When we viewed the house I pictured a new floorplan that provided us more space in the kitchen, a better flow, and a new butlers’ pantry. Unfortunately, the structural engineer had mostly bad news and we had to change the plan… multiple times.
The original design was to move this kitchen into the dining room to gain more space, and a vaulted ceiling with beautiful skylights and put the dining room in the current kitchen for better flow but the stove wall ended up being shear wall. We didn’t really want to spend the time and money to make structural changes so we decided to leave it as is with some minor changes. The wall next to the fridge is not load bearing so it will be removed. The pole in the middle of kitchen of course is so that we will enclose that to have a little wall for some separation from the living space. More details on the kitchen design soon!
Now for the dining room remaining a dining room…*sigh* We will be adding some walls between this room and the front family room to create a large pantry. We don’t need two living rooms so the now smaller front room will become an office.
For the living room we will raise the floors to be level with the rest of the home. We wanted to remove the soffits next to the fireplace, but more bad news, they are also holding a massive beam for the roofline. We will be pushing the soffits back a few inches to gain some space but that’s all we can do.
The downstairs laundry will be relocated upstairs and then the current laundry room will become a much needed mudroom. The guest baths will get an update with minor structural changes. In the primary bathroom we will remove the linen closet on the right (controversial I know) to make the space feel bigger and add a tub back next to the shower.
One of the bedrooms conviently backs up to our closet so we will be creating a pass through and converting the bedroom into my dream walk-in closet.
Finally, I cannot wait to remove this pony wall on the landing.
and this fence on the right that for some reason cuts off the backyard
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