The OP wrote, "...what would be ideal dimensions for the dining room and great room?..."

It all depends on the layout and how it influences circulation (moving from one space to another), plus depends on the size, type and quantity of furnishings.

To find the answer to your question one must "design from the inside out". For example what pieces of furniture (and sizes) will be placed in the great room? What pieces of furniture (and sizes) will be placed in the dining space?

You can begin by making a great room list and a dining room list. Drawing them to scale and trying various arrangements will give you the answer.

Hope this helps.

My 12'9"x13' dining room is very crowded - impossible to get around the table to serve when all are seated. Ideally, the width should be 15 to 18 ft wide if peop,e are to be seated, depending on the size of the table. Mine is an antique table that is 56" wide, which contributes to my problem.

Also remember, with it all being one huge room, furniture must be floated as there are few walls, and there is often no wall on which to put a sideboard or buffet.

I swear that this open concept took hold when people buying houses no longer had any case goods or pictures!

Thank you Virgil and Anglophilia for your responses! I'm going to try to attach my plans below (fingers crossed this works).

Some background: we've been working with an architect so these are custom plans for our site. We're really happy with them, the only thing bothering me is the question on if the great room is big enough. I thought I was ok with it, and then the thread that I linked, above, had me second guessing again.

Some unique things about our building code: we have to keep all of our building area, including roof over hangs within a 5000 sf polygon. Since we want a one story house, this really does limit things a bit. We're pretty maxed out on space, already, so if we wanted to enlarge our great room at all we could push out the length but we would lose overhang and have to relocate the hot tube (we might relocate it anyway), which would affect shading and cooling for the interior space. (Hopefully that made sense.)

The outdoor dining space is covered and it's warm year round, here, so we could just use that as our dining space and get rid of the one in the house. I'm still a little wary of having no dining table indoors though.

We're on 2.25 acres, and the house has been oriented to maximize light, privacy and views

We're a family of 3, and not getting any bigger.

I can see those dimensions are hard to see, so the great room is 33' long and 18' wide, including the kitchen. We have 10' dedicated to the kitchen, so the rest is living/dining.

Well my living room is 17'10" x 21' and is a separate room. I have a combined kitchen/dining area and that is 15'8" wide by 22' long. So my dining area is 15'8" x 12'. It's fine for us because we are in FL and figure most entertaining will be done outdoors or indoor/outdoor.

33' for kitchen/dining/living seems a bit skimpy if you entertain. It means your dining area is only about 11' wide which means your living area is only about 12' wide.

Could your mechanical room be made a bit smaller and then also push into the master a bit?

Dumb question, but where's the front door and entry?

cpartist,

Our thought was if/when we entertain we could overflow out to the patio, which is another 700+ square feet of living area + dining. Our original plan was to put the dining table on rollers and just roll it out when we need to.

The front door is directly across from the carport, along the covered walkway, below the outdoor dining table.

FWIW my dining room is 13'x17' and it is too small for our things and more than 4 people eating a nice meal. Our new one will be bigger for sure.

i would think you would be a bit crowed with 33 ft 45 ft would be closer to my comfort zone my gr/dining area-game table is 27 ft long 20 ft wide without the kitchen and it's pretty comfortable we've entertained 18 at a sit down thanksgiving dinner comfortably and many more at parties kitchen, which is in an L instead of a straight line, anyway kitchen is 14 ft wide, so that would be a bit over 41 and i'm thinking you'd like the extra 4 ft however, if you look at most floor plans they don't allow that much space for kitchen, dining, and great room we also have overflow screened porch which works very well

We have a space with similar dimentions in our house and the space is taken up by the kitchen and family room. I can't imagine fitting my dining table in there too. We have a separate kitchen nook and formal dining room.

I can't imagine not having a dining space inside and I live in So. CA. When we moved here people told us we didn't need as big a house compared to the northeast because of the warm weather, outdoor lifestyle, etc. ... glad I didn't listen ... between summer heat, cooler nights, dust/pollen, etc. we still use our interior spaces much more than the exterior.

cpartist, having it penciled out like this really helps. Thanks!

One question, the 8'10 1/2" x 15' assumes all the furniture is floated off the walls?

Yes it does assume it's floated off the wall so you really do have space against the far wall for a sofa like you have it. It can be done, but it won't seat a large group. I forgot you had it grouped with the sofa against the wall.

Our kitchen/DR/LR is about 15' X 42' inside dimensions. It's not too big in our 1400 sq ft home. It's roughly divided into 12-1/2' for the kitchen, 16' for the LR, and 13-1/2' for the DR. Normally, it's just the two of us, and our dining table folds down pretty small, but it can take a huge amount of leaves. With a large crowd, we can let it extend in to the LR.

Slightly on the larger side, our kitchen/DR/LR will be a rectangle 55'x23' with virtual/flooring separation between Kitchen/DR: 26'x23' and LR 29'x23'. The high dining table 108"x54" will seat 12, it's placement allowing free movement all around without bumping into things.

We are building with a similar open concept layout....Kitchen, dining, and family room in one big space. Ours isn't a perfect rectangle so the widths vary for each section, but the whole space is about 43' long. I wouldn't want it any smaller and am wishing for an extra foot or two. But I think it will be just enough to live comfortably and move around easily.

Would you consider making the hot tub part of the pool (like an insert) and moving the living room down more towards where the hot tub is now?

One other thought. Are you ok with your outdoor kitchen being so far away from your outdoor seating and your indoor kitchen?

Here I lengthened your living/dining area, keeping the kitchen the same. I also moved the hot tub to become part of the pool. It still would give you a wide enough swimming lane. Then I moved the outdoor kitchen to where the hot tub was. This would make the counter a little shorter though, still quite a nice long space.

The problem is where to put the beach chairs. Maybe add a sun shelf to the pool and then they can go in the pool?

cpartist,

I like what you did with the spa. I worry that it will make the swimmable portion of the pool to small, though. Maybe I'll throw that question over to the pool forum. In an ideal world we would just make the pool longer, but it's just not possible with the code restrictions.

I also agree about the bbq. Going to brainstorm this with our architects when they get back from vacation. I'm leaning towards pushing the pool against the carport (it was there in one iteration of our outdoor space) and moving the outdoor kitchen to the wall along the entry where the outdoor dining table currently is). It would be nice to walk out from the kitchen to the grill. Not sure it's feasible, though.

Looking more at the numbers you crunched on the great room, I'm thinking we take another foot back from our overhang (it's currently 9' to provide shade) and give it back to the living room. Then we could have 4' between the dining / living and 5' between the kitchen island and dining table.

this is what I’m working with currently. I’m trying to figure out if 34’ will be enough for kitchen/dining/living. This is a 1650sf plan. It has to be 45’ total width for my lot size. Thoughts??

Might be worth starting a new post since this one is 3 years old, but I have similar issue/question. My current plan is 39' in length for in-line kitchen/dining/living room, but based on comments above it seems like I need to go to at least 42'.

@TaylerAnne Interiors - 34' seems like it would be very cramped. Can you upload a higher res plan? It's a little hard to see what's going on

Is Kayce03 or any of the other posters able to tell me if they went ahead with their build and what length kitchen dining living space they went with and if they find it long enough? I would love to know. Thanks.

I am rehabbing a 1930 Georgian and relocating the kitchen. This means kitchen and dining would go in same space, that being 18x15 (shown below). The designer is saying it will be too cramped. Room is the one labled "Relocate kitchen". What say ye?