does having the swimming pool mean that you use the pool and enjoy year round good weather? describe your climate and how you use the covered deck.. how many steps are there from the rear deck to the ground? who else lives in the house, what are their ages and any special needs or interests? do you need extra bedroom and bathroom for regular overnight guests or a change room for the pool? how do you use the rumpus, family room and study? do you prefer formal living and dining or more relaxed open plan living areas? and, what do you love and hate about the house?

As above without knowing details, plus ages of children do parents visit. Need Airbnb accom for extra income etc. some very rough suggestions. Turn the Rumpus into Master suite/guests/grand parents. Open up kitchen remembering load bearing walls need looking into but always a way to do that, this should keep the cook happy being in an open space. cheers

As the other guys have said, we need more information. Why are you renovating, just to freshen up, or do need an extra bedroom. Are you envisioning needing a ground floor bedroom for any residents in the future?

First up, I'd recommend that you read much of this government website,

http://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design

There's also a section in there about renovating somewhere.

From an energy efficiency / passive design / comfort point of view, I'd say this about your current layout. Many of your living areas are north facing, which is very good. Living areas also face the backyard, with a covered deck which will shade their east facing windows in summer, which is good. None of your bedrooms have west facing windows, which is very good (as west facing bedrooms can get very hot in summer).

What's to your north? Neighbours there? You could do with a larger north facing window in the living area, but would have to consider privacy issues from the neighbour & the street. Also, do you use the fireplace? Will you keep it? Would it be a big job to remove it?

Western windows heat up a home a lot in summer, as they are difficult to shade, & the tub shines on them at the hottest part of the day. Do the western windows heat up your house? Does the verandah do a good job of shading them. You could consider low-e glass or a tint, deciduous vines on the verandah, or deciduous trees or front. If think carefully before moving the master to the front, as it will have west & could get very hot in summer.

Whoops, didn't finish. I'll just add, that a west facing guest bedroom / 2nd living would be fine.

Don't forget that there's a verandah across the front that could have exterior blinds fitted to protect the front rooms cheers

https://www.ziptrak.com.au/

Hey All,

Sorry about the initially brief post, I'm new to houzz.

The house is in Melbourne (AUS) so has quite hot summers and the deck would be used extensively from october - April. There are about 4 steps down from the deck to the garden/pool area.

Living in the house is myself, my wife and currently our infant daughter (and hopefully future children one day).

We are renovating as the house was built in the 80's and has not been touch cosmetically since, hence it is very dated.

Our family and friends are all close by and visit frequently however it would be rare to have overnight guests. Our plan would be to keep the 4 bedrooms upstairs (our master however does lack wardrobe space).

We prefer open casual relaxed spaces rather then closed formal rooms . We use the open fireplace in winter however the house does have central heating. The front verandah provides practically no coverage from the western sun.

My wife very roughly sketched her thoughts on a new floor plan, however was unsure how to effectively utilise the room with the open fire place.

Thank you for your thoughts, ideas and comments so far. Please keep them coming, happy for any suggestions even those radically different to our current idea.

subject to correct measurement and structural confirmation my suggestions are based on a home for big groups and small children and the downstairs shower bath and bedroom allow for afternoon naps and evening baths and more connection to the rear deck and pool... concentrating living areas to the north and moving the shed would improve views to the garden and rearranging the top few steps would allow space to rearrange upstairs for a generous wiw and ensuite

I like oklouise idea of relocating kitchen to south to increase space and northern light but not sure re large storage areas as I'd want sitting areas bigger given visitors and also suggest you review position of your tv and would you like that space to be bigger ?

Please reconsider locating your kitchen sink in your island bench. Whilst it's very trendy just now, it's also very impractical. The bench looks messy all the time, it's not aesthetically pleasing and it takes a big chunk out of your available work and eating area. I visit 30 different homes every week and have never seen one instance where this concept has been a good one. Just saying........

Totally agree with Oklouise upstairs Master layout.

I have had another look at your ground floor armed with the information that you have supplied.

