So you have permission and the architect involved ?. Garages are not built to be living spaces and where I live they need to be ripped down and built as an addition so I need a bit more info. Can you post some exterior elevations too. The drawings are for me not helpful and I will say a pantry outside the work space of a kitchen is always poor kitchen design.

How does this relate to the rest of the house?

What direction does the bottom of the plan face?

Yes, the architect we are working with is the one who created the plans along with our contractor and we’re getting the permits and everything else shortly. The plan is to raise the floor to the same level as the rest of the house and vault the ceilings (there are currently trusses so we’re working through the structural component with the architect and contractor). The bottom of the plan faces outside where the driveway and detached garage are so the mudroom will be the most used entryway into the house, which is why we were thinking the current shape/orientation made sense so others coming through don’t have to walk through the whole mudroom and we’ll have hooks on the other outer wall to hang coats, etc. on. The top of the drawing is the rest of our house and the top right entry way will flow into the seating area of our kitchen. I agree, it would be nice to have a pantry within the working area of the kitchen but unfortunately there is no room as it was designed and the stairs to the basement take up any usable room for that addition. On the other side of the wall where the laundry closet is laid out is a small room with a wood burning fireplace that we’re not completely sure what to do with.

The space seems very awkward. I am confused. Will sliding glass doors remain between the room to the right and this space? There is an existing fireplace, but you are moving it to the left wall? Where will you place furniture in this room as you have it drawn? The laundry should be in the mud room, I would think. Or at least near a wall where there might be plumbing as water is necessary, no? You have a room behind this room with a fireplace that you don’t use? Why not? Can you post an AS IS floor plan of your entire home so that people can help. This plan wastes a lot of space and I truly don’t understand it.

To try and sprinkle a little sugar on my initial comment, this project does not look to be conceived very well. Going into detail, the Family Room is awkward and has unassigned space. The Laundry opening into the Family is not ideal (noise, humidity, loss of floor space in front, aesthetics, function). The Mudroom as a "room" and maybe even the entry point from outside. The constriction from the Kitchen into this room by using the existing sized doorway. I am not sure if there is an existing man door next to the overhead door, but the aesthetics of punched windows in the same plane as the door probably is not optimal.

Also, it seems the the amount of money being put into the project (Marvin Elevate windows, topping off the roof trusses to get a cathedral ceiling) does not match the layout and design effort.

It is a difficult task to begin with by converting a garage and make it seamless into an existing floor plan, not to mention the logistics of the slab being open at the door, often utility entrances, the driveway butting up to the house, etc, but I would think there can be an improvement to what is proposed so far.

Any suggestions to improve the space? The problem with the top middle and reason why we were going to do a laundry room and pantry on that wall is that our existing fireplace and chimney stick out about 3 feet, so it makes that space a bit awkward and a little unusable already. I also included our entire floor plans with an addition of where the fireplace is and the deck on the side of the house