We're doing something similar to your second picture -- all in a line, but that's because it suited our location, the views, and the rest of the house.

Well, the images are two pretty different spaces. But, i like the second one.

L shaped spaces can layout the rooms in an actual L, so you can't see into one leg of the l from another. That gives the feeling of privacy in an otherwise not very private space. Neither example you show really separates the spaces. So it really depends on if you want the kitchen closer to the living room or farther, as that's the main difference.

@anj_p, I guess I failed to mention that the space is pretty square. We can design some leg to break the square (into L), but not a long one. The leg for the living room is easier as it is "inside" the house

@LH CO/FL, how big your open space?

@bpath, yes but what I am trying to emphasize is that the original space is pretty square, , we have an opportunity to design it slightly off square though - if it makes a difference. we cannot quite agree on how much privacy different arrangements bring if any

You might provide some context. Are you designing a new build, remodeling or ???

@PPF., I have added some context, yes it is a new build

We have an open concept main floor with kitchen, dining, living all feeding off of one another. The living has a bit of a jog that makes it bigger than the other spaces. My biggest piece of feedback
Is that you need more aisle space and room to move between the spaces, even though all open, than you think you do. Ours goes kitchen, dining, living.

@WestCoast Hopeful, nice plan, can you enter the kitchen from the garage or foyer without walking through the dining? Do you have a pantry?

Here is the full first floor plan. We have a 75 foot wide lot so forward facing garage made most sense. We do not have a pantry but do have lots of storage and what not in mud room.

We have a sloped lot with height restrictions and a strict main floor to upper floor ratio formula so we have steps down from entry. In a perfect world this would not exist but works for us.

@WestCoast Hopeful, nice plan you have, we cannot have much depth due to the lot restrictions though. I see you do not have pantry, are you OK without it ?

Have never had one. It’s a huge kitchen with tons of storage and the mud room has cupboards and shelving and storage too. It’s very common for homes to be 1-2 rooms deep…

@WestCoast Hopeful, true, but we just trying hard to have at most 48 feet of depth for a nice backyard

What is your lot size?

@WestCoast Hopeful we have around 100, however we have a problem, behind our house there is a huge house close to the border on the elevated lot .There is a fence of 10+ feet to cover with some vegetation :(

Sorry what are the dimensions of your lot?

@WestCoast Hopeful not a perfect square but roughly 110 (depth) by 70

Gotcha. 110 is short for sure. That’s tricky

I agree with @WestCoast Hopeful You will need more aisle space then you think. Do you have an archtectural plan with dimensions?

Ours is 40' x 20'. I'm away from my laptop, so all i have is an early render -- we've changed from two sliders to one slider and two fixed windows.

@LH CO/FL looks fantastic !, it is what we have around 40 by 20 .You have awesome windows. Lucky you you have nice trees out there . Just a follow up question, how many halls do you have to your living space? where are the stairs (if you have any) thank you

@scout, we are going ot meet with an in house architect next week and we need to be VERY SPECIFIC about what we want

@Vinnya DeLuca - the entry to the great room is through a 8-foot wide cased (actually, steel beam-framed) opening near the kitchen. There is a hallway parallel to the length to our guest room area, but wanted those to be private, so only one entry to the great room. The entry is across from the main entry to our house, through the foyer.

And thanks. That mockup/render was an early attempt to see if I properly framed the view the way i wanted. We have enough framing up to know that I nailed it!

@LH CO/FL, i am afraid our entry will be at the living room also through the foyer ...hence to get to the kitchen we have to walk through the dining space .

I’m so confused about how you seem to know what your layout will be but you’ve said you haven’t met to begin design yet? There’s a huge difference between wands and needs and then what gets designed for you from that?

@WestCoast Hopeful I have a draft I shared earlier- it took an architect literately 10 minutes to make ti to start the conversation . I am limited to the square footage due to my lot restriction so I know how many rooms I will have on each floor. However as it mess I will have only 1 hour to discuss the concept of my future house and I have to be well prepared to articulate all the likes and dislikes

@WestCoast Hopeful, we do not have the luxury of having 4-5 hours meetings and/or seeing an architect 10 times . We are cheap and go with the in-house architect as it is not just the cost of an architect but also the customization

@WestCoast Hopeful, the cost of the construction went up significantly compared to the previous years. Our builder has a few designs which are priced modestly . We can make small changes to existing designs with the help of in house architect or decide to get a totally custom plan . At the moment we are trying to figure out what we want in the design to see whether we can agree to minor alteration of the existing design

@WestCoast Hopeful, I do not have the list, I will be choosing DURING the meeting with an architect .:(

You need to let them know you want time to decide on a plan. It’s not reasonable to be shown one and decide same day. If so that’s a huge red flag.