The family room will now be the dining room? (I'm trying to figure out the 'to family room' arrow.) I think if you put some nice window treatments and maybe a rug and a deeper wall color, you can dress up the dining area even if it's open to the kitchen.

I have to admit I have some concerns and questions about the plan I see, so I'm not trying to offend, just discuss:

How do you envision the use of the TV and the mud room? It seems (JMO) it would be odd to sit at the couch and look at the TV, the side of the cabinets, maybe the open dw, and the lower half of the cook. The couch is partly behind the cabinets and only room for maybe 3 to watch the tv at once?

The mud room seems too small to be of much help, since the whole thing is about hallway width. Do you plan closet or hangers or anything in there? The wall is intersecting a window. It also appears that the fridge is partly in front of the other window, and does the fridge have a cabinet between it and the window so you can open the door far enough?

Posting images from the software: There should be a way to 'export' the 3D image and save it as a .jpg or other drawing file. I have Vista, which has a clipping feature, which also save as .jpg, then I download the images to Photobucket.com and copy the html code into posts here.

I like the cool, loft, feel, and it's a much cleaner design than the ones with the difficult turn where the sofa is. Is there enough storage? I'd put cupboards where the sofa is, but then I put cupboards literally everywhere. Perhaps some shelves or horizontal cupboards over the sofa will be useful? I sort of get the sip coffee on the sofa while kids hang out and watch TV, stir pot, sit back down, thing, but as Rhome said, the surrounding view isn't terrific. I take it that most of the living will be done in the living room?

The really big problem I see is that there's no landing space for the coolers, MW and oven. You need that sink, there, and it'll break up the expanse if you shift it over, but the flow is very awkward. Moving the sink down makes it tush to tush with the stove. Moving it farther is convenient, but messes up the beautiful long stretch of island top and gets you almost to the cleanup sink anyway. I don't know what the solution is. Maybe it's just live with it, to get what you've traded off for, but it would make me nuts.

As to the dining room, first you need to visually differentiate the space. A rug under the table, maybe a small faux beam following across from where the wall to the kitchen side of the fireplace is, so the FP is enclosed in the DR. I'd also rotate the table 90 degrees, so that the diners on the long sides are looking at each other, the fire and the art, rather than the kitchen area and the street. You can also put something mobile between the dining area and kitchen area for parties. A screen, a rolling curio shelf (like Pottery Barn's). Or a piece of hanging art. You can push a screen or case against the wall for casual family days and only put them across when you really want to be formal. It's not that people can't see around them into the kitchen--they just enclose the space and provide a psychological wall.

Your finishes also can make the dining room more formal. Do a rich paint on the DR walls, different from the rest of the house, especially the kitchen. Warm colors are good for food areas. Use a "formal" style rug, rather than plain or graphic. Use a "formal" style furniture. By formal, I don't mean old fashioned. Just rich and elegant, rather than cozy and country. And silk window treatments never hurt. :)

It seems to me at first glace that the problem area is the mudroom...because if it wasn't there, and that wall separating it and the kichen was removed, then you'd be able to shift the kitchen to the sofa end...and put the sofa and tv in the place where the mudroom is. Not only that, but that looks like the area with the windows so it would be a much nicer place to relax and hang out.

If it was me, I would look at ways I could do something about the mudroom - maybe make it a mudroom without walls utilizing a shelf/organizer system by the door or is there anyway you could build a mudroom on?

Thank you so much for your quick responses.

1. I actually have to CLOSE THIS THREAD, since I have a major flaw in my layout: the fireplace is mis-drawn and should be a lot wider, which would throw off the layout.

2. Based on your feedback on the mudroom, I'm re-thinking the mudroom. It doesn't function optimally like this, and it takes away all the benefits of that sunny room.

3. I also have Vista; let's see if I can export the pix.

Thank you very much.
Amanda

Is there any chance that you could turn the porch into a useful mudroom and make a door there into the garage? Without spoiling the exterior looks?

With Vista you don't need to export, just use the Windows Snipping Tool to capture the image, then go to 'file' and 'save as,' and it will be a .jpg that you can download to a photo sharing site. Hope that makes sense.

Huango, if you keep the mudroom there, or even if you don't, I'd strongly suggest moving the garage door down either to, or only a closet's depth away from, the narrow end. This would direct traffic to the middle of the house, instead of a zigzag through the kitchen.

In moving the garage door, to make that most-used entry as charming and attractive as it really should be for you, the mudroom could actually be a separate room opening off it. This way you'd arrive through a pretty entry hall rather than a utility room.

Breaking up a long narrow space by using both ends for closets would make the whole space more useful. So, on looking at the back wall, although the shape of the mudroom as is would still be less than optimal, if that door were moved 2 to 3 feet forward, that would allow that widest/most useful end to hold...?