Hi,

I am at wits end as we have gone back and forth with architect and city planning 2 times already (additional $3k in wasted architect fees). Here's the current ground floor plans and we can't seem to figure out a way to have the kitchen and family room be one large open space without sacrificing the functionality of the family room. I've been an avid long time reader of those much more experienced than I in GW and hope someone can help. Our current plans have the kitchen and dining room sharing the open space which is acceptable since we plan to have good amount of family/friends over for meals. However, we prefer to open up the kitchen to the family room instead, and lead out to the backyard. The issue that we can't get around is that the family room is somewhat narrow (22'x13') and if we open up the wall between kitchen, then it would be difficult to have the family enjoy watching TV in that room with seating. Any ideas? Here is a link to the floorplan for first floor.

http://picasaweb.google.com/106506743807018684470/Desktop#5492862285364379634