I agree with mama. You will get more help if you most a measured floorplan, but it looks like your new design has insufficient aisles and causes the island to be a barrier between sink, fridge & range. Your current kitchen has a better layout.

with the removal of the dining room, where are you going to eat? just the breakfast nook? what is this bathroom for - just the one bedroom + powder room replacement? if yes, can you make it an in-suite bathroom extending into the living room? walk thru to have powder room access? or just hall access? Which rooms do you use the most - living room or family room. I have never understood the purpose of living room. we had one in my childhood home, but we were not allowed to go in there. hahaha. I would rather have large family room/great room with furniture that people can actually use!

agree, mama goose suggestion is more functional than your proposed.

Mama goose but move pantry door to open into kitchen w bigger pantry.

dining is open to family room.

put bathroom off living room.

Mamaham's layout is much better. If you eliminate that closet at the bottom of the bedroom you can push the relocated bathroom up and create more space in the living room. The big advantage is that the kitchen/dining/family room can be one large open space that flows. It will also allow for more aisle and work space in the kitchen

That’s a good idea to make the bathroom smaller and have more room in living room. Since I didn’t do dimensions, I wasn’t sure the bathroom would be large enough without that closet space added to the bathroom. I wouldnt want to lose the entry closet

We are turning the family room into a bedroom. We have two kids and want to have a three bedroom two full bath. We are fine with eating in the nook. Currently, the dining room is our office (which we will be moving to the garage after it is drywalled), so using the nook as primary eating place is fine for us.

Agreed Mamaham. That is why we are turning the family room into a bedroom. It is better for our family. The living room and the family room are the same thing in my eyes. No room is off limits here, otherwise what is the purpose :)

Also, if it helps we are not big on hosting parties and what not, it is usually just the four of us at home. When we do have people over, we are usually in the backyard. Our backyard is pretty big and we barbecue eat etc there for birthdays and other special occasions. We live in SoCal, where the weather is almost always nice (well lately not so much, but not terrible either).

it‘s a good idea to think about resale value. You may like eating in the nook, but that is not generally the case with people in general (maybe some realtors can chime in). What size table fits there?

Just because you like to host outside does not mean that the next owner does. eliminating the dining room and having a strange kitchen area could be a disaster to try and sell.

People always say “but this is our forever home” but life changes and unforeseen happens. If you are spending money on a big renovation, make sure you can resell it

Sorry, but the living room should not be converted to a bedroom. It's at the front of the house and has far more light than the family room, not to mention the fireplace. If you're going to convert a room to a bedroom, the family room is a far better choice. I would carry the laundry room wall straight across, which makes the new bedroom smaller but makes the kitchen larger and far easier to configure. The kitchen/eating/living space will still flow together if the living room remains where it is. What is shown as the dining room now would remain as the primary eating space and alleviate concerns about resale.

@RappArchitecture great point about the natural lighting. Living room remains living room, family room becomes bedroom. Bathroom in between bedroom and living room.

do you think the kitchen layout should remain the same (maybe just finishes updated depending on age)? Or do you like mama goose kitchen layout w island?

The island works well in terms of defining kitchen and dining areas. Not sure about appliance layout and work triangle. I usually prefer the sink under the window, but that messes up the counter space, so sink is probably best in the island. Curious what the OP thinks.

Can you please clarify where garage is and where backyard is and how you access it?

Notwithstanding the issue of lack of a separate dining room, the family room makes more sense as a bedroom. In the space allotted to the kitchen, there is ap 11' between the corner of the bedroom and the wall beside the eating nook. Using a 36" walkway on each side, an island would be only 59" wide. IMO that's not wide enough for a sink, DW, and prep space.

If the island becomes a peninsula, the kitchen stays a galley, with a more open feel, and the walkway by the nook can be wider than 36". Changing the footprint of the proposed bathroom, and adding a closet to the bedroom, will extend the wall by ap a foot. The peninsula could be laid out m/l as the island (first plan, below), with a pantry at the end, or, the range could go on the peninsula run, within a couple of feet of the existing location (second plan, below). Although I prefer an exterior wall for easier venting, there isn't enough space on the exterior wall for a range, sink, DW and fridge. In the second plan the sink would be under the window, with DW and dish storage to the right. There wouldn't be enough space to the left for prep, so 1) prep would happen over the DW, or 2) items would need to be rinsed, then moved to the peninsula for remaining prep, or 3) a prep sink could be included on the island.

