Your description of what you would like sounds like open plan to me ....

Look at open plans with kitchen, one dining area and one family room and then just add some separation between the kit/din and the family room spaces.

Fun to look at plans, but if you have a specific layout in mind, that you aren't seeing out there, then you should be interviewing architects.

I feel your frustration. We wanted the same thing plus an attached garage since we are in a snowy area. We ended up working locally to come up with our plan.

Before we started the whole process I looked at colonial plans when I felt like perusing plans and also looking for inspiration.

I too wanted a kitchen that was closed off but open (I know doesn't make sense). I relayed all of my wants and needs to our Architect and they came up with a plan that we are now building. We had to think a little outside the box but decided to divide the kitchen from the other public spaces by using pocket doors. Our ceilings are 11 ft. and the antique pocket doors are 9 ft. I can close them when I feel the need for quiet or open them for entertaining, or not.

We also had other ideas but I've now forgotten them...been planning for 3 years and now focusing on our build. This is the last house I'm building and I wanted to get it right.

I would look at home plans that have a center hall. It seems it may be easier to close or open a room with this kind of plan. I'm not a pro but this seems to have worked well for us.

"Just looking to see what's out there before we go to an architect."

Everything is out there, go see your architect to see what's out here for you.

Mark...you are right, we will use an architect. I just want to look around to get ideas of what we like.

thank you for your comments.

Kristin...thank you! There are some interesting plans on that site.

We wanted everything you do: not open concept, no formal living and dining rooms, large kitchen with a large dining area.

So I took a normal kitchen with island and breakfast nook and increased the size. I put a dry bar with a pass through to the family room and increased the nook to a full size dining room. I also have a pocket door from the foyer into the kitchen.

Our new build design:

thank you for sharing your plan cd7733. I like the flow of your space and it's very much like what we're wanting.

We also wanted a large eat in kitchen, separate living, and no formal living or dining. We also wanted a huge pantry (this will be a homestead on 60acres)

Our architect came back with this, which we love.

Definitely recommend finding an architect, we looked at about every house plan on the internet and none of them were quite right (though we did get lots of ideas, and it’s a fun way to day dream.)

it looks wonderful!