Even though you have central heating I think the fireplace should be open to the house but being able to close this and the family kitchen area off when needed in cold weather, opening everything up during the summer.

Keeping the kitchen plumbing in the same space will save money plus giving access to outdoor, a large WIP with large sink and DW (dump all the dirty cooking utensils in there). It's really lovely to have window/s already available in that space.

I'am suggesting a possible Banquette dining space, the Rumpus room could have tressel tables banged up for large family get together, or bring the out door table and chairs in during cold weather.

Keeping the laundry and toilet in the same position would also save money, you could add a shower if you wanted or run hot water to an out door shower for pool and other times, the guys in our family love showering under the stars.

My idea really opens up your floor plan to sunshine and light. You will need to check re any support to upper floor, the staircase could be involved with this.

During the summer the addition of simple awnings/blinds attached to the front of the verandah will stop the sun from hitting the glass and making the interior hot, please don't do dark colours, we have light ones that don't throw you into night when they are down.

We also have an 80's house that we love which is single story with racked timber ceilings and brick. cheers

Currently, your sunniest room is the dining area (as long as it's not shaded by trees). So I'm not very keen on your wife's plan, which locates the pantry here. Much better to have a living area here, so you can enjoy the sun. Be it a family room, dining room, lounge room.

Jeez OKLouise is great at designing plans, looks brilliant! What do I like, firstly the sunny family room. If it's outlook to the north isn't great relocate the shed, & plant trees that will offer privacy but not shade the northern windows. As Siriuskey said, relocating the kitchen (or any plumbing) is a big expensive job. But I love where OKLouise has located it. Why? Because it's located close to existing plumbing (laundry & bathroom), which makes it cheaper & saves water. It good to have the laundry near the kitchen, so you can keep an eye on it. The pantry doesn't rob light from your northern windows, & a in a nice cool part of the home. The garage is near the kitchen/pantry, good for unloading the groceries from the car. The garage is also near the laundry. Great food unloading kid's muddy clothes/shoes on rainy sports days.

As Siriuskey said, it's nice to be able to close the doors near the fireplace, to just heat one room, or one area. I like OK Louise's plan for this reason, as you can choose to heat just one room, or the whole living area. I would however add a door to separate the entrance from the kitchen. As you don't want to be heating the entrance. For cooler winter climates you want an air lock, separating the entrance.

Something else that Siriuskey mentioned. Blinds for your front verandah. Our maybe external plantation shutters, or those common vertical awnings, though they aren't too attractive.

Agree it's best to be able to close off spaces, I have purposely left the family dining living room with fireplace as one space making sure to be able to close of the stairwell where all the heat will end up going, also allowing for closing of the entrance and rumpus.

I'am guessing that your central heating is zoned as ours was, to save on costs. cheers

Another and last idea, the kitchen along the long wall with either two windows or replace with a long splash back window for extra light and side garden view. This would also give a good view out to the pool keeping an eye on the kids.

A narrow pantry next to and incorporating wasted space under the stairs.

The entrance from the garage into existing study now mudroom/study/laundry/powder room.

Moving the existing entrance into the laundry from the family for better wall space in the family room. cheers (sorry forgot to add my sketch)

WOW! Thankyou everyone so much for the time and effort you have put into helping us out!

Oklouise:

Thank you for your amazing suggestions! The upstairs is genius! We were already thinking about straightening the stairs from an aesthetic point of view but we will 100% be taking up your suggestion of increased robe space and bathroom reconfiguration!

We are having a builder come in soon to see the viability of moving load bearing walls (or removing them entirely) and how much that may cost!

In terms of downstairs we love the reconfiguration of the laundry to include a shower over bath and entry from the garage into a laundry/mudroom would be 1000 times better than into our lounge like it currently is. The kitchen is however a little small for us (my wife does A LOT of cooking and her priorities are definitely for lots of bench space and pantry storage, mine are for an amazing dishwasher!). Like Girlguides said with the family room in that position it would be tricky to place our t.v. We do love opening the space up how you have suggested. You are very right a downstairs bedroom or study would be useful for day time naps!

