Moving/reconfiguring lighting is not a big expense when compared with moving sanitary lines or hvac ducting. I hope the person who told you the switch info isn't also where you got the load-bearing wall info. You have a good amount of space, just a poor configuration. I'd make everything function better by deleting the kitchen door and replacing the dining room bay with a patio door you can use for in and out. This way you can totally remove all wall, including the frig wall, between the kitchen and living room. You can do an 'L' kitchen with an island and no peninsula. You get the biggest living room space.

" The wall is not weight bearing. I was told that it isn't too expensive to remove walls, but a big expense would be moving/reconfiguring the light switches. "

Get advice from someone else as whomever told you that is wrong.

You need to involve and pay some professionals on your end. Start with finding a good architect, who works with a good GC. Because whomever "told you" anything there, is NOT the one to work with. This is a several hundred thousand dollar project, that needs 6-12 months of planning. Houses are not Legos, and cannot be wholesale rearranged without a lot of money, and the right professionals.

You need to hold your horses. A limited budget is some paint and maybe curtains. It isn't trying to do 400K worth of remodeling to make your first house into the dream house of your wallet at 50 budget.

Look, you just bought the place, and are not planning on living there until you die, which is what it would take to ever make that much of a redo "worth" it to either live with the mess, or spend that much money.

The first Rule of Homeownership is the same as the Hippocratic Oath that a Dr. takes takes: First Do No Harm. That takes months of planning and study of the existing home, before you even put a pencil to paper. Do you even own a screwdriver? Miter saw? Palm sander? Do you know plumbing? Electrical? Framing? You need to pause planning anything, and just live there. Meanwhile, learn some of that. Maybe design and build a shed for the back yard, from scrtch. Figure out the huge hassel of legally adding plumbing to your ”workshop”.

Nothing you listed is even doable DIY, on a ”small” budget. Nor would it increase the value of the home enough to pay someone else to do it. You probably need to stubbornly learn thta for yourself, by spending money on a folly or two. I suggest you don’t, but hey, only the bank and the spouse are going to be upset with you if you tear apart their house and kinda ruin it.

Congrats on the purchase of your first home! How exciting!

I agree with rebasheba. I would want to fix the upstairs first. I would skip refinishing the floors or messing with the wall downstairs for now and put the money towards the upstairs. Are the floors in good shape, but you just want them lighter? What color are they now?

Here is one idea for the upstairs.

All this is just guesswork, but I thought it might give you some ideas to discuss with your GC or Architect.

I have know idea what a “tight budget “ looks like to you, so I am just showing what I think would add function and resale value to the home. You can do things in stages as the budget allows.

Most people would want a bigger vanity and a second sink in the master. I removed the one closet wall to extend the vanity. A nice size shower is also important. A corner shower is the worst. If the plumbing is on the right wall, maybe you could extend the shower down to where the closet wall is? Is there a window on the top wall where the page is cut off? It is hard to make suggestions without seeing the whole floor plan. Could the walk in closet move in front of the existing reach in closet?

The pedestal sink in the hall bath might be cute for a power room, but it is really not practical in a shared bath. If you have or plan to have kids, they will definitely need some cabinet storage and countertop space next to the sink. Even guests will hate having no place to put a tootbrush, toothpaste, brush, and other toiletries. You could leave the sink plumbing where it is, but then the wall/door would have to go and any electrical relocated in order to fit a bigger vanity.

As far as the kitchen… It looks like in the pink box on the left, you included the cabinetry next to the fridge. In the 2019 kitchen remodel, did they install all new cabinets, new countertops, etc? If so, I would not touch the kitchen. The layout looks fine. I would want to keep as much storage as possible.

But, if you really want to, I would only take out the two short wing walls between the dining and living room. I am not sure it will make enough of a difference to be worth the cost and mess involved.

It does not look like you have enough room to add a breakfast bar and keep the dining room table there. The dining room seems too narrow to have back to back seating.

If you would like more detailed help, we would need some more information. Posting the full floor plan would help. For instance, let’s say you really want the bar seating. I could see the dining table moving to the right side of living room, if you had another living or family room space to use instead. The area where the living room is more narrow could be a smaller seating area off the foyer. Behind the bar stools could be a cute little coffee “nook” with two comfy chairs and a coffee table.

Well, please let us know if you would like further help. Otherwise, enjoy your new home!

thank you all for your inputs and advice! The previous owner had a dog and the floors are scratched up. The are also stained quite dark and there a cloudy hue over it. We prefer a lighter shade to brighten up the place. @Rebunky, thank you for taking the time to draft your ideas! I have posted a better image of the primary bath area and the family room area. It is a split model. The bathroom of the primary is unfortunately a corner shower. The family room is down a few stairs, to the left from kitchen and a wall separates the two area. Hence we're trying to see how can set up the house so its has more open living /kitchen area as we do have young kids and would prefer line of sight of them if we're in the kitchen. The best views of the house is the back yard, which faces a forest. So it'll be nice to have either dining or coffee nook in front of the bay window, or near the sliding doors on the left of the kitchen (unfortunately a kitchen window near the stove was walled off during the most recent kitchen remodel). Its likely that we'll live in the house for a little bit to see what bothers us to most and how things could be redone, but everyone I talk to says to do the floors first.

If you want to view the living room from the kitchen you need to flip the kitchen and dining. Your house cant do what you want and removing those little wing walls on the opening between dining and living won't make a difference.

While your littles are little you could try setting up their play area in the dining area, and eating in the living room instead.

Your want list is multiple hundreds of thousands. Get actual professional design help to be your partner with this. Or it could be double hundreds of thousands, and still not work well.

In 6 months, you will have discarded most of these ideas as non feasible.

I have no idea how generations of parents ever had children they couldn’t helicopter over every minute of every day. /sarcasm.

The actual danger to toddlers isn’t the kitchen. It is the full blown stream in the back yard. You immediately need to fence that off, and install a gate sensor and camera.