Thanks for your feedback @Patricia Colwell Consulting!

Here's what we came up with as a possible kitchen/dining/laundry room layout (below) -- thinking the separation of laundry, pantry, mudroom is enough (or maybe not?)? Curious why the range should be on an outside wall (is it just easier to vent?)? Also curious if you had any thoughts about how to rework the Primary or how to utilize the space better?

Family size is currently 3 (me, husband, and 10 month old) plus Grandma, but we are planning on another little one in the future. My family is all from out of state, so it's important to me to have a guest room for when they come to visit. We have two bedrooms and a bath upstairs, the primary bed and bath on the main level, and then the basement apartment with a bedroom and bath. We've set aside $100,000 for this project (or some portion of the project), but I was hoping to start with a master plan so that we can enact the plan in phases (as funds become available), so we aren't just willly-nilly updating things and then changing it a year or two later (at least that was my hope).

The basement was mislabeled (my mistake) -- the 'rec room' is really MIL's living, kitchen, dining area (and craft space). We use the mudroom and pantry areas, the rest is the MIL's space.

We're working with a designer who has been very helpful -- I was just hoping to post on here as I've been impressed by many of the ideas and thoughtful feedback I've read. I was thinking different perspectives are usually helpful (especially feedback that questions ideas I thought were great or pushes me to see things a different way)!

Wondering if any other Houzzers had any thoughts on potential layouts...?

You have 2 decks. The Dining (and assuming Kitchen with meat plates to the grill) exits a slider to the porch to route to the 'island' deck off to the side in front? Is your backhouse entry always through the basement door by the cars or do you use the formal front door? Should the Pantry & Mudroom flip to allow a door right next to the kitchen to access this 2nd (or is it the main one) 'island' deck? Do you really need access past the bathroom from the front door into this Mudroom area, or can it be walled off?

I didn't see anything about your primary bath and closet on your list. Are you happy with that layout? There's a lot of random angles and doors - leaving your bath really constrained despite all of the square footage allocated (at least it looks that way on paper). If it's not a priority/bother, no worries.

@JP L -- we definitely need to rework the primary closets (there are way too many doors and weird cubbies!). The plan below is what we're thinking...ignore the kitchen/dining/laundry side (that was an earlier version of the plan that wasn't my favorite...although now that I look at it, maybe I disregarded it too soon...)

@3onthetree-- The deck of the living room has no access (besides the living room). We mainly use the 'island' side deck (and yes we carry food from the grill through the sliding doors (we keep the grill next to the steps). I thought about connecting the decks (or expanding the living room deck)... I'm adding pictures of the other two sides of the house to give more context.

I struggle with where we come in...sometimes (if we're driving somewhere) we come in through the basement, but often if we are just going outside to play or hang out, we go out through the dining room sliders (that leads to our fenced yard). I'm wondering if we stop using the basement entrance and instead create better landscaping to make the side (dining room) sliders the main entrance (a better path from the parking). Otherwise we end up with some shoes by one entrance, but then the coat you need by the other...a real pain!