Thanks sooz001. We have it configured this way because of site views and thought kitchen off entry would be more functional. But now you've got me thinking...

The three biggest concerns I have about this plan are: (a) it forces you to walk through your kitchen to get to your master bedroom and the family room, (b) the new spaces feel very disconnected from the existing home, and (c) you're adding another staircase to the home. Having your home bisected by the entry makes it feel more like a duplex, I think, and also interferes with "good flow" between the rooms.

Thanks MLB Design Group. Yes good points. We wanted to make the addition self-sufficient so we could live on the one level down the road. We're also wary of disturbing the existing stone foundation too much, which is why we have the entry between the old and the new (and stairs to basement from entry). We had to go out this way with addition, this layout seemed the most logical based on the constraints of the old home and the site. I agree with your comments just not sure how we could do things differently.

Although it's not ideal walking through your kitchen, the non "working" half of the kitchen might be better than walking through your living area since there is only one entry way to this area. It's difficult with these old houses to get an ideal layout. If you have concerns about the walkways, you could move the fridge to the sink wall (near the entry assuming it fits) and make your pantry 12"-15" deep instead of what looks like 24".

Thanks George Davis, Inc. We did have fridge on sink wall with pantry size you recommend, and we were advised to move it since it interfered with entry door to kitchen. Where would you position on sink wall? It's been a real headache! We also considered moving it to opposite wall next to wall oven....but then it seemed to be too far from entry (for unloading groceries, access to pantry) and sink....and too close to bedroom entry. We'll be able to recess fridge into wall a little bit so it won't stick out as much.

Are you looking to install a 2-sided (see-thru) fireplace between Master Bed and Family room? As it is a nice idea on paper, you may not always like your guests to be able to see in your bedroom. Also, if you have kids that may lose your intimacy. Is that an existing fireplace? or something you are adding?

Hi Nergiflex...thanks for your comments, nice catch! Not existing, to be added. we have decided against the two sided fireplace for all those reasons...and also because it looks like we'll be doing a wood stove insert into a traditional mantle so we achieve a fireplace look (rather than a wood stove look, which is fine, but we found it ate too much floor space in our old space and removed stove altogether when we knocked down a wall). And a wood stove will be more efficient to supplement heat on days like today, -30C! Snow day! :)

This is a photo of the exterior. On existing (right) we'll remove front door/concrete steps, enlarge window on the left to match right, and enlarge an odd-sized window on upper level to create a proper dormer. The roof pitch is steep at 12:12, which is why the roofline on the addition is the way it is...not two stories, one level, but with cathedral ceiling in new living area. We plan to keep green tin roof and add a dark brown or similar colour hardie-board type siding. Perhaps Conexcel.

If there is a door on the entry way, which it looks like there is, then no, it's not recommended to have the door opening into the fridge. Sorry, I didn't notice that! You could put the fridge to the right of the stove since you are likely to dump your groceries on the island and then put them away from there - doesn't matter which side you're on. A negative to putting it there would be it blocks views to the living room a bit.

Are you planning an entry closet? Have you considered going to a full range (maybe 40" or 48") instead of going with separate appliances, such as counter burners, double wall ovens? Cost would seem to be better & floor plan arrangement possibly better.

I would love to see a stand-alone plan for the kitchen w/ details & measurements. This is the most complex area of the build & it needs to meet all of your needs the most.

Are you having a covered front porch at entry? You are totally eliminating the entry from the main section of the house, correct?

What is the square footage of the existing house. Will you be using any of its main floor as gathering space?

Will you have a separate h/vac system for the new addition or are you going to upgrade the existing h/vac to include the new? You have some significant cold weather it seems.

Have you considered going w/ a pellet stove instead of wood or one which could convert to pellet? Our city is considering eliminating all wood heat for pollution needs.

