Congratulations on the new home! This is probably not a suggestion you'll like, but... :-) Have you thought about trying to sell your entertainment center on Craigslist? You mention that TV watching is not the primary use of your room. You also are going to have a fireplace and I think you'd want to make that the focal point of the room and have the TV be secondary. With that entertainment center, it will probably be the focal point, fireplace secondary. If you sell the piece, you may be able to recoup some of the money you spent and have a piece custom built to fit the room. Since you said TV is not your primary function, you'd probably appreciate a piece with doors like in your picture from Houzz. We've found that many times a carpenter can build a custom cabinet, to your specs, for a small cost while they're building the house. If you just try to hire someone to do that while you're not building it can def cost more, but usually when they are already on-site those types of built-ins will cost less. Lastly, think about whether or not that piece of furniture is something you imagine being in your family for years and will never want to replace, and also won't break at any point. If it's not, I would be a little hesitant to build a room around it. Just a thought :-)

Hello again... I am still plugging away at this silly old house :) So I did go see Sarah Susanka last week, and it was really wonderful! I just agree so much with her thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. I came home with a renewed desire to REALLY try to make our current space work for our family, without adding on, at least on the main floor. I am also taking my husband to see her model home this weekend, so he can get a better understanding of some of her ideas--some of it is just a "feeling" you get from being in the space, rather than an idea that shows up on the floorplan, or "map" of the space... Anyway, my latest idea is to move my driveway entrance door and basement stairs to the back of the house. I see many advantages to doing this: ~ creates a rear entrance/family-foyer space at our primary entrance spot (I was greatly inspired by Mom23E's recent post on this and the ideas people shared...) ~ stairs down to basement here gives up access to an large unused space in our basement, under the kitchen, that used to be a laundry room, so has utility sink. Could be a great mudroom spot--lockers for sports gear, winter gear, school bags, etc. ~ moving the basement access from current location allows me to merge my kitchen/dining rooms, possibly even combining them? I do like having a formal DR, but we don't use it regularly, although we do have big family parties here, so it does get used, and when it does, it's the big table with both leaves in it, so I still need the space, but not an entire room. ~ sliding the kitchen toward the DR also makes the kitchen at an even level with the rest of the house, making it a bit less cut-off than it currently is. ~ I really do not want the basement stairs underneath our UP stairs b/c that will put the stairs right in the middle of our basement finished rec room area. If they instead go down under the current kitchen, it will give us good access to that space under the kitchen, which currently in unused also in part, b/c it is cut-off by the current location of the basement steps. ~I am a little afraid of losing all my light and windows and view of my backyard which I currently have in my kitchen. I can easily watch my little kids playing in the backyard, and I'd like to keep some of that view, if at all possible. But it is not by biggest priority. So, that leads me to my question? How can I BEST use this space? I'm especially caught up in how to configure the rear-entrance/basement steps/landing/dropzone area. What we currently have is a door at the ground level, then we go up 4 steps into the kitchen. Can I just replicate this in the back? I like it b/c it make sit seems easier to run down to the mudroom or up to the kitchen, as opposed to going up a few steps on the outside, then into the house, but having to go down a full flight of stairs to the mudroom (if that makes sense!) But no matter how we do it, the area where the down stairs are will be dead-space on the main level, for the most part, so that is important to consider. Anyway, I will put the blank floorplans here, and if anyone has any ideas, suggestions, photos, etc, I would greatly appreciate it. We are meeting with a new architect, who I met at the Susanka workshop last week, so I am hopeful! Here is the space, blank: Here was one idea I had, but it doesn't effectively deal with the basement steps. I need help :) I think the kitchen/dining room could be opened up more, combined, but still maintain the space in the DR for a big table. That wall isn't structural so could come out completely. Is it possible to reconfigure this space in the way I am imagining? It is, right???

