Please mark all the load bearing walls.

What is your budget range?

We are waiting on our architect's drawings to show load bearing - perhaps I am jumping the gun on the dreaming (usually do). Would like to stay under $500K. Thanks!

From what I see this is a substantial renovation to get a better kitchen as the primary goal? You are then adding on changes to your room and creating bathrooms for each kid? Personally I would not do the added expense of an ensuite for each kid. I don’t see it as worth it.

It looks like you'd be adding 5-10% to the square footage and gaining one bathroom for $500K. Does the value of neighborhood housing support that kind of change?

Thank you! The new internal stairs connecting downstairs to upper + the new enclosed deck --> dining room would add 30+% (since downstairs could now be counted as heated sf). This is also updating a very 1987 home kitchen/baths, all bedrooms ensuite, and adding a powder room. We bought extremely 'low' and live in an affluent seasonal mountain town. Price/sf is never a good indicator around here, as teardowns and 1/2 acre lots go for $2M - crazy but good for us longterm, I hope.

Adding the inside stairs is a great idea.

A couple of initial comments:

- An interior kitchen might wind up being dark - you will need lots of windows in that dining room. It doesn't seem like there is a second floor so skylights in the kitchen would be very helpful.

- I don't like the disruptions of all the doorways in the kitchen. I think it will look choppy. Do you really need a scullery? I would take that area out and rework it as part of the kitchen layout; maybe shift the door to the dining room too.

- Do you plan on seating in the kitchen? That size will not fit and island - you probably could get away with a table if that is not a 2 sided fireplace.

- The hallways into the bedrooms on the right look like tight turns to get in them - you need to consider furniture getting onto those rooms.

Thank you! I appreciate all of this. I am already rethinking the 'central axis' rooms to possibly move the kitchen to where the dining is proposed (could be light filled on 3 sides), middle room becomes keeping/TV room, and the front is possibly the formal dining/salon room. Formal in front, party in back. The plan is for fireplace to become double sided (currently facing front room only). A future buyer could easily swap a living and dining space, but our kitchen placement decision needs to be pretty evergreen. I appreciate everyone's comments.

Kn

I would hesitate to locate the full laundry down a flight of stairs, even though it’s very often done. The laundry basket impedes visibility and you can easily trip and fall. And a family of four is bound to experience a broken ankle or two as life goes on, making the stairs unusable for quite a while. I would consider replacing the planned scullery with a laundry room, since it seems to share a wet wall with your son’s bath. Or possibly the primary bath could be made smaller to free up space for a small laundry there.

’

12’ is narrow for a dining room with 4’ openings to the outdoors/traffic paths. 12’ is also narrow for a kitchen with traffic and if you are planning an island. If the fireplace is not load bearing/structural, eliminating it will give you 4’ more to allocate to the kitchen and dining room.

With a lower level in-law suite, laundry and garage, consider stacking closets on the main and lower level so you have the option to easily add an elevator, if needed in the future, for accessibility for your in-laws or yourself should you want to age in place or if a household member develops mobility issues. Its much easier to incorporate universal design in your renovation now than to try to retrofit in the future.