The range is in a slightly more protected spot in the second plan, and since there would be no space for a pantry, I made the existing shallow closet into a pantry accessed from the laundry/mudroom, similar to Mamaham's suggestion.

What is the long rectangle in the hallway? Bookcase? Utility chase?

@RappArchitecture I was more referring to do you think the kitchen should remain a galley kitchen or do you think the island option is better? Not necessarily where the sink/etc/details go. If the bathroom is moved, would it be better to have open kitchen to dining area or keep them separate? I prefer the open kitchen, but I've heard that the trends are shifting back to more defined separate areas.

Definitely island. And even more definitely not the bathroom in the middle of the house.

what does the extra space in the laundry room become?

I still don’t like the bathroom off the family room, now bedroom. But maybe OP can comment.

@RappArchitecture i agree. Plus it makes the foyer entrance odd. If you come in the front door, are you sure which way to go for first time visitors?

That space in the laundry room can become the closet for the converted bedroom.

what does the extra space in the laundry room become? If you are asking me, OP left it blank, so I didn't assign a use--I'm assuming she has a reason, but it might be for a future closet, as RappArchitecture suggests.

If you come in the front door, are you sure which way to go for first time visitors? Assume if they are first time visitors, whichever family member opened the door will direct them to appropriate destination. If they are 'uninvited guests', maybe they will be so confused they will give up before any nefarious actions can take place. ;)

If front door swing was reversed, foyer might work better.

I must have miscommunicated, but what is called the family room in the floorplan is what we are making a bedroom. The living room at the front of the house remains a living room. The nook is about a 9x9 area so you could put a small dining table there. The house is pretty small and our realtor said a second full bathroom is more valuable than a dining room since the nook is a decent size.

Susan the garage is detached in the backyard. We access it through the laundry door.

Thanks for all the comments. I just realized I posted the wrong floorplan. This is the most recent idea.

The long rectangle in the hallway is a hall cabinet for towels and stuff.

I'm still struggling with the master bath layout too. Any ideas there? Here is a draft with dimensions.

I don’t think that getting rid of the dining room is the right direction when your family eating area is a built in bench. Most people, teenagers and up, don’t like benches. I also find that the flow of your new plan is extremely awkward with the new bathroom creating a long hallway dividing your living space from your kitchen/eating area. I apologize in advance if you have already made up your mind about getting rid of the dining room. I suggest that the existing family room can be split up to contain the new bedroom (although small, 10.5’ x 8.5’) and a new kids bathroom that is roughly 10.5’ x 5’. The powder room would be the new closet for the new bedroom and the existing family room closet would be closed up on the room side and repurposed for either the laundry room or updated kitchen. As you noted, your house is not huge, so I think the smaller 3rd bedroom would not be out of proportion of the house. Keeping the dining room would allow you to have more options by incorporating the nook into the kitchen.

Thank you Andrea. That’s a good point about the built in bench. My husband and I were talking about that and we considered pulling the cabinets from the nook (since we will have more cabinet space in the island) to make room for a more normal sized dining table. Probably on the smaller side, but nonetheless something everyone would be comfortable sitting at. What are your thoughts?

This is not a complete thought out kitchen/laundry area, but this is the direction I was trying to describe. Also, I suggest opening up the doorways to both the dining room and living room. I suggest you might consider switching the swing of the entry door, so that your are ushered to the large, open living room and focal wall with the fireplace.

Reason I asked about garage and yard locations earlier is that, if you enter and exit house through laundry room, it is a long route to living areas right through center of work triangle. Andrea C’s layout seems much more functional in part by allowing a path through kitchen that allows one to avoid the work triangle. I still wonder how the backyard will be accessed from the house by you and guests if you convert FR to BR?

The backdoor is through the laundry room. The current builder layout has it so that the backyard/ detached garage access is through the laundry room and through the galley kitchen. I agree it is a long way, but without rearranging the entire floorplan (we considered moving bedrooms more towards the front and the kitchen in the back, but that would entail basically gutting the whole house and we are planning to live in through the reno so we want the best plan with minimal reconfiguring.

That is a nice plan, Andrea. Only issue is we have two kids, and to make one of their bedrooms almost half the size of the other is asking for trouble! If we only had one kid, that small room would make a nice home office.

Also, we live in LA and there are a lot of flips happening in the surrounding areas. I am finding that many of them are making dining rooms into extra bedrooms and/or bathrooms. It's pretty normal in my area to have an eat in kitchen (e.g. a nook or large island), with no dining room.