Floor Plan Change - worth it?

[simpsongal]

Apologies, I could not find a floor plan that matches my house.  Hopefully you can picture this layout. 

I like our house and I think I've done a lot of good things to make it more liveable.  It's a center hall colonial.  Our next big plan will be to add a large screened-in porch off the side of the house (so it will look balanced w/the side-loading garage, KWIM?).  The porch doors will probably open into the dining room.

Inside, it's a classical center-hall layout.  You walk into an entry way with a medium-sized family room to the right w/fireplace, large formal living room to the left, dining room in the back left (next to formal l. room), and galley kitchen in the back middle & back right (bathroom is in the middle).  We took 2 walls down between the kitchen & family room and eliminated a mud room & laundry to open up that rightside portion of the house.

We barely use the living room & dining room, which is half of the house.  I would love a larger kitchen, but ours is a decent size since we removed the walls and added an island.  I also hate that our kitchen is a walkway to the dining room (annoying w/guests and parties going on).

I talk about expanding the kitchen into the dining room (w/access to the side porch), moving the family room to the larger formal living room (so it's open to the kitchen) and making the family room a dining room.  So we'd be losing a formal living room. So when you enter, it's a large family room to the left, dining room w/fireplace to the right, large kitchen in the backleft & middle, and mudroom area in the back right.

Would you do this?  Or do you think we'll eventually use and enjoy the formal living room?  The piano is in the formal living room, along with our record collection.  Plus, we'd miss having a fireplace in the family room if we moved the family room to the formal living room. 

I'm not a huge fan of the center hall layout.  Even with these changes I know we'd probably ignore the dining area.  But there would be less "wasted" space because the garage access is in the back right. And I suppose I could turn the back right back into a mudroom area.

I suppose I have years to think about it.  I spent $$$ on wallpaper for the dining room, so it needs to stay at least 10 years for me to stomach ripping it down.  We'd probably redo the upstairs bathrooms before this too.

If you read this far and have formed an opinion I congratulate you

[bunch]

YES. I've never heard a buy complain about missing a formal living room. What in the world would you ever do with it?

[downtoearth]

I think I understand and without pictures of the plan, I agree with the pp - a formal living room is not as important anymore, but a family room and dining room are important. I think your plan would increase the house's ease of use and therefore appeal to more buyers in the future.

[mrslch]

I wouldn't miss a formal living room. Ever.

[SusanBAnthony]

Sounds good to me.

We don't have a formal living room, but we do have an office that I guess could be used as a small formal living room. I may put a love seat in the office so that if someone wants a bit of quiet they can go in there, but a whole formal living room? What a waste.

[hbomdiggity]

This is my complaint with new builds in my area - tons of small closed off rooms. the family room is actually a spot barely large enough for a couch and tv right next to the kitchen, barely any bigger than a condo space. When we asked our realtor why this was, he responded that this is what people want.

Growing up those rooms were used for the holidays. If my house was big enough to have ample everyday living space plus the extra formal rooms, sure great. But if not, I'd rather have the space i'll enjoy all the time.

[spunkarella]

I would not miss a formal living room in the slightest. Such a waste IMO.

I may be misunderstanding, but does the new floor plan mean the dining room is totally separated off and in a different part of the house than the kitchen? That seems a little strange. As long as the dining room is still convenient to the kitchen, I think your new plan sounds good. Is there any chance you could add a second fireplace to the left side of the house in the new family room? I have no idea how expensive/logistically possible that would be.

[heygrey]

i wouldn't miss a formal living room at all. why have the extra space to dust when you only use it half a dozen times a year?

[sillygoosegirl]

A formal living room and dining room that you have to go through the kitchen and past the family room to access? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?

I think if you still have a good-sized dining room, this is fine. I didn't like most of the houses we looked at that didn't have separate living and family rooms, but... most of those houses also didn't have a dining room, so we would have had to set up a table in the middle of the one and only living/family room if we had more than, like, 3 guests over at once and wanted to serve a sit-down meal. No thanks! So it was really the lack of dining room that bugged me.

[simpsongal]

May 9, 2013 16:38:46 GMT -5 spunkarella said:

I would not miss a formal living room in the slightest. Such a waste IMO.

I may be misunderstanding, but does the new floor plan mean the dining room is totally separated off and in a different part of the house than the kitchen? That seems a little strange. As long as the dining room is still convenient to the kitchen, I think your new plan sounds good. Is there any chance you could add a second fireplace to the left side of the house in the new family room? I have no idea how expensive/logistically possible that would be.

re: 2nd fireplace, I feel like that would be a must - and DH is anti-gas fireplaces, so it would be $$$.

The dining room would still be pretty acccesible to the kitchen because the kitchen would run the length of almost the whole back of the house - In fact, I would probably have to put up glass doors to re-enclose that new dining room space.

Thank you all for the feedback!  You're keeping my dream alive!  I should have mentioned that we have a finished basement, but I think the family will always prefer to spend time in the family room adjacent to the kitchen.

[simpsongal]

May 9, 2013 15:07:14 GMT -5 hbomdiggity said:

This is my complaint with new builds in my area - tons of small closed off rooms. the family room is actually a spot barely large enough for a couch and tv right next to the kitchen, barely any bigger than a condo space. When we asked our realtor why this was, he responded that this is what people want.

Growing up those rooms were used for the holidays. If my house was big enough to have ample everyday living space plus the extra formal rooms, sure great. But if not, I'd rather have the space i'll enjoy all the time.

I totally know what you mean!  I see these places on HGTV and they're often staged with a couple of loveseats and a well-appointed coffee table.  First of all, who wants to lay on a loveseat? And second, how is a family relaxing together in that space?  Is everyone supposed to sit upright?

I too like the idea of a big open living space w/eat in kitchen and then a separate dining room.  That way, you can have parties and usher everyone into the dining room when it's time to eat.  The patio we just built will probably be used one day as an outdoor dining room (I'm so excited!!).