The house currently doesn't get great light from the north due to large trees which may or may not be able to removed pending council approval (our preference would be for them to be removed also).

Brennz: You make an amazing point about the sink in the island bench. Think we will take your advice on that one since we always end up with loads of dishes (which is why we were partial to a good butlers pantry, to hide the dishes)

Siriuskey: Thank you so much for your great suggestions and time! We also love the idea of the fireplace being central and using it to heat up family areas but we are unsure how to achieve this. I think we were conscious in our plans also to not move plumbing a great deal, but I think it limited our creativeness. My wife is a big fan of an outdoor shower on the deck! We defiantly do need to do something about the blinds at the front of the house, thanks for the suggestion, I think we would go with light colours!

Our house is indeed brick with racked timber ceilings also!! So very 80's but can be brought into the now with a bit of love!

We love your first kitchen plan the most, its large and spacious and gives plenty of storage and bench space! Also great to pop some stools on the island bench. The Banquette dinning space is something we had not previously thought of but would be great with those windows providing beautiful sun from behind. This would be a great plan pending being able to remove those walls (I mentioned before we were getting advice on this soon). It also really utilises the living area and fire place. The only thing about the current living room is we find it hard to place couches in there as there is only the south wall free, however if the room was more open it might be easier.

Our centralised heating is old and not zoned :(

after everyones suggestions about moving the garage entry we are not sure why it wasn't obvious to us at first but it is definitely something that needs to happen, it is very impractical where it is.

Ddarrouch: I agree with everything you said!!

You have received some great ideas and advice, a big job a head of you. You mentioned seating in the Living room being difficult but I think it will work beautifully with a sofa placed across the room at the opening into the kitchen family (not in the opening though) and another facing the fire place, a sectional lounge could work. The TV could go to the left of the Fireplace, wall mounted so that it can be pivoted.

To save some money I would leave the Rumpus as it is apart from moving the door from the garage. This room can be multi functional as it is, Guest room/littlies day time naps/study/parties/family get togethers/Media, with the added bonus of being able to be opened up to allow sun and light into the house from the front right through to the rear.

here's Siriusky's first kitchen

Hi Oklouise, thanks for that but that's incorrect, it's missing the pantry and banquette dining both were where you have placed a dining table cheers

Copy of my first kitchen, showing windows and light into the pantry, which would have large sink and DW to take the cleaning up. The windows are great so that you won't feel like you are in a box doing this, I also think the island should have a small sink for veggie prep and family glasses of water.

Siriusky's other kitchen suggestions

Thanks Oklouise that's close to both of my ideas,

The first idea with kitchen and large pantry I would like to see the sink and DW under the large window so that when James is cleaning up he has a view of the garden both ways.

This layout of living/family room plus Kitchen which is not formal makes a wonderful space for a growing family

My second idea doesn't close off the Rumpus Room as you have done, artistic license.?

James one of the biggest considerations for you going forward and extending your family, the current rumpus room is the perfect safe playroom for the kids and can be closed off to hide the mess or not.

Your ground floor is a lovely light filled open space while the upstairs remains sectioned off into bedrooms.

Personally, I don't understand the love for the pantry to be in the NE corner of the house. This will be the warmest area of your house. You want your pantry to be in a cool area, so your food doesn't spoil. Many people don't like north facing kitchens for this reason. Locating your pantry in the NE corner will also greatly limit the light in your living areas, & the amount of sunshine & warmth they receive in winter. You'll end up with a colder, darker house. The pantry will also be far away from the garage, so you'll have to traverse the full length of your house to put the groceries away. You'll also greatly increase plumbing costs, as you'll have plumbing running to all corners of your house. Which will also mean longer wait times for your water, & higher water & energy bills.

Locating the kitchen where OKLouise originally had it, near the laundry, is far better in all of these circumstances. It won't have direct sunlight all day (may receive some in the morning), but it should be quite well lit from your north facing windows. Did to the open plan layout it should be much better lit than the current layout, if that's what you're worried about.

