what is the scope of the first floor remodel and why....i thought the pictures were a real estate listing maybe even new construction ....so cant tell what you will be doing or how much is budgeted for the work you will execute.

The kitchen is a small gally kitchen and old original kitchen (70s). The house is older and many walls will be coming down to open it up. I received a few design ideas from a professional to understand the flow better. The dilemma is moving it into a corner room (current playroom) or leaving it where it is and exposing the stairs to basement so its wide open. Its not about saving a few dollars but what would make sense as far as the flow goes.

This is what the current kitchen looks like

So all the pics are really just a fantasy?? The open staircases make your kitchen look like an after thought, something no one uses much. The two tone thing is last year. People have moved on. Stools in a walkway--it looks tight. Better way to approach this is draw up a measured schematic of your actual space. Measure everything, every door every window. What do you mean if you move the kitchen it will be the first room inside the front door? Draw out your entire first floor so we can see the options.

First my advice leave AI out of the equation completely. We need a to scale floor plan of the whole main floor done on graph paper to make it easier to do. Show every window, doorways where those lead Do the plan empty of furniture and of course the kitchen empty. Who helped you with flow?? Show which walls can actually come out if a more open plan is what you want. You will get a ton of free advice often from pros here . So much better than any cabinet shop and for sure better than some contractor. But without more info and the plan there is no help we can offer . So I for one will wait for the plan. You post it here in jpeg format in a comment . This post is now where everything to do with this space is dealt with . You ask and answer questions here in comments.

It wasn’t AI, i had an architerual designer put it together using the blueprint, and also an architect come in and do the plans for the open plan structure (beams, posts etc) The design/flow is my idea. I will better draw the floor plan so you can see it on paper

Thank you all for your opinions. its been a decision we are thinking about for over a year and we can‘t decide. we brought in many professionals with mixed views which confuse us more. The layout above is the most recent one we had done from an architect. We love the house and invested a lot in fixing the outside but the first floor is a headache. It is a farmhouse style home with a lot of wood trim on windows and french doors thats why we designed it two tone. But thats not a solid decision yet. we are still stuck on the layout

I'm afraid you are not going to get great feedback because your post is confusing. Can you please edit your post to show us exactly what the pictures are that we are looking at? It would be helpful if you included an overhead view of your current layout and then an overhead view of your proposed layout. And if you have multiple proposals, label which is which Plan A and Plan B.

The pencil drawing that you did below shows an L shaped kitchen. (In that, drawing please show us where everything as and what everything is on the first floor.) But then you have renderings of a galley kitchen squeezed between a wall and the upstairs staircase -- and that just looks like a terrible use of first floor space.

Also, tell us what your goals are here - what is not working about your current layout and why you want to change it. Also, how will your family use the living room room and when and how they will use the family room and when.

You are correct, things like whether the cabinets are two toned doesn't matter at all right now. You have to get this layout correct.

Even if I blow up your plan, NOTHING IS READABLE. I don't know if this was a pdf and you tried to convert it, but try harder.

Thank you Kendrah! Thank you for your help, yes it is a bit confusing

plan A

Plan B

I would make the dining room where the kitchen is and the kitchen at the back where the family room is. I would make the den I to the family room and I would redo the front entry.

The drawings are a little small to read, and do not give a sense of the existing house (windows, circulation into/out of, etc).

But, taking a step back and if I read the drawing correctly, it seems the point of the remodel is to re-create a "roomed" house into an open concept house. Great pain and expense will be taken to bring in steel to open up . . . . the Family Room visually to the stair to basement and to the angled backside of the stair to 2nd floor.

Note that without all that steel, and if the wall remained closing off the basement stair, it looks like the Kitchen as proposed could still be visually open to the Family Room. And, there is plumbing and maybe HVAC to deal with upstairs, so the goal in open concept of broad, uninterrupted ceilings with simple beamed doorway openings often become cluttered with soffits or wide low-ceiling doorways. Sometimes the way a house is conceived just doesn't lend well to being re-conceived as something else, or if done only halfway, becomes muddled (not moving the stairs in this proposed concept is only going halfway).

