Is the pantry door the main service entrance? If yes I would make it into a mud room as well with coat storage etc. Do you need a powder room as you have enough space for one. You can do storage cabinets on the solid wall to the left OR it can be more things but hard to say without showing the full floorplan.

I have no idea what you are showing in this plan Post a layout of the whole area including the kitchen and surrounding spaces . What wall ? Why a swinging door , too little info for any real help.

This is the overall remodel plan. Thanks!

How far along are you? What can change?

40" isles on the range side and counter stool side of the island are going to be a bit tight.

Also, don't do a pocket door for a powder room that might get used by guests.

Just a ” bit ” of a stroll from the kitchen to the dining room : )

This plan is not thoughtfully planned. At all. We're looking at what should be the most FUNCTIONAL space in the house, and you're proposing so many things that'll require extra steps or are just inconvenient:

Butler's pantry:

- One big question is, how do YOU intend to use this space? Traditionally it's a place to store dishware and a place to "set things out" -- like desserts or drinks -- so they're ready to be swept out into the dining room at the right moment. That would mean you'd want counter top space RIGHT BESIDE the dining room door -- where you have a sink.

- How do you see these spaces working on a daily basis?

- How do you see these spaces working when you have people over? Where will you set out pre-dinner munchies? Will you deliver plates to the table, or will they serve themselves buffet-style? Where will you set out drinks? Desserts? What's the thought for getting dishes to the dishwasher and back to their storage spot?

- The sink (and dishwasher?) seem to suggest you're using this as a separate washing area. You have two full-sized sinks in the kitchen PLUS this space? I think you're just plugging in things without real thought about what you need.

- Solid no to a breakfast table in this area (who would carry breakfast all that way?), but it would be a great office space /would allow you to eliminate the proposed office -- or, if you have two working adults in this house, two offices wouldn't be a bad idea. Not with so many people working from home (at least part time). It could also be a craft room or a sewing room.

- Do you have a door between the dining room and a butler's pantry? You should. The whole idea of a butler's pantry is to facilitate a quick service to the dining room /make it appear effortless. Lack of a door removes this illusion.

Laundry room:

- Placed in the corner as it is, you'll be forced to wend your way through either the kitchen or the dining room + butler's pantry to reach this space. Look at the plan and imagine walking through with baskets. Both ways.

- That's a laundry sink opposite the washer /dryer? It'd be better placed next to the washer. Two reasons: It'd mean all your water needs would be in one wall. Cheaper and one less place for a leak to occur. Also, if the sink is right next to the washer, you won't drip water across the floor bringing it to the machine.

- On the positive side, your dryer is on an exterior wall, which is both cheaper to build and easier to maintain, which means more fire-safe.

Pantry

- You want your pantry to be right next to the back-door entry -- fewer steps, you know. As presented, you'll have to walk through the office to reach the pantry. And if someone is sitting at the desk, you won't be able to walk through.

- If you flip-flop the pantry and the office, it'll work out better, and your pantry access will still be just as good -- just on the other end.

Powder Room

- A toilet requires 30" of space (actually 15" on each side from the center line). So you don't really have space for that vanity -- you do have space for a pedestal sink.

Kitchen

- This is an oversized trainwreck. Everything is spread too far apart for efficient function /will require too many steps. The island is too large, creating a PacMan kitchen; that is, a kitchen that's all aisle. How many steps would be required to fetch a spoon or a condiment?

- The sinks especially are odd. You seem to have a clean-up sink over under the windows ... as far as possible from the source of the dirty dishes (the dining room). AND you have a clean-up area in the butler's pantry.

- No one wants a BIG kitchen. People who say that actually mean they want an EFFICIENT kitchen with everything positioned in "just the right spot". It seems you've just plugged in more-and-more-and-more without a lot of thought about how it'll function.

- Even with a large bank of windows over the sink at the top of the plan, the far end of the kitchen /the end buried deep in the middle of the house will be dark.

- Is that an angled door leading to the pantry and butler's pantry? That spot is already a bottleneck, and a door in that position will be a pain -- it'll create an obstacle to walk around.

- The kitchen is not so far from the dining room, but with the doors in their current positions, you'll need many steps to get food to the table (and then again to clean up). This usually results in a dining room that's never used.

- Why so much bar-seating space at the island? Do you really want to feed your family Waffle-House style?

- Something I don't see is trash /recycling. Think through those spaces -- including the pathway for carrying bags out the door.