Hi Sandraclark, thanks for your comments. Because we had to limit size of proper entryway (bc of existing home foundation concerns) we're relying on mudroom to the right as you enter for closet, and then we'll have a drop zone for keys/phones in kitchen (left hand side as you walk into kitchen). We're also adding another closet where existing front door is. We currently have zero closet space on main level! You're probably right re. appliances, but we really wanted a double wall oven and 36" cooktop (but yes, no wall oven would give us more room to work with). So far this is the most detailed plan we have, still waiting to hear from cabinet maker to finalize details. Yes, covered porch at entry and eliminating old entry that is never, ever, ever used (that's where closet is going)!

The door you see on plan now that leads into what will be new laundry room is our existing entry. It lands you smack dab in the middle of the kitchen with no proper closet or anywhere to hide anything! It's actually a decent size space which is why we're reconfiguring (existing kitchen is where powder room and mudroom will be...there is currently a window where new doorway will be from new entry). We'll keep the door, and we'll have a door to exterior at rear of entryway, and we'll have a French door to exterior from family room. Lots of access to exterior. We also have french doors to exterior from existing living room (not seen on drawing I posted).

Hi Sandraclark- exisitng sq ft is about 1450. No basement. We have geothermal which we can run into new space, and we'll add radiant heat in basement to run off geo. We have no restrictions on wood stoves (yet...our area is quite rural but I do know that some densely populated areas that have that restriction), so will install now as wood is a free and abundant resource for us:) Our HVAC supplier who installed geothermal recommended wood stove to supplement on days like today. Geothermal was the best thing we ever did for this old house! :)

Having gone through a similar reno/addition to an 1850s farmhouse, I can sympathise with your dilemmas!

Have you done some (careful!) preliminary digs around the foundations of your house so that you know it's safe to excavate alongside for the new basement? Sometimes those old house foundations are full of surprises - don't want to be negative, just a heads-up.

The kitchen layout...40" won't be wide enough for the busiest "road" in the house, ime. Are you working with a good designer or architect?

There are some good - older, but still very good - Canadian books on how best to work with an old house - check out your local library.

Thanks summery. Yes, we did some digging a couple of years ago and we know that the stone foundation is ok, but it's still nearly 200 years old and we don't want to disturb the beast too much. We've consulted contractors and foundation experts (suppliers that do foundation repair, lift homes to repair or move, that kind of thing) and engineers and all seem to think we can safely manage a full foundation around that little bit of entry (we're still concerned though!)...initially we were going to do an engineered concrete slab but we had concerns with that too (mostly shifting- didn't want it shifting at different rate than new foundation). We'll do 44" inches in main walkway of kitchen. Yes working with designers and architect...funny we thought new would be easier than old...at least with old you're really stuck working with what you've got space-wise...now we have the blank space but so many considerations re. proper design and functionality and how we'll use the space as a family....it's overwhelming and I'm so happy to have all the feedback here! How did your addition go? What are you happy about? What would you have done differently? Do you love the space?

Sounds like you've got your head sorted on this already, which is a great start!

Our house was stone. We built a new kitchen within the existing summer kitchen walls (also stone) with an added new stick-built hall and mudroom tacked on the end. What we did was - very carefully! - excavate down inside the summer kitchen walls until they began to look rough, then levelled the ground, then poured a concrete slab with footings to support the new kitchen floor. This gave a solid clean dry crawl space of approx 4' depth for the contractors to move around in under the new floor.

Our summer kitchen was on one end of a typical 19th century centre hall plan Ontario farmhouse - we were lucky to have such a well-constructed home, built by masons who'd honed their skills building the Rideau Canal.

We talked to a lot of different "experts" about our ideas, and met with a lot of stone-walling (haha) -- what we ended up with was doing our own designs, having a draftsman edraw them up for approval, and hired a lovely local contractor who knew the house and was able to accommodate any funnies he met along the way with great ease and wisdom.

I do dislike the ipod app, grr...