The pantry won't be well lit with natural light, but honestly, I just don't understand the love for butler's pantries. I just think they are a fad, & very inefficient to use. Google "kitchen working triangle", a very important idea of you want a efficient kitchen layout. All well designed kitchens will have their work areas laid out with the stove, sink & fridge in close proximity. Who wants to walk miles from the fridge, to the stove, to the sink, & back again when you're preparing a meal. You'll be surprised how this distance, & time, adds up. Your butler's pantry layouts don't have efficient working triangles, as these three items are far apart. I'm sure you'd find in infuriating too prepare a meal. Where do you keep your plates, pots & pans? Close to the dishwasher, or close to the stove. Large distances just increase the time required for all tasks. Not good in our busy lives. By all means, if you can't keep a sink tidy, by all means tuck it out of the way, but not too far. Maybe just inside a pantry (with a sliding door), but keep it close to the stove & the fridge. If also have the dishwasher in the main section of the kitchen, so it can be close to where cutlery & crockery a stored.

Yeah, just my view, probably not a popular one. But I'd still recommend you goggle "kitchen working triangle", really very a feel for how a well designed kitchen works.

Sorry for all my typos, hope you can understand it all. Swype keyboard on the phone :/

One other thing, you could have two sinks. One accessible one, for food preparation, & one out of the way, for dirty dishes. Though this adds to cost, & space required.

Agree they seem like a fad but everyone,s into cooking and loving it which is great.

I would love to have the Butler to go with it as James mentions he would love a good dish washer. The difference between a chef and a cook is that a chef doesn't clean up.

My layouts always consider the "triangle" and also having easy simple access to the fridge for family members. That's why I suggest two sinks one in the pantry and a smaller one in the island

With the new internal access from the garage it's just a hop skip and possibly a small jump to the kitchen, we all need more exercise anyway.

The pantry in that corner has two windows for ventilation which is plenty. As far as to the positioning of the sink in the pantry is all up to James and family, and storage of utensils is a personal choice.

Hot water, I haven't seen any hot water systems or how many By adding a bath and shower in the laundry area also possibly puts extra pressure on hot water.

I'am always aware of trying to use existing plumbing etc to help cut costs, the plumbing in the current house can easily be used, we're only talking about moving a sink a couple of feet, and using the current plumbing as would have to be done if the kitchen was moved to the other side next to the laundry you would still need to run extra plumbing from the laundry.

As James has already mentioned there's not much sun on the N- NE side of the house due to large trees which he is unsure can be removed, and very expensive to do so if they are large.

This is a young family wanting to update their lovely 80's home to work for them and their life style, we can all offer ideas but the final decision will be theirs and their builder

And a last word on sinks, the new square deep 1, 2, 1 1/2 are wonderful at swallowing dirty dishes waiting to be loaded in to the DW, I also prefer Dish drawers as you can do small loads more often to clear things cheers

James Grace your renovation sounds so exciting, congrats on getting to the planning stage! I'm based in Melbourne too so if you need an Interior Designer's eyes on this project, please don't hesitate to contact me. You have been spoilt with so much advice already, but here's a little something....let in as much light in your home - popped ceilings!

Just wanted to show you a couple more banquette dining ideas, they're great for home work as well.

I havegiven you another one of my wonderful sketches, which has a longer 900 wide island bench which has better space and allows for more stools at the island.

The pantry can have the sink in two different positions, possible timber dish drying rack above as well.

The fridge and wall oven can be moved across to the rear wall either side of the window keeping the current sink insitu. You could also have a second fridge in the pantry

Where the fridge and wall oven is marked that could be for the cook top, cooking station.

Because of having a son who trained as a chef I like to zone the kitchen areas, cooking, dishes etc which makes it easier to have others working in the same space.

Hope you can understand my rough sketch, using Oklousie great plan drawing skills. cheers

Thank you all again, so much to consider and some great ideas. We now need to weigh up weather moving the kitchen to the south side of the house (near the laundry like in okaylouises last suggestion) is worth the likely large cost (as it would also mean moving doors and windows as well as plumbing) but the ideas are all great. Having the kitchen near the laundry is already growing on us. Like mentioned previously sometimes it is worth spending that bit extra to get things right! All these ideas are exactly what we need!

In terms of the butlers kitchen my wife would really just like a large walk in pantry. The main thing it would be used for is food storage (in our old house I had to keep making my wife new pantries and she ended up with food in 4 different pantries and cupboards, very inefficient when cooking). We would also use it to keep small appliances like toasters on the bench rather then having them creating an eyesore in the main kitchen. We certainly would not be cooking in there or having our main fridge in there, My wife is all over the kitchen triangle idea don't worry! Regardless of how big the butlers pantry was my wife would fill all the shelves with food and not our crockery or cookware. If we had a sink in our butlers pantry I think there would need to be a second sink somewhere else in the kitchen.

What a great transformation removing those walls in your house made siriuskey, you defiantly let the sun in! And you are very correct, I am always the person left cleaning up after my wives kitchen experiments!

Oklouise I think your last drawing is amazing, so much detail too (my wife liked the wine cooler/rack!). I think if it was open to the lounge as well it would be great (in an ideal world were all the walls could be removed).

The banquette dinning is indeed growing on me. Thanks for the picture inspiration.

Attached are some photos of our place so you can see what we are working with and some pictures compliments of houzz in the style we like including butlers pantry ideas.

Scarlett and Beau: I think the design style we like would be classified as Hamptons/beach though I'm not sure how we can make this theme fit with this style of house. Ie exposed brick and wooden panelled ceilings.

Our house photos in order are: Living, Rumpus, Dinning, Kitchen and the last photo is the current family meals area. PS these are pictures from when we purchased the house, pink velvet couches are gone!

I'am a bit red faced Oklousie this was my first suggestion, I've changed it up a bit, trying to keep the sink in the same position, and at the same time trying to make the link to the (Living) fireplace as this will all add to the Hamptons/beach look that James is working towards. I can see the fireplace white washed including the timber ceilings, love both photos but I think the 2nd is my favourite which has beautiful Barn doors.

I've added a tall section to the blank wall next to the original sink, this would work as either a pantry for small appliances

Or Fridge and wall ovens

I would like to keep the opening between the kitchen/dining/living with fire place as open as possible but another pantry similar to above for storing Food stuffs, using lots of draws to maximise storage, deep pantries are wasted space without draws.

I would even suggest that as per the photo that James has posted adding one or two large barn doors between the kitchen and living rooms, this would really add to the charm of the Hamptons look while keeping the open plan feel.

This layout gives a great family/kitchen/dining/living space, even adding the servery outside the kitchen window.

I'am not a fan of accessing any powder room via the kitchen.

James thank you for the photos they are inspirational and a great help trying to make suggestions for your new floor plan. Your house is already beautiful, minus the pink things, sign of the times, but actually seeing the rooms and large windows, fireplace has helped me visualize what you could aspire to. cheers

Just had another thought, ddarroch is over the butlers pantry idea, so taking an idea from Fixer Upper and keeping the kitchen open, double islands one for the sink and washing veggies from the fridge and the other for baking, this is a cooks kitchen, with an open Butlers pantry instead of being shut in a cupboard or small dark room.

I have tried to fit your new kitchen into a similar space keeping Elec and Plumbing close up and even keeping the fridge/wall oven in the same position but just stepped back to make room for the island, Then the narrow pantry turned sideways instead of beside.

All windows and doors have also been considered so as not to have to move or change them saving a lot of extra costs.

If and when the Study/Mudroom could handle extra storage

Your kitchen would be done Hamptons style

Sorry James and other half, like you I like to cook and have freinds and family around and over the years I have collected a lot Large bowls, serving dishes etc so cabinets like the following are great and can be placed in any room. Also including a shot of a very shallow storage shelf, everything at a glance cheers

can I suggest a professional designer James..it seems some ideas here are good, some so-so. Sufficient attention has not been paid to the street frontage (for a welcoming home), the need for a covered deck, window design, budget options, priorities etc. I fear expensive mistakes as others have found on here..I can make some suggestions and get back to you if you like.

Hi there @Andy Pat, don't be shy, we would all love to see what input you have. This site is for everyone to respond to any posted design dilemma. From this all ideas are considered by the poster and then taken to their Designer/Architect/builder etc for formalization. You sound like you must have had a bad experience in building?

thanks Sirius, no bad experiences (yet), but I can see on this site some stuffups/regrets..particularly those that are expensive to fix. I am working on a few ideas for James atm...hard to do a complete design without looking at all aspects (eg what is the current roofline). but will come up with some suggestions that will hopefully help James move things forward into a practical, well lit, warm home.

here's a few suggestions..1. double check actual orientation of home..the map is illustrative only. 2. remove open fire place and chimney in living room, replace with a north facing window double glazed 3. remove west facing large window in living room, and replace with 2 1200x300 double glazed windows either side of a slow combustion heater. 4. use dining room as rumpus (kid's play area) as it has the light and warmth. 5. use rumpus as dining (if only used occasionally for formal dinners, easter, christmas etc) then it can be there. 6. change windows to suit the living room. 7. swap oven and fridge for pantry. 8. pantry can go in the space behind oven/fridge, moving a couple of small walls. it won't be huge but looks like it might be a bit bigger then the current. 9. upstairs middle bedroom may not be used much if only 1 more kid comes along (a big if), in the meantime it can be used as a media centre/study/additional lounge space, wall could be removed (why not have living area upstairs as well?)..10. downstairs study with a foldout bed may be the option for the occasional one guest. 11. no western windows on upstairs shown...is that correct? seems strange as that is the front of the house..12. consider uncovering floor slab in living and rumpus room for thermal mass, especially if the fire is on regularly. 13. maybe double check all dimensions as well, looks like the plan is approx only..14..maybe uncover the deck for improved light penetration (its in shade in summer in the afternoon anyway) - u could leave the southern portion adjacent the laundry covered for a small winter clothes line on rainy days and a summer observation post for kids in the pool. 15 cover all windows with modern awnings.

looking at the internal photos the dropped ceiling bulkhead over the connecting door between family and rumpus and the high raked ceilings in the living and rumpus imply that the upstairs rooms are concentrated over the back of the house and the roof slopes down at the front without any upstairs windows with a steep "Cape Cod" style front roof with dormers along the back??

@ Andy, thank you for your suggestions and words of caution. As Siriuskey mentioned we will be taking the best of these ideas and presenting them to a professional for their opinion. You have some cracking ideas though, the only concern is some of these may be extremely expensive to do.

Regarding your 11th suggestion oklouise is bang on! She knows what she is talking about, I have attached a few extra pictures of the house to illustrate this.

Siriuskey, the attached image of the floor plan you created is fabulous and my wife loves it. We really like the integration of the bar to outside over the kitchen window and BBQ. This design allows us to retain two sitting areas whilst seamlessly blending the family, dining and kitchen (though my wife thinks this space may get a little over crowded). Personally, I would probably make the pantry larger (if you knew my wife you would too) as she REALLY has a lot of things to store! other than that we really appreciate the time and effort you have given us.

I think in the end and like everyone it will all come down to budget!

If you happen to strike a moment of genius and have any new floor plan suggestions or other ideas we would be very happy to hear about them!

James I think you meant Oklouise, that is her floor plan above.

After seeing your house photo's I personally would hate to see you carve up any of the "Great Rooms" with the amazing space and ceilings that these bring, which will all add to your Hampton's look.

