That is a good wish list. Now, what are the needs? What will achieve those needs? How will the things on the wish list help? You say you want to move and enlarge the kitchen because it has no seating. Yet the dining room os right there. So, do you want island/peninsula seating? a breakfast nook?

A master bedroom. Upstairs? What is upstairs now? I suspect three bedrooms and one bath. Is there a laundry in the basement? Does the tenant have a laundry room? (if not, that is a huge plus for tenants and for prospective future tenants.)

What does your local zoning allow? Where do you park? What is the back of the lot like?

"Load bearing" can be changed with a big wooden beam. It's fairly easy. Have you talked to a structural engineer? You have a loose tenant? :P

We need a lot more info and honestly you need an architect more than us trying to really help. I would never close off the only window in a kitchen BTW.How many bedrooms do you need , how old are your kids ? I do not think the layout as it is is bad . The porch of course could be done to provide you with a mud room but would need to be ripped out and done as an addition. I often find a good declutter and maybe a better kitcehn design can make a world of difference in how much you need to change but we do not have enough info to decide that.

Your plan grabs a lot of space from the tenant, including the back door escape route out of the unit. As another noted, check with building code and HOA first before you spend much time or money pursuing this.

A better idea would be to buy a new home and rent out both sides of your duplex.

I agree with Patricia Colwell (as I usually do!). You could use the services of an architect or designer. Also, what are your property setbacks? Would suggest you (or your architect) check before any designing is done. If the setbacks are close to your house it will limit how much you can expand your footprint. Since your house is a duplex I would also check with your local zoning office to see what restrictions they might have.

bpath

-Yes, dining room is right there, but with little kids we need island or peninsula. Kitchen is very dark.

-Upstairs 3 small bedrooms and 1 good size bath. No real master. I'll attach upstairs layout.

- Both sides have basement with laundry and storage. Not a dealbreaker if it stays where it is.

-We live in incorporated village, so have to deal with standard building department. There are two long driveways on each side of the house. House is situated a little to the left on a double lot, so plenty of room in a back to expand.

Patricia Colwell Consulting

Once we have a general idea of what we want, we'll speak to an architect.

The window in a kitchen doesn't bring any light. Kitchen window on the right is closed off with a cabinet (previous owners did some minor reno in the 90s) and the one that's left if facing a wall. So we have to put a light on in a kitchen to use it.

Porch is a back needs to be rebuilt regardless if we go through with this reno or not. It serves as a mudroom now, but really it's more like a screened in porch - it's freezing in a winter and sauna in a summer. It is original and is on it's last leg. There's an exterior door between the kitchen and the porch.

We need to add 1 bedroom. We have 2 preschool aged kids and 1 on the way.

I wish decluttering would be a solution, but we really only keep the necessities. Anything not used daily is stored in a basement or tossed.

HU-910663146

The plan is what we currently have. We can move tenant's access to the yard to their dining room fairly easily. No HOA.

Renting it all out and buying new is another option we're looking into, however it comes with risks and it's nearly impossible to find a yard the size that we currently have.. We're also considering converting it to one family.

Norwood Architects

There's another house just like ours in a neighborhood, they built second floor addition to the side (it's like a covered driveway under it). We have lots of room in a back.

A good architect should be able to help you explore your options. Maybe you could combine the two sides, eliminating the need for two staircases, but creating a one-bedroom ground floor apartment on one side.

Figuring out how to combine the kitchen and dining room is the obvious solution. It the entire wall between the two load-bearing or can you have some columns? Or do you use your dining room for other things?

If you have a basement, put the laundry room there. Use paint, flooring tiles and so on to make it pretty. I mean, really, how much time are you going to spend doing laundry? You don't need a dedicated room on the first or second floors.

Sigrid

With soon to be 3 boys washer is running non stop lol. But like I said, not the end of the world to leave it in a basement where it currently is.

As far as opening the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, ideally I'd take all of it out, but then where to put uppers or refrigerator? Basement entry and access to back yard is in a way of nice L design. I've also thought of making more like a galley kitchen and just opening half of the wall to the dining room. Something like printscreen below (it's basically our plan minimum) - we need to rebuild back porch anyway as it's falling apart, add half bath to each unit and it would leave a tiny mudroom area. Partially open kitchen/dining wall and change kitchen layout to galley with peninsula. Dining room would remain as is, maybe add a slider - we have a huge yard and zero windows to really see it..

Until you finalize your plans, realize that your boys will enjoy sharing a room.

Do you take in enough in rent to cover the cost of the addition? It seems to me that you could take over the whole house, remodel what's existing to suit your needs now, and in the future (when the kids are teenagers and take up a LOT more space). You already have a second bathroom upstairs - there's your master suite. Open up the two 10x10 bedrooms to provide access to the kids' rooms, and move the laundry upstairs (since that's where the dirty clothes are generated).

Just because you "have lots of room in a back" does not mean you will be able to use it to expand your building*. There are many constraints when dealing with an existing building on a site subject to zoning. Protect yourself and hire a competent local architect that will design an addition with you that willl meet your needs, fit your site, and address existing conditions.

*Currently working on a project where the zoning ordinance will only allow half the property to be used in calculating "lot coverage".