Newbieremodeler, This is my opinion but there are few things that are necessary in making a small home function well for a family for a LONG time, not temporarily until you buy a bigger house. But a well functioning home where you can raise a family. I am thinking about this alot lately because we are buying some rental properties and trying to make these homes "livable" for a family so they are easily rentable. These are things I am thinking about.... 1. Eat in kitchen is not necessary but a kitchen that is close and CONNECTED to an eating area is. (there is a difference) You can connect to an eating area with visual and physical connection. 2. Easy access to the nice green space in your backyard/sideyard that allows you to connect to the outdoors. This allows you to enjoy summer BBQs and perhaps entertain easily in the summer. (I would put sliding glass door from your dining room to make it happen easily in your house). You can't afford the linear foot without cabinets in the kitchen. So you have to put the slider in the dining. This is a typical small home solution. An easy way to make your house livable is to put a deck across the east side of the house (kitchen dining side if this give you a nice access to the yard and increasing the entertaining space without adding on to the house.) 2. Dining area that accomodates a larger group of people with rearrangement of furniture to host occasional parties, ie Thanksgiving, birthday parties, having another family over for dinner is ABSOLUTELY necessary for long term staying power of a small home. I think this is a more important criteria than actual eat-in kitchen. When the house cannot accomodate life's meaningful events in your own home, you feel that your house is not "good" or "big" enough. I think older home designs (pre-WWII) understood this well and gave generous spaces to the dining area even though they did not give enough to the kitchen. Imagine feeling that you can never host a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 at your house because there is no way to make it happen even with rearrangement of the furniture.... In your current kitchen, you can probably seat 6 to 8 adults in the dining and a card table with kids in the living room. Set the table close to the dining opening near the fireplace and have a nice Thanksgiving/holiday party at your home for 10 or more people. This allows you to create memories for your kids. In many of your plans, there is no way you can host the holidays at your home: ie the banquet kitchen and the kitchen eat in table.... These are great for larger homes where there are other areas to host a large party but not in a small home, IMHO. Do you forsee yourself hosting family parties? Dining rooms that are somewhat open to living room rearranges furniture easier for parties. There are people who never host sit down dinners (informal for families. I am not even taking FORMAL) at their homes because it is impossible. On the other hand, I have been in homes that are much smaller but the house makes holiday dinners happen. If you think having these life's events in your home is important to you, then you need to design for it. I think many of your designs show 36 inch opening between the dining and LR. I think this is smaller than what you already have. (58 inches, I am reading). I am not sure what the reason is behind this.... I would open up dining area as much you can given the load bearing condition. Figure out the house first then the kitchen. This is really important! This is not easy because you have to optimize everything and look ahead to the kind of family you will have. You need to have a reasonable plan for various phases of your family's life. For example, if you are a family that will watch TV in the basement, then you need to plan for the basement media room. More questions about the house: How will you use your basement as you have kids? Will you be satisfied with 1 bath on the main or wil need/want to add 1/2 or 1 bath on the main? Where is the nice part of the yard? How will you access that? Do you use the garage to park? If so, do you enter the house through the kitchen? Do you just use the garage as a storage and never enter the house that way? You can add storage in the garage easily to put overflow kitchen stuff in there IF you move the kitchen to where the dining is currently. (as is one of your ideas) In a small home, I actually prefer this type of arrangement than making a kitchen that is too big for the house... (there should be a balance of rooms in a given house) Do you have places for young toddlers/school aged kids to go and play on a rainy/cold day? Where will the toddlers eat? (I had a small toddler table next to my kitchen island for couple years until my kids were old enough to climb the stool easily. The booster chair streapped to the stool did not work for us as well.) Do you have places for teenagers to hangout and have some privacy? Do you have a place for adults to have a little quiet and solitute from one another. (Bedroom is fine for this if you design for it) Do you have a place for occasional overnight guests? How do you enter the house? Where to you drop your stuff as you enter? When I look at your LR, it looks underutilized to me. i would close that opening, and put a wall there so you can cluster the seating arrangement next to the FP. Then you move the kitchen where the DR is now. You create some storage in the garage that stores all your large occasional kitchen stuff. The dining room should have a large opening to the LR which makes the rearranging for large parties easy. You can see into the dining and you feel more connected to the family. (if you DH watches TV and he won't budge from that, then you need to be able to see the TV from the kitchen to feel connected to the family) The couch should face the FP and you can have a console behind the couch which will create a space near the front door a sense of entry. These are some ideas to get you started.... Good luck.

Well....I liked it until I sat down. And remembered that the couch there blocks the view to the back. Table and chair does better on that side. Doesn't look it but the table is pulled forward enough for the door swing. The couch is back on the other side of the room left of the fireplace. But it is angled now 60 degrees so the fireplace view isn't blocked. Better. Not perfect but better. It's hard to get a photo that captures the whole space. Definitely helps that the furniture is more centered in the room. Makes a huge difference. I think I have moved that darn couch 10 times in the last 4 days. Now I remember why we started thinking about moving...