Whole home renovation/addition help

4 years ago

We just received our preliminary drawings today and before we give the final approval I was hoping to get some input on a few things.

I would love some suggestions on furniture layouts for the great room, and wonder if the current window placements are going to make things awkward. I am also concerned that having a fireplace will take up too much room, but my husband is adamant we have one. It will be a gas insert. I would love to have a fireplace as well, but not if it means we have a very cramped seating area. I do not like having a TV above the fireplace. We also need to fit a dining table with 6 chairs in this area. We have a 9' long couch with a right arm chaise that we weren't planning on replacing anytime soon as it is only a year and half old. We have already met with a custom cabinetry company and they will be doing our mudroom off the front entrance, kitchen, pantry and laundry room. I think for the kitchen cabinets I would like to do BM Wedgewood Gray for the island and BM Chantilly Lace for the cabinets on the wall. Should I do the Wedgewood Gray on the base cabinets on the wall as well? We will be picking quartz countertops when our latest lockdown is over and we can go for another meeting. The island will measure 9' long x 4' wide. For the wall colours in the great room it was suggested at the paint store to do BM Gray Owl. However, I didn't think to ask what we should do for our trim and ceilings though. Any suggestions?

My other concern is the master bath layout. It seems squished to me but I don't know what to do about it as we want a separate tub and shower.

Here is a screenshot of the preliminary drawings -

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Comments (3)

littlebug zone 5 Missouri
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
It’s impossible to read the measurements. Could you provide a better copy? It sounds as though you are asking a lot from the Great Room area - it will need to be quite large to support a dining table and a living area. Also, I’ve read on here multiple times that corner fireplaces are the worst as far as arranging furniture around and taking up a big space.

How many people are permanent residents of this home?

Two personal opinions: I dislike the location of the front door and the idea of gray cabinets. The gray fad is trending down - you could use gray wall paint, rugs, furniture, etc. because that’s all easily updated, but gray cabinets aren’t.
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Stacey
Original Author
4 years ago
There are 2 adults and 3 children that are permanent residents. Our budget doesn't allow for additional square footage so we need to work with what is drawn up. Here are some closer up screenshots of the drawings, hopefully the measurements are clearer.
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anj_p
4 years ago
For 3 kids, I would eliminate one sink in their bath so you can have more storage. Storage will be used 100% of the time. Sinks are used a few minutes each day and can be shared.

I agree that gray is on its way out. Wood is in. If this were my kitchen, I would do a wood island. From your drawing, your aisle widths are not visible. You will need 4' given all of the appliances you have opening into that space. So that means your width for living space & dining space is maybe 17 feet? Assuming no seats at the island. So your living + dining with clearance to the island is 14x24. A dining table needs about 10 feet, which leaves 14x14 for living room. With your current layout, I would put your TV and fireplace side by side on the far wall. The corner fireplace will just take up space and make it difficult to decorate.

And, yes, definitely put furniture into this drawing and change your window placement based on that. The window locations now are kind of between "rooms", which makes them awkward.

Have you considered other arrangements for these spaces? I would actually change the location of your kitchen and living room, and make your kitchen an L shape in the top of that space, which will give you more protection in the kitchen and potentially more counterspace. Dining table next to the kitchen, oriented up + down. Living room in the front. The pantry may be challenging to incorporate, but you can do a reach-in pantry which (honestly) would be my preference after having a walk-in.

If you keep the kitchen where it is, put the dishwasher on the other side of the sink so it's out of the prep path. If you use a microwave, put it near the fridge.

For your master bath, if you can squeeze your closet to 7' wide, you can gain space in the bath. The extra 1'-0" doesn't give you much. I'm not sure if the closet was made that wide for the attic access? Also consider a pocket door for that closet, which will make accessing clothes behind the current door much more pleasurable (we have a swing-in door on our closet and half of my clothes are behind the door which is annoying).

I would also consider adding windows in the kids' bedrooms to take advantage of the corner rooms. Our kids' bedrooms only have windows on one wall and I wish we had them on two.
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