- I believe your only back-yard access is through the kitchen, which will funnel people from the living area through your work space -- but they won't be able to exit that door if anyone's sitting at the island.

Final thoughts: This plan is bloated -- reduce it by 1/3 and it'll be more efficient /functional. I'd cut the kitchen down significantly, remove the existing office and move the office items to the butler's pantry. I'd move the kitchen cabinets to allow the kitchen-to-dining-room doors to be closer together.

For a large project like this, have you considered using a talented designer/architect instead of a drafter?

A remodel is often more challenging than starting with a clean sheet.

No context. But the "Butler's Pantry" is not just a hidden accessory function space to the Dining, it is acting as prominent and visual circulation space to the backhouse. So without context the purpose I would give it, if the problem is trying to fit spaces to accomodate existing windows in brick walls:

I too seem to remember seeing that Office-Pantry-Laundry setup in another thread, I looked at your history to get context but cannot find it.

Maybe these 2 images will help. The first is a rough sketch of the existing house. The area I have highlighted in blue is where we can raise the ceiling from 8’ to 9’. The existing family room and dining room are already 9’. FYI, the back hall/ carport entrance with existing washer/dryer to the full bath is raised about 7” higher than the rest of the house so it needs to stay a service hall. The second plan shows how the architect drew an addition (highlighted in pink) that made the overall proposed plan work but it has blown our budget and I don’t want to start over. I am grateful for everyone’s input.

Call me dumber than a box of rocks.......but I can not "square" the two images.

All I will say is the new version is a train wreck of considerable magnitude, an equal dollar magnitude, all for a home being designed around two ceiling heights and a carport. Perhaps the real answer was/is a tear down.....who knows?

A very, very accurate, to the foot and inch representation of the original condition along with the new, might help.

But as is? No is the answer. Do over for reasons too numerous to list, but start with the kitchen......

Honestly, the butlers pantry looks superfluous. Like a second kitchen when you already have a huge kitchen. It doesnt improve access to the dining room or make storage or cleanup easier. If the addition drawings are blowing your budget, give them back and say no. It doeant give you a better house. I hope these observations do not discourage you. I have lived through two additions and it aint easy. So you want it to be worth it! (not a pro)

but it has blown our budget and I don’t want to start over.

Are you saying the design fees have blown your budget and that is why you don’t want to start over? Building a home that makes zero sense is a far worse waste of money.

So wait a year, save more money for a MUCH better designer/architect. In the meantime, gather great ideas here and test them out so you have a very good idea of your needs to start with.

This is truly a horrible design and I wouldn’t trust any professional who is suggesting you put your savings into implementing it.

How many live in your home, how many bedrooms, how often do you entertain in the dining room, how many does it seat? The ratio of butler pantry to dining room is simply absurd.

It must be horrible to get this feedback but it is truly issued with your wallet and best interests in mind.

" that made the overall proposed plan work but it has blown our budget and I don’t want to start over. "

So your answer is to send more good money after bad? Take a step back and evaluate what you just said.

WOW now I see the context I agree back to the drawing board before it is too late. First a butlers pantry is where the butler serves the food from the kitchen to the DR and is a nice functional space to drop off dirty dishware and maybe mix drinks but perfectly connected to the DR from the kitchen . Bigger is not better BTW in either kitchen design or even home design You need to stop right now and get some real help . That whole kitchen , pantry , butlers pantry will require roller skates to make dinner and for no reason at all except to go big I assume to impress someone . Who ever designed this home should go back to design school NOW.

There's still a lot of unknown information. A couple exterior pics would fill in some blanks. From your description, here's what I gather, that there have been multiple additions and differing roofs on the left wing of the house:

Here's an educated guess to where you blew your budget. $75K in kitchen appliances is going to happen in any case, if that's what you choose. But blowing out exterior walls completely is going to kill any budget:

I don't think the architect needs to be burned at the stake, which is the default view on this website. We do not know the context of what was directed as project criteria and the process of how that was developed to arrive at a blown budget. This is not uncommon, where at first draft, a homeowner still has huge dreams, and if architects push too far to quash those dreams, the homeowner won't feel services are met. Until you get realistic prices, you can only temper those dreams during the process. Not all is lost here, it just means you have to roll up your sleeves and dive in again.

I don't want to overstep without knowing all the project context and existing conditions, but I still think my initial concept is worth looking at pursuing. It dealt with the differing ceilings, doesn't require an addition but still has good room proportions, keeps a formal Dining with what appears to fit this house, keeps the Office/Flex, and introduces a typically-desired informal daily eating area with connection to outdoors.

