Are you working with an architect? If not, this would be an excellent time to get one - either locally or use one remotely. If so, it's time to find another one. Having your front door enter into a kitchen is not the way to go at all. Even if you want a large entertainment type kitchen, you don't want to make a front door entrance into the kitchen.

Where is the access into the Master Suite? I don't see a proper entrance at all.

You need a good overall plan first. I hope you haven't knocked down any actual walls at this point. The addition needs to look like it meshes with the original home and not an add on or you will end up just throwing away your money,

Yes, work with an architect.

It looks to me as if you have enough room to expand your kitchen substantially but still have a nice wide foyer. Your 3D images suggest a wall between the foyer and the kitchen. That is where you will need expert advice.

I totally agree that walking in the front door into the kitchen would be a huge negative. But you have plenty of space to have a foyer and a nice size kitchen. Just build a wall between the foyer and kitchen allowing about 7' in width for the foyer, which leaves about 17.5' for the width of the kitchen.

Anne

I would bring an interior designer in. They are going to have a different eye than an architect and can see things a little different.

I am not sure it would look right so close to the garage

I don't think it would look odd. I would put it right where those two small windows are. You could replace the garage entry with solid and paint it out to the colour of the siding so it disappears more and accentuate the front door with a high-impact light and a welcome mat so it is the primary focus. The garage door doesn't show from the front walk.

In any case building is all about compromise. Personally, I would rather tolerate a garage entry near my front door than have the front door open directly into my kitchen. This is especially true since you said that having a gracious foyer is one of your top priorities and the lack of one is ruining the enjoyment of the home for you.

Came back to add, I would move that garage entry door to the back anyway. You can exit the garage through the garage door when you've parked your car. And having the the entry door in back allows easy access to the garage from the backyard for taking out/cleaning up outside toys, etc.

If you want an entry area, put up a wall and have one. We have a home now where someone knocked out the wall between the nice entry and the living room and we basically put the wall back with a shoe bench and shelf arrangement (freestanding because we didn’t want to do construction work) because it just flows better that way.

We also just looked at another house which we decided not to go for after much deliberation in part because if we opened it up to get much needed space, we’d end up with a big box with the front door entering right into everything, like a small apartment layout. Houses, especially houses with kids and lots of visitors, need some way to control the flow of traffic and direct people to where they should take off coats and boots and what have you. If you have room for a mud room, great, but if not - entry area is a necessity, IMO.

And people are going to be beyond bored with HGTV style everything probably sooner rather than later - next year or the year after it’ll be some other designer and they will be putting walls up because everyone is sick of open plan and always being on display while cooking. If this is your forever home then do what you like and what feels good to you, not what’s popular on HGTV. (If you were going to flip the house then I might be saying something different.)

Personally, if my front door were that close to my kitchen, I’d really really really want some kind of wall for privacy. Who wants all your mid-meal cooking mess to be on display to anyone who comes to the door?

I would like to amend my answer: you do need an architect - at least for the overall floorplan. But you also need a kitchen designer to get the most out of your kitchen real estate. I understand that your father is a contractor with 50 years of experience which is a terrific resource for you and will be a fantastic help for this remodel.

However, contractors are not architects. In fact, not all architects have the same design ability. Find one that can at least provide a workable floorplan for your entire home so you don't pour money down the drain. I'm a Realtor and have been in the business for more than 35 years and have seen some funky floorplans that arose out of a poorly planned addition that was cramped by no planning and the budget wasn't used wisely. Take the time to do this entire addition the right way and you save money. Stop taking down walls now and get your overall vision in place - with an architect and a kitchen designer. Both the master suite and the kitchen and entry have a real problem right now per your plan and I haven't even reviewed it extensively. An architect and kitchen designer can save you money and headaches. Check out architectrunnerguy (ARG) right here on Houzz to see what he can do for you remotely. It will be the best investment of time and money for your remodel.

Agree with Lindsey about moving the main entrance/foyer so it's by the garage entrance, and moving the outside garage entrance to the back of the garage.

I'd also move the laundry to part of what would be your master BR sitting area (which could easily be smaller), and make the old laundry into a mudroom and nicer powder room.

In the master bath, I'd also have a not quite so large tub surround, so there could be a larger shower.

What a wonderful advantage to have a contractor-father who can do whatever you like!

Anne

On second thought, accessing the bedrooms with the kitchen right next to them would be problematic, so maybe better to go back to having the foyer there with a wall between it and the kitchen for better flow to the dining & family rooms, and deal with the ceiling issues. But I'd still make the other changes I mentioned previously.

Anne