Back to my comments -- there's a good Ideabook on kitchen dimensions, with some good ideas: https://www.houzz.com/magazine/key-measurements-to-help-you-design-your-kitchen-stsetivw-vs~25228528

And Johnny Grey is the best kitchen designer I've ever read - he's got a lively thoughtful website, and his books are excellent. Even if you don't like his style, his thinking vis a vis kitchen layout is very sound.

Back to your own design....are you restricted to those dimensions of the addition, or can you ease in another couple of feet?

thanks summery for the Johnny Grey tip, I'll check out out. Our library doesn't have a ton of books for this kind of thing, but I may have overlooked this one. And thanks for idea book....looks like we're mostly on track and good ideas for where to put things (i have a hard time visualizing that, or knowing what's actually functional, because now space is so limited, there aren't any options hahahah- mind you, I have a very efficient work triangle as it stands, I'm 3 steps or less from everything!). I think we're restricted to those dimensions because of roof line/trusses. But I'll check with the architect. Even one more foot in kitchen area would put the design from questionable to ideal for the space. What a puzzle. What did you do the exterior of your addition in? I'm assuming you couldn't replicate stone, did you put some kind of siding in (summer kitchen wasn't stone clad was it?)? How is it holding up? Your stone house sounds awesome. Our farmhouse is more rustic, less formal than yours would be. It's in eastern Ontario built with massive posts brought in from upper New York state (we actually have the bill of sale somewhere for safekeeping!)....people living in newly built homes may never imagine how solidly this old house is built....it's not going anywhere!! For five seconds we thought of demo'ing altogether (bc cost to do that and build new would probably be comparable to what we're doing), but this home has too much soul and too much history.

We sided the new parts with plain and simple - and historically correct - 1" pine board and batten from the local private lumber yard. It works out at $1/board foot, and installed very easily and quickly. We hadn't fully decided how to finish it - we were probably just going to let it age over a couple of years to a uniform grey, then seal so it didn't need repainting or staining in years to come.
I'd looked at the Hardieboard (Merkley's in Ottawa have it in stock, and are really helpful and knowledgeable), but the pine board & batten was so much cheaper and nicer!

Oh, and don't get conned into thinking the work triangle is the be-all and end-all - one doesn't really swing around the 3 points of a triangle so much as have different work zones - more than 3 of them, generally. Unless you are the only person who ever does anything at all ever in that kitchen, you are going to want a bit more room to manoeuvre.

As for getting stuff from your local library - if you're in Ontario, they will be part of the wider national system, whereby any public library anywhere in the country can borrow, generally for free, any book from any other library in Canada for you. It's called an "ILLO" (inter-library loan), and you can make it easier for them by bringing them your list, with ISBN, author and title - get that info off Amazon. An ILLO should take less than a week to get any title to you. It's a brilliant free option, however you can often find Johnny Grey books for just a couple of $ used at Amazon, Ebay, etc. Well worth owning, particularly "The Art of Kitchen Design:" http://www.amazon.ca/Art-Kitchen-Design-Planning-Comfort/dp/0304343846/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422977129&sr=1-2

so just a quick crazy thought -- i really do not like the entry coming straight into kitchen. What is on the other side of the mudroom? just looking quickly -- I would move the M/B to where the mudroom/laundry/den is and then make the entire new addition the public areas of the house with a proper entrance -- just a thought.

Just stumbled upon your post and am SO intrigued. We are considering an EXTREMELY similar addition to our 1800s farmhouse and have many of the same concerns -- stone foundation, too much separation between old and new sections of house, kitchen right off entry. Would love to hear how things have gone, what you've found to work well, etc. Thanks!

Hi just saw this and wondered about traffic flow. A suggestion extend your front hall back to the broom closet and den wall. Open up the FR/ Dr to the hallway by taking out the broom closet which could perhaps go in over the stairs. you could also open the den to this hallway. Thus you would have a circulating traffic flow and no dead ends. Don't think the construction would be too much more as you would be adjoining the building. Maybe this is not possible as you feel you may be interfering with the foundation of the older building more than you want.