planning ahead

we are hoping to not be in our current house long enough to need to do any major construction projects (i.e., expanding the kitchen/porch, possibly adding on another bedroom, etc.), but i've had this idea for awhile just as food for thought in case we do end up staying around here longer than expected.  i always love to think about different ways houses could be changed/improved and have had some help with house ideas from my mom, laura, and others (as all of us are "frustrated architects" to some extent :)). 

so, here's my plan that's a longshot but could be cool for the main floor of our house if we stayed put for let's say another 10 years or so...

current layout of our main level (minus the living room)

what i envision for a more usable space (again, minus the living room)

 

shortly after buying our house when we were painting the kitchen cabinets, we came across the original house plans, which i thought was so cool (i would love to frame and hang them somewhere in the house but haven't decided the best place yet).  it's so neat to see what the original ideas were, what was done (or not done), and get to view our house from its starting point.  surprisingly for the era in which our house was built, the floorplan was much more open than they ended up building.  the kitchen and dining room were more open (similar to the above setup), making the space much more user-friendly, especially with our very opposite-of-formal lifestyle. 

our current plan is good for the kind of entertaining where you don't want everyone to gather in the kitchen but would prefer a more formal dinner party atmosphere.  and the times we've had people over and all migrated to the kitchen, it's a bit crowded.  we also have pretty limited counterspace, but i do LOVE the amount of cabinet space we have (so much so that i'm hesitant to install a dishwasher and give up some of the space).  we have a small eat-in area in our kitchen that works for the two of us but would be completely impractical for a family of more than two.  we love our enclosed porch as well, but the space is just a little bit too small.

so, i envision opening up the kitchen, dining room, and porch to make a nice, large kitchen (which would be great for us since we both enjoy cooking very much), informal dining room area, office space (which could come in handy when i start working from home), and expanding the porch a couple of feet and better-enclosing the room to make it actual living area that opens to a back patio.  that informal family room would take the place of our den, which at that point would probably be our master bedroom. 

and that's my plan - for that space at least.  hopefully we'll be long gone from our current house (either to the beach or a different area all together) by the time we would need to make those changes, but it's fun to think about for now :)