Here is the layout of the first floor to give you a reference to the rest of the house

It's difficult to make out the drawing. Do you have a separate dining room? If not, will you be eating the area marked "cafe"?

I would think of the entire area currently marked at kitchen, closets,pantry, cafe as all one big space and redesign from there. Having all the separate closets/pantry really limits the imagination here. If it was one big room, you could do an L-shaped kitchen with an island and have lots of space. You can plan built-in storage for the things you currently have in the pantry and closets.

I'd also be concerned that my garage opens up directly into the kitchen without any form of mud room.

How big is your family? Do you really need a giant refrigerator and freezer? Those take up a lot of space.

The current café space will likely be too small for a table and chairs.

Seems like the entire space could be better designed as Cindy suggested.

I've never had a mud room room even when I lived up North. I can see the benefit of them for sure...but if I had limited space it wouldn't be a number one priority. Several things pop out. Is that your only dining space...the cafe? If so, I'd definitely dedicate more square footage to it. Take some space from the entertainment room. I don't understand that small closet(?) on the other side of the pantry. I would move the frig part to the other end of the run so people wanting to grab something don't have to walk through the working area ofmthemkitchen. Then I'd enlarge that closet with the space from the frig and move the garage entrance down into there. It could function like a small mud room with a place to dump boots and hang jackets. I hope that all made sense.

You've got to have more space for the whole thing to even think about making this work. If you can't, then give up the separate fridges and freezers and the island. And for goodness sake get that range out from under the window. That's a last resort, not a first resort.

Any lot that you can have a side load garage can have a lot more room dedicated to the things you need to have happen in the home. But, do you really want 2/5 of your space as a poorly laid out master? It's disproportionate. And that's the word for the entire design. It's disproportionate for how the rooms will be used. Are you working with an actual architect here? Or are these merely plans off of the net that someone is trying to alter?

I would be tempted to move the island over to the window wall, making it more of a peninsula. Use a prep sink and small garbage in the island, along with additional storage. You could put the dishwasher and clean up sink on the wall, along with the larger garbage area and more upper cabinets for dishes.

I don't think you need a mud room. It just depends on how much space you need for a family entrance into the house. Is there enough room to get out of the car and have everyone standing there, as you open the door? If so, it should work :) {{!gwi}}From Farmhouse plans

The kitchen needs redesigned, I think. The cafe is not nearly large enough for even a small table and will end up being an unusable empty space, especially when you think about putting chairs at the island. It is my firm belief that eating areas need to be at least 11 feet wide to function without butts going In faces and crowding. Also consider that everyone has to walk through this cafe area to get to the kitchen which further cramps things.

No mud room is a huge mistake, especially up north. It could be a significant negative at resale. Where are you and your family supposed to put coats, shoes, etc?

Unfortunately I think the whole design needs rethought...maybe you can get help in the building home section? If the space was more efficiently drawn up, you would not have to increase sq footage.

I don't have any advice because I'm a total rookie, but I just want to offer support that all of these posts about how it needs to get totally redesigned can be disheartening but in the end you will find something that works MUCH better than this. Everyone here is going to help you figure it out. That's exactly what happened to me and even though I spent a day or two feeling totally depressed about how nobody liked the plan I had for my "dream" house, I quickly came around to the fact that they were pointing out things that would be a real problem when I went to live in it. Now I have a plan that I *know* is going to be awesome-- a true dream house.
So best of luck and stick with it.

This plan is from a plan that I found online that was close to a house that we've toured and really like and then we've had an architect modify it. I do agree that the kitchen needs to be completely overhauled, it was bigger and then it got cut down to this b/c of costs.
The room called "Living room" is the dining room but since we never use a formal dining room we thought we'd leave it there for resale but use it as a living room.
I really wanted a mudroom so that is why they put in the closet beside the fridge so they wouldn't have to make it bigger.
I really don't even know where to begin if we change the entire house plan like some of you guys are suggesting, I thought everything was great except the kitchen. The floor plan is similar to a lot of the new houses around here.
hmmmmm....don't even know what to do maybe I will try the home building section.

How many people do you need to seat daily for dining ? And how many/how often for guests ?

What is that wall on the right? 3 windows?

I would flip the layout kinda.

So from the left:
- garage
- mudroom
- fridge/freezer where LLass put the sink/DW
- then island (w/ sink/DW) facing the 3 windows
- then the range on the 3-window wall (range toward the top, and prep sink toward the bottom): so this countertop would be perpendicular to the design you have in your 1st post.

sorry that I couldn't sketch this up.

Amanda