What are all these rooms used for: Living Room, Den, Family Room? Which is formal, which is private, which is entertainment, which is better to be close to outdoor living, which is better to be directly connected and open to the kitchen?

Is the large expansive porch already built to make this non-farmhouse have a "farmhouse" look? How does the angled steps into a dead corner of the house work for the Entry? Why is the Foyer so large? Where should guests be transitioned into the house (back to Living vs Den)?

The questions I'm asking leads to where best the Kitchen would perform. How you enter the house, how you flow through it, how each space functions as adjacencies. How public vs private interacts. So overall, from what it appears to me, too much time has been spent on the minutiae of detailing in how to create an open concept and insert a kitchen into an already muddled plan, rather than solidifying the basic fundamentals of the house layout. And that is why you are in a dilemma and can't make a decision, you don't have good opportunities.

Thank you your detailed comment. As mentioned my concern is the flow. I’m not trying to make huge structurual changes like moving the front door, but just trying to tie in all the rooms together. The existing living room is the ”tv room” and the back family room has our dining table currently and a small couch by fireplace. The ”Den” is pretty much an empty bedroom that was used by previous owners, but is not necessary for the house. The House definetely needs a proportional kitchen and a dining area thats not too small. There is a wrap around porch. It is already discussed with contractor/engineer to install steal beams to open up the kitchen wall.

From do you usually bring groceries in to the house?

Have you priced out the cost of raising the back floor to eliminate the step down falling hazard? (First thing I did in my house.)

Yes, we defintely will raise the floors. thats in our plan. foyer has entry from front door and garage

Foyer

Living room with kitchen to left

Family room

This wall will come down going into ”Den”

Current kitchen with kitchen table

Agree 100% with Kendrah-get rid of the step down!

The other 2 things that stand out to me are that the dining room in each plan is on the other end of the house from the kitchen, which is odd. With either plan, you would have to walk through another room to get from the kitchen to the dining space. Also the living room seating in the mock up photos is facing the kitchen. I would want the living/family room space to face away from the kitchen, rather than making the kitchen the primary view. Good luck.

Having looked at your current photos, I think putting the large island up against the stairwells will look really strange. That makes the den location seem like the better choice. But I wouldn't have the kitchen fill that whole width of the den (19+ feet) that will be too large. You have room for a little table in there.

Thank you sooo much Kendrah. i havent thought of the drywall on the staircase. it’s definetely an option. i have designed the kitchen on that side with dining table by fireplace. I feel like it will take away from the fireplace use, but it does flow better.

Agreed. It will take away from your fireplace. How often do you use your fireplace? And when you do, how many people usually sit near it?

We always use it, 2-3 times a week in the winter months. Family of 5

You have five main conditions/obstacles that I see:

1. Upstairs staircase

2. Basement staircase

3. No kitchen space anywhere is large enough for an island

4. Need to keep kitchen and dining connected because of #3 (Hard no to walking across your first floor from a dining room to the kitchen for a glass of water or forgotten bottle of ketchup!)

5. Preserve seating for five at fireplace

How about this?

The green lines are drywall so you can still get base and upper cabinets on both sides of your kitchen. It is like having a wider version of your current kitchen that is open to a very large dining space that allows for:

- Kids to sit at the dining table and hang out while you cook, much the way an island functions.

- Large table connected to kitchen for nightly dinner for five.

- Table with leaves that can expand to accommodate guests.

Lastly, why is there a powder room in the bedroom and a full bath off of your current living room?

I think that flows better. I,ll just have to compromise with keeping that wall intact In foyer to seperate from living room. So, the bathrooms that you see are swapped in real life powder room in family room and full bathroom in master bedroom. I think the previous owners had the plans originally like that but changed it. So for me if i was to put a small kitchen where existing kitchen is was maybe an option to use that powder room as a pantry and keep the powder room in ”den” area just moving the door where it would face the back of the house.

