wish you luck. I'd suggest you focus on these things: - You want to enter the kitchen and come to storage first: That is, you want your pantry and your refrigerator to be the first things you encounter. This means you aren't carrying things back and forth across the work space. - You want your sink (and in a kitchen this size, two sinks don't make sense) to be centrally located so you can use it for both prep and clean up. - You want a good, uninterrupted prep space (preferably facing outward) between the storage and the sink, and you want garbage next to it. - You don't want walkways separating work areas. Not only are people going to walk through, you're going to spill things as you move them from one work space to another.

Mrs Pete, it may not be likely that both will need wheelchairs, but pretty likely both will need walkers Walkers are a much more realistic concern, but needing them at the same time may or may materialize; my mother and stepfather are both 77 -- he uses a walker outside the house, but she can still hike half a day with a pack on her back. Aging doesn't come to us evenly. Think about the likely progression of mobility loss and how walkers might fit into your life -- having been a caretaker for my grandmother, I have some insight into this: - When people experience mobility issues with aging, they tend to need a cane first only when they leave the house ... then they need the cane inside the house too. A walker is a step-up from the cane, and people tend to first need the walker only when they leave the house ... then perhaps all the time in the house too. - One thing that helped my grandmother tremendously was owning TWO walkers. She had a typical walker inside the house ... AND she had a outside walker with larger wheels that was better in the yard, which she stored in the garage. She had only one step leading down to the garage, and she had sturdy grab bars on both sides of the door. Even if she was alone, she could safely transfer from the house to the garage ... and the second walker was waiting for her. Especially in her later years, she was not able to lift the walker from the house /over the step /into the garage by herself. - A second thing that helped her tremendously was having a "storage spot" for her walker inside the house -- this was very useful in the days before she used the walker all the time. She had a breezeway between the house and the garage, and it was ideal for storing the walker. - Still talking about walkers: my grandmother had a double garage, and I was always glad she had a single double door (instead of two smaller doors). I was her main mode of transportation, and when I went to pick her up, she'd have the garage open for me, and I'd park smack-dab in the middle. This meant we had loads of space for her to walk around the car with the car doors wide open -- this was nice in the rain. - If you're concerned about walkers, this is more reason than ever to avoid the idea of one spouse needing to walk arouuunnnd the bed to reach the rest room. - If you think you might want a scooter in the future, consider where it would be stored ... and make sure you have an electrical outlet in the right spot. - Bathrooms are often the site of falls, so it's essential that you have plenty of grab bars. Go ahead and put them in while you're building -- it's easier than waiting 'til you need them. And adding them can be problematic: my uncle installed grab bars in our shower for my grandmother, and later we had mold behind the tile. If they'd been installed properly when the shower was being built, that likely wouldn't have happened. - If you're thinking that you might one day need an in-home helper, it'd be smart to design one of your guest rooms with that person in mind. Fully separate for privacy, adult-sized closet, private bath -- and a parking space (though if you needed an in-home helper, you might no longer maintain a car for yourself). - My now-nurse daughter did home health care in college, and she says that the #1 thing people needed was help with bathing. So consider a bathroom that would allow space for a helper in the shower. The #2 thing she did was meal prep; for example, she'd chop things, which the patient could later cook on his or her own. - If you do one day need home health care, remember something my daughter said: she had two clients -- brother and sister who lived together -- who scheduled her on alternate days. This meant she'd come help the brother with bathing on Monday and Wednesday, and she'd do their food prep. She came back on Tuesday and Friday to do the same for the sister. This meant the siblings got the benefit of food prep four days a week; they used their insurance benefits wisely. She liked those clients. Okay, I got off-topic, but -- as I said -- I do have some experience on this topic. I think you could take at least two feet out of the living room, and maybe two feet out of the kitchen depending on clearances. Definitely -- some space could be eliminated at the foot of the bed too. You want enough space, obviously, but more-more-more is just more to maintain and heat/cool. and to the landfill. Do you have to haul your own garbage in this rural area? We had that issue for a long time, and it makes me appreciate the garbage service we have now. Anyway, have you planned a convenient space for garbage to be stored (we used to have such trouble with possums getting into it), and is that spot convenient to the pick-up truck's parking spot? You can cut down on the work with good planning. We will both be working until we're carted off. I love what I do. Besides, we have to pay for the %#@$*(! house, right? That sounds a bit like a chicken-and-egg scenario. There is no uber in the entire county. My farm is in a remote area as well, but even we are starting to get such services -- and the county provides a van service for the elderly and disabled (of course, my grandmother wouldn't use it because that's for poor people -- not true, but she wouldn't use it). My county actually has LOADS of resources for the elderly -- definitely research what's in your area before you need it. For example, when I called and told the garbage collectors she was over 90, they started coming into her garage and taking her cans to the street /back again. And Meals on Wheels was great for her -- and not just for the food; she had a short visit five days a week, which she enjoyed. I know almost everyone here disagrees about this part, but I still prefer the laundry in the mudroom part of the house rather than near my bedroom or my office. I asked a family member who is older and also lives on a large rural property whether she'd consider the laundry near the bedroom suite, and she gave me a look of horror! This is a bit off-topic, but my husband and I find that we are doing much less laundry now. He's already retired, and I am home for the summer. One of our adult children still lives at home, but she does her own laundry. We no longer wash loads and loads and loads every week. At the same time, every family has their idiosyncratic way of moving through the day and managing space--in other words to each his own! Yes, but many of the things that're pointed out here are not matters of tomato-tomato (a phrase that sounds better than it looks in type); rather, they are things that don't mesh with your stated goals. For example, you say you want a house that will support aging-in-place, but you have one master bath that requires a lengthy trek around the bed. This isn't an "each to his own" -- it's a potential issue that can be tweaked to meet your goals. that is gorgeous staircase! Very nice! I do worry about the cost, though. Well, that's realistic. I like a tight work triangle, but i cook a lot and bake a lot, and after living with the restrictions of my current space, dictated by walls that couldn't be moved, i'd like more room to spread out. But, it also doesn't have to be crazy large. A medium-sized kitchen works out best. "Too small" brings obvious problems, but "crazy large" isn't a benefit because it adds extra steps and invites clutter. You want to Goldilocks all your spaces, starting with your kitchen. Honestly, i don't mind cleaning bathrooms! I don't understand that at all! I hate cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming. This stair is cool, too, but i’d prefer less jagged I mean less staggered windows. That one's a bit much for me. The "jagged" is too much for me, I mean. It's also good to have space on one side to help with any transfer assistance that one may need at some point. A potential danger: strokes are sadly common, and they affect one side of a person's body. If you have grab bars on only one side, you run the risk of having bars on your "weaker side". I'd enlarge the shower to easily allow a shower chair. Absolutely essential. I have a blind dog I just lost my little blind dog at Christmas -- I miss him every single day. I've finally stopped turning around and expecting him to be at my feet. but the basement pantry / dog grooming seems like something that you'd want accessible without stairs for a variety of reasons. Agree. With aging-in-place a concern, everything you need for everyday life should be on one level. Guest rooms can go up/down. For example, we have sliding doors from our bedroom out to our hot-tub for easy access. Even if you never use those doors "as anticipated", I think it's good to have an exterior door for fire safety ... if your bedroom isn't near another door. I already mentioned my daughter who worked home health during college. She says that home health places will reject you (and this essentially can force you into a nursing home) if you don't have convenient fire-safe exits. I feel like I'm in a tent, looking out at the woods outside our windows. That sounds pleasant!