I don't think the family room is too far away from the kitchen, but I think the dining room is. And what is the small room that is between the mud room and the family room?

The small room between breakfast nook and dining is the pass through to dining. We plan to add a butler's pantry there. I agree I would have preferred a dining that is directly off of breakfast nook or kitchen. But because we added the mud room that was introduced.

This post was edited by luckyme7 on Sat, Aug 30, 14 at 18:19

The small room between kitchen and dining is the pass through. We plan to add a butler's pantry there.

Too many places to eat. Get rid of the dining room and just have one place to eat. The DR can become the study, and you can get rid of the study and scoot things over enough to give more room to the every day eating area.

The dining room as drawn would be worthless to me. We'd never use it. WAAAYYY too far away.

I agree with hollysprings.

Thanks for the feedbacks so far. Where we live having a formal dining room and a casual breakfast nook is the norm. Formal dining room is used only when we have guests over for sit-down dinner. Breakfast nook will the one that is heavily used by family. So I don't want to eliminate either one of them as it will be a problem down the road during resale.

I want to hear feedback from specifically on distance between kitchen and family room. Will I be able to have a conversation with people in family room without having to shout?

The distance between the kitchen and dining room is the deal killer there. It renders the DR completely unusable, butler's pantry or not. The distance between the family room and kitchen isn't ideal either. There's a lot about the layout that just doesn't work.

I would flip the whole plan, except for the garage. So the kitchen goes where the study is, and the family room and breakfast nook are also swapped. Then you flip the LR and DR. Now your dining room is next to your kitchen.

Hmm...that might actually work..., has a couple of points to think about though...pixie_lou,
If I flip the kitchen and study, since the buildable area gets cut off on that side, the back wall of the kitchen would have to end up where the study's back wall ends, which is okay because it would give a bumped out shape to breakfast nook. But since I will get rid of the closet and powder room in order to open it up to the dining, I will have some portion of the kitchen that is not open to family room.

What do you think about the placement of staircase if I flip?
Also if I flip, the kitchen would end up being too far away from the garage and mud room. From mudroom we will basically be entering the family room. Would that be a problem?

Also what happens to the area between mudroom and family room. How can I make use of that?

My idea for flipping was to make your kitchen dining and breakfast all in proximity to each other. Not knowing how you fully intend to live in the space it's hard for me to make exact recommendations of how to utilize placement of mudrooms and powder rooms. By making this flip, you are essentially starting over with a new blank slate.

Start with your basic footprint again. Draw your kitchen into the upper right corner. Put your dining to the left and your breakfast nook below. Then start playing with the placement of your family room, living room and dining room. I don't know your upstairs plan so I don't know if you can flip the direction of your stairs, let alone location. And I'm not sure which, if any, walls on your original plan were designed to be load bearing. So come up with another rough draft and post or again.

Our floor plans are very similar in that we essentially have the same rooms, here's mine to show you a different layout. Our stairs are in very different places so not sure if this will be helpful or not.

MrsB's plan is more like it. But you could lop off the whole unused right side and save the construction costs. Not to mention the years of heating and cooling rooms that don't get used. That's why the majority of builds are concentrating on doing semi formal every day eating areas that are incorporated into the space that gets used on a regular basis.

Hey Lucky.. Noticed your floorplan is pretty similar to a home offered by RyanHomes... Its called the Verona.. They have the mudroom in a different location and room sizes are little different but if you would like to get an idea of what it would be like to walkthrough the home you should check out their site.. It might give you some ideas on placement as well.. I personally did a walkthrough of this home and can tell you that while the "calculations" seem like placement is far regarding dining room to kitchen, it wasnt.. The layout was very nice..

Lucky, I agree that you need to start from scratch. But as you move forward, try to increase the depth of the garage - 20' is pretty tight. Our garage is 22'x22', and there's not a lot of room to walk around our minivan. 22 x 24 (or 24 x 24) would be better.

Thank you MrsB1227. Your plan is a lot like mine. Has your home been built? If so how do you feel about the length between your kitchen and family room.

I'm with the majority in thinking that the dining room is the weak point in an otherwise pretty good plan:

- It is too far from the kitchen, especially since you'll have to pass through the butler's pantry and make a turn. Carrying all the meal items back and forth probably means you'll end up not using the room.
- I HATE walking past one table to reach another table. This would be an absolute deal- breaker for me.
- I would not put that lovely, expensive coffered ceiling into a room that will rarely be used and is not visible on an everyday basis; rather, I'd move the nice ceiling to the family room.
- You say you want the dining room not because you want it so much but for resale. I think this is a huge mistake. Most people I know in real life are interested in smaller, less formal houses -- more and more people are interested in one nice eating area rather than a multitude of small spaces (in no small part, because we eat our so much more often). I think you're looking to build what many people consider a dinosaur.

In other areas, I have a similar set up in my current house: kitchen, breakfast area, family room . . . And my numbers are very similar to yours. It is a comfortable size. Yes, a person in the family room can talk to a person in the kitchen, and a person in the kitchen can watch the TV in the family room. It's a comfortable distance without everything being too cramped. For the record, I have a 42" round table and 4 chairs in the breakfast area and an oversized sofa, love seat and smallish recliner in the family room.

You're looking at pulling expensive, potentially leaky plumbing all the way across the house for the sake of one half bath. I'd definitely work it into the garage entrance area.

I've had an under-stair closet in this type of set-up, and it's uncomfortable. You have to walk into the closet to get to things . . . But you only have the storage of a reach in. I'd move the door to the other direction so you would have a more shallow closet and a wider storage space.

I would lose some of the kitchen cabinets. A U plus island isn't as practical as you might think -- rather, it's expensive because of all those cabinets, but you're burdened with two inefficient cabinets and two deep, difficult-to-reach corners. On the other hand, if you keep the same space, but go with an L I plus island, you save money and eliminate one of those difficult corners -- and you can add 2' to the island, which more than makes up for the loss of a small amount of facing-the-wall cabinetry.

I would cut out both doors in the mud room. They're only going to get in the way.

You have three public living areas -- living room, family room, study -- located within feet of one another. How do you intend to use each? I'm thinking most people would only want two of the three.

I like Mrs B's floorplan better, though I also think her square footage is larger, making it a more expensive...

Just curious, some of you are recommending having one living room and one dining room. Where do such people live? West coast where houses are more expensive? Because where we live all homes come with 2 eating areas, one for everyday eating and one formal dining. Most homes come with separate living and family rooms, although some come with the great room concept.

Thank you jason143nbpd. I took the virtual tour offered by Ryan homes on Verona. It was very helpful :)

Mrspete, thanks for your response :)

Luckyme,
I think your set up for the home is fine.
I personally love a seperate formal dining room.
The home I grew up in had one. It was right off of
the kitchen, but in all fairness, your room sizes are not real big, and how often are you really going to use it? Family gatherings and holiday, that is what dining room furniture is for.
When I grew up, my mom used her dining room furniture.
She had her china, and used it. She had crystal serving bowls for the table, in her china cabinet, and used them.
The server she bought with the set was used as a server, you bring the cooked food in and place it on the server if you need to, whatever doesn't fit on the table.
That way, you don't have to run to the kitchen all during the dinner.
I like your home plan.
Yes, it will sell faster some day when people who are looking for home with a formal DR see yours, and everyone else did away with them. LOL
Congrats!

Luckyme7: my house is about to start framing at the moment so can't really speak about the distances between the rooms. My foundation seems tiny to me though, so I feel that it won't be an issue. (But I've heard "tiny" foundation syndrome is common and homes seem larger once walls are up).

Thank you butterfly4u :)