All of the current walls between your kitchen and living room would come down. You would just put one back up against the staircase so it is no longer an open case but has a wall on one side with a railing on that wall as many staircases have.

It would be as if in this picture you push the island against the staircase, made the island shorter to end at the foot of the stairs, and built a wall to hang upper cabinets on.

That better be one really spectacular location to want to spend that many hundreds of thousands on a remodel instead of a move up. Especially with such a meh result for that many hundreds of thousands. The juice just isn’t worth the squeeze with an older home, with those other older home issues still remaining.

Thank you Kendrah! Yes I think we can make that work. Tish yes the location and property are amazing, and Its worth the investment for the location. Thats why i wanna do it the best possible way

Any remodel that involved that still ends up with the stairs being the world’s biggest obstacle is not a success. Resolve yourself to spend more, and fix that issue.

Geyser Construction , we looked into moving them but it wouldnt work for either upstairs or downstairs. extension part is a slab

Reading between the lines I am not sure if you are just looking for an echo chamber of your ideas and not much else. But, since you are willing to spend dozens of thousands on beams (which includes steel W's + columns, which I'm not sure you understand the consequences of that) that do not move the needle for any schemes thus far, then moving the kitchen, doors, windows, etc should be an easy task, especially when you design for what the house can offer (which doesn't include opening up every single wall).

"Farmhouse" to me is more than decor; it denotes an era where the presence of a defined room is understood, and a deliberate heirarchy of spaces. Your existing house has that, albeit the spaces are disproportionate, oblong shaped, and adjacently disorganized. And in schemes presented thus far, functionally repeating in use right next to each other.

So, here is a scheme that leaves most all the structural walls - no large beams or steel needed. It corrects the adjacencies to something representing more of a typical house and the common ways most people live. Note:

• The key to this is moving the front door, which also eliminates the existing oversized entry "room" placed off to the side.
• Red arrows show circulation, sightlines, flow, organization, alignment
• The space inside the existing 'L' of the stair is devoid of windows and on the interior. When comparing main spaces, a Dining Room is most appropriate with that criteria.
• The step down in the back (and up in existing Entry) can even be retained if desired, which shows how you can work with an existing house and structure with what it has to give, yet make it into something else.
• "Open concept" is still achieved by the openness of the main private spaces together: Kitchen/Breakfast/Family. And the feeling of the other rooms open to each other with large doorway openings and sightlines through them to outside the house.
• The 2nd scheme was trying to make the Family Room larger, but a possible existing beam (as was noted to verify on plans) might wreck that.

Agree to move the kitchen and enjoy "open concept" across the back of the home with the attached eating area and den. We did this in our 100 yr old center stair Colonial, worth every penny and the 18 months it took to design and complete

Thank you! That was another rendering I did, but the kithcen flow wouldnt work. the sink was way too far from stove top.

The across the back of the house challenge is OP wants to retain a five person gathering area around the fireplace, which is smack dab in the middle of that back section of the house. This kills the possibility of connecting any eating area to a kitchen placed in the back.

You start with a strong concept. Then continue developing it. That is why I use color coded halftone shading, so someone doesn't get bogged down in "the toaster can't go there."

The kitchen rendering in the bay window was based on a concept that wasn't as strong. Dismissing other directions because of where the stove was in that concept is missing the forest for the trees.

The concepts of the Kitchen in the 'L' of the stair are not strong, which is the whole reason this thread exists. So you have to start opening up the thinking.

The existing fireplace is in the wrong spot. The width of that room just doesn't support a fireplace and appropriately spaced seating away from it. As a cozy Hearth Room, it could be sized ok if it didn't also have circulation going right through it (so ok as an arrival point, not a circulation thoroughfare). So in this instance, the fireplace is not something to base a concept around. If one is willing to spend $50K-$75K on structure opening up walls, then without that structural cost a $10K fireplace somewhere else in line with a strong concept seems a reasonable choice.

Thank you 3onthetree! That was an option to move it, but there would be no good spot for it anywhere else. it would have to be eliminated completely