3onthetree, thanks so much! I will post a picture of what I have so far, I moved the butler’s pantry to the pantry where there is an existing sink. I moved the office as well as the dining room which could connect directly to the kitchen with a walkthrough between the refrigerator and freezer that I already have. The walkthrough may be weird though. My printer is low on ink but I hope you can see where I added upper cabinets connecting the freezer and fridge like a bridge to accommodate for the 9 to 8’ ceiling drop into the dining room. It may feel like a tunnel, maybe wood panels on 3 sides would help it. One thing I need to point out is that the carport door area from the powder room and including the upper pantry and 3 closets has a higher floor than the rest of the house. There is a step down into the kitchen as well as to the lower pantry. We will not dig this out because it is level with the carport. So that wall that runs behind the cooktop/hood has to stay where it is. Also, I do not blame the architect even though he was the one that wanted to add footprint and convinced us it would be within budget. I’m still working on improving the kitchen layout and I appreciate all of the input! You will notice a purple line that could be small bump out of the great room to open up the kitchen. I’m waiting on the contractor to give me a quote on this. If we don’t add this bump out, I’m not sure how to fix the kitchen.

Other options: put fridge/freezer where the range is and put the range where the 2nd sink is or in the island. Any thoughts?

No range on the island ever. Range at the top of the plan where the sink is, hood flanked by windows. Fridge freezer where the range is currently, now you have a nice triangle. The locations marked fridge freezer could be a hidden wet bar, seasonal dishes, etc.

Hallett & Company, I appreciate your above comments and others you may think of!

It seems the main goal (besides enlarging and updating) is to open up the Kitchen to the Great Room. I would guess that's why the full addition was stuck with, because a partial addition like you are now contemplating doesn't really accomplish that. It would be a bit of an awkward juxtaposition of the Kitchen/Great Room, and the island (with seating) is just too close to the wall for main circulation.

Don't worry about little details like the ref/freez bridge yet. It seems a rethinking of your wants, and what your house can give to accomplish those, needs to be revisited - start with a fresh layout. Your house may not be a good candidate for opening up the Kitchen completely to Great Room - and that's ok. Don't get bogged down by cabinet sizes and stuff, main concepts like circulation (what I show with yellow arrows on those sketches) needs work first.

The steps should be shown, that is an important existing condition. Depending on foundation, pushing the Kitchen back wall (the 24" line of range cabinets) into that space might still be a viable option that is worth it to gain width into the Kitchen. The method of raising the ceiling height is also important, like if you will have a portion of sloped ceiling afterwards.

Right now it looks to me like you are extending the Kitchen to be this long linear space, not because of cooking needs, but just because you don't know what to fill the long linear space with (same as the backhouse functions behind the Kitchen).

Posting updated plan for anyone still following. @3onthetree thanks for your suggestions!

Shame we can’t read dimensions. In general the layout looks much more logical. That’s 200k worth of cabinets between the kitchen, dining, pantry, butlers pantry (which isn’t but whatever) and laundry. Yikes. The dining looks too narrow for those built ins.

whoa!! No........ it's getting worse?

This below is just too WRONG for words: ) Sorry!!

You have to widen that kitchen .Take it from the mud,( just make it a walk in closet! ) it's a REGULAR, ordinary pantry, ( you don't have Jeeves the butler man, and a BUTLERS pantry is between a kitchen and dining! ) and reduce those two areas to 6' width from the roughly 7'6" you had. Nine feet of width is plenty for laundry.

Put those 18" in kitchen width. You need every WIDTH inch..12/15/18 find it

Is that the only place for the laundry? Can it go closer to the bedrooms?

That is a strange layout. I would add a wall splitting that Pantry room in half. Get rid of the doorway from Great Room to Pantry- it makes no sense to walk in there from that room. Make the new walled off room something functional like a small office, playroom, etc.

Then again...the overall floorplan looks like something my daughter brought home from her high school interior design class to correct. So m uch makes no sense. I would start over and go to another designer to rework your spaces.

The revised design is still not fully cooked. But at this point, I think it's enough to stop DIY designing for now, it seems it's come to a holding pattern. The current version is different enough in the bones and concept from the original design that you can now get another ballpark cost. Then if that cost (plus add another 1/3 to it) is still a viable project, go back to your architect for schematic design. Come back here after that and we'll jump in again.