My house has the strangest layout. Please help

last year

It's very hard to get a clear picture of how weirdly shaped our house is in pictures, so I made a 3D model. Our house was originally built in the 80s and has the weirdest floorplan. Our house is extremely narrow by our fireplace in the family room, but really long and our living room is narrow as well. Our kitchen is in the center but we have a wall separating our living/kitchen area. I don't know what to do anymore with this floorplan, we just moved in a few months ago but we are looking to remodel this house in the next 5-10 years. I just want to make this house functional. Please throw any ideas at me.
House dimensions:
Family room- 21'x11'
Kitchen- 12'x12'
Dining room- 12'x12'
Living room- 23'x13'

Comments (4)

bpath
last year
That looks like a fairly typical 1960-80 layout. So, what are your goals for the house? How do you live?

Do you need a separate dining space? if so, does it need to be larger? Or, is a single dining space plus casual counter seating/perching enough?

Do you like a foyer with a little more definition?

Do you cook a lot? What’s your style? I don’t mean what type of food, necessarily, but are you a ”mise en place“ or ”prep-as-you-go”? Clean as you go, or clean at the end?

Do you entertain? Are there children?

Do you work from home? Do you watch tv in the evenings, read, play games, go online, or catch up on work?

What’s your budget?

Lots of things to consider!
Erin Russell
Original Author
last year
Cooking is very important to me, we definitely need a bigger kitchen and I like open sight lines because we have younger children and we like to entertain.

We have four bedrooms upstairs so we have plenty of space for an office and games, it's just our main living space the needs configuring. Because of how long and narrow the family room is and the fact that we have a fireplace on that wall, it's very hard for me to figure out how to layout our house
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bpath
last year
Friends of mine did just that, turning the living room into dining and kitchen all the way to the left. At the front of the house, they added storage at the far left. then a small sitting area . basically two chairs facing each other in front of the storage, with the kitchen door behind one chair. They used it when they didn’t need to keep an eye on the kids. And then the dining. and a cased opening to a foyer.

Then, the foyer led back to the living space. you can define a long space with furniture, two areas, and maybe you want a breakfast table between kitchen and the living space.
dan1888
last year
last modified: last year
I'd mess with the 22' of the bearing wall from the bottom of the stairs to the outside wall. That's not overly long for a beam. Move the kitchen to include the current dining room. With the wall gone you can include an island between the new kitchen and the living room. A table and chaurs goes between the kitchen and the family room. And then you're up to date. If you want to do the reno over time, the beam can go in first without adversely affecting the current layout.