To maximise the potential of your house I would be looking to maintain those and to work with keeping an open plan ground floor with appropriate doors to be able to close off zones during winter and opening up during summer to suit Melbourne,s climate. MEB does have hot and cold weather, believe me I know but it's not snow country. The front of our house very similar period to yours but it's single story. cheers

James: please keep us posted on developments..so many times we offer friendly advice, then never see how things turn out!

this copy of my last plan omits all the furniture and writing to make it easier to see a dotted line for removing the old kitchen walls (and probably having a single support beam from outside wall to the new dividing wall between family and lounge) and the new walls are shown striped..This makes an open space approx 11m x 5m and will make a great family, dining, kitchen with plenty of space for family and friends and should be able to keep most of the raked ceilings in the old living room (mini loft above the doorway between new family and lounge??) and the new study and, much as i love Hamptons style, i wonder if you'd consider retaining an upgraded version of your existing very classy mid century modern home

I'am still trying to preserve the two large downstairs rooms as they are with ceilings intact, so I am putting another suggestion forward, move the kitchen into the current family meals area ONLY and adding a "hidden pantry" behind the kitchen, the kitchen would then take up the old meals area. You would still have access via the old study/mudroom and laundry. the island can be made whatever size you would like, you could even have two Islands one in front of the other, if you choose, just thinking of the cook in the family.

I think you are looking to do a contemporary Hamptons style going by the photos you posted.With Barn doors being used to add to this.

I can see you having friends and family around with both passage way doors on the living & dining rooms open so that when you look from the dining across to the living you see the wonderful fireplace, wood or gas, either wood heat up the bricks and radiate the warmth

Thanks guys,

@Andy, I will be more than happy to keep everyone in the loop. Especially after everyone has contributed so generously. However, the reality is that we are in the very early stages of planning. Also, considering we are wanting to basically gut the house and renovate from top to bottom raising the funds will likely take time. Though I'm sure we will continue to return to this page and seek additional advise/suggestions moving forward.

Oklouise, thanks for the floor plan. This will be very useful when showing a professional our/your ideas. A loft? That sounds expensive!

Regarding changing from my beloved Hampton's style, we were thinking of keeping some elements from the original home. I.e the raked ceilings but white washing them. do you have an example of a modern mid century home?

Siriuskey, ok you are making life way to hard for us now. You keep coming up with some fantastic ideas for the kitchen and my wife loves all of them!

I agree with you about keeping those two front rooms. I think they are quite unique in the house BUT we really like Oklouise's floor plan which carves up that room into a WIP/study. Currently we are torn as we want to retain the room but love her floorpan. Life is just to hard!

I do indeed like my barn doors! I think they are very cool indeed (not sure how quickly they will date), we were wanting to use one as the entrance to the WIP. I have attached another picture of an example kitchen style that I like.

here's a version of Siriusky's hidden pantry drawn to scale but keeping the dropped ceiling portion of the old rumpus within the new kitchen retains more space for fridge and storage although there could also be a direct doorway without altering the raked ceiling in the old rumpus

a Loft would only be a frivolous way to use the "spare" ceiling cavity created by changing the connection between the old dining and living area and mid century modern has many examples on HOUZZ and is similar in style to your original house and includes textures and painted and raked timber ceilings

Hi there James, You have a lot of decisions ahead of you and can imagine that you will change your mind many times. Seeing that you are planning to gut the house I would strongly suggest that you employ a local Architect it's always best to have an on site experience to get the best results. Thanks OK for your version of my "hidden pantry", I would much prefer it with the one access point so that the very narrow shelving along the kitchen side wall for small food storage and wider on the other 600 for possible sink & DW installation etc, would give better storage This pantry would have a narrow window at the end for natural light.

I don't agree with the walls of storage shown by OK closing off both Living and Family rooms

Re the barn doors they come in many styles, even glass. But seeing that you already have pocket doors (although not full height) these would work.

Original Hamptons style can be quite heavy and decorative but with the contemporary addition it suits our Australian style.

The photo you have posted "the Bar reminds me of one of my wonderful drawings, which shows possible double islands the left one could be a table. Or you could have The Barefoot Contessa's one long island 5.5 meters long! Cheers

some photo's for you, showing a great room.

The Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten uses these in her pantry storage, great way to save money

Hidden Pantry keeping the original doors to the rumpus/dining, in my thinking it would be very wrong to close either of the front rooms off, they personify the origins of the house. I'am always in favor of restoring over renovating. good luck