Switch the front window and your side entrance door, this way your door is visible from the street. Then turn the window in the pantry into a door to gain access more directly to your kitchen, a closet and maybe a bench for gathering items on the way in or out. It looks like you have to go up a small flight of stairs to get to the door, otherwise I'd say put the additional entrance on the cellar wall on the left of your plan. Depending on space you may need to slide this new mud room entrance to the left and you might have room for a longer closet along the pantry wall and a bench opposite the closet along the outside wall. You would lose the cellar but I am not sure if that is another storage area or access to a basement. Just some ideas. Really like the rest of the layout. Hope my little picture helps to explain my ideas.

Last piece of advice simonsays - never "assume" anything - more often than not people sorting through this stuff on their own misjudge, either in under or over estimating what's involved, incorrectly thinking that it will be either easier or harder than it actually will be to achieve whatever it is......you need to define your various project requirements/details etc as a starting point, and have clarity on what aspects are more or less important for you. This also must include your budget BEFORE you put pen to paper working through the design solution...so if you want a 2-way fireplace, consider it now, and factor it in within the process of working through the costs (which should be occurring simultaneously.........also, remember that "design" is a process, working towards an outcome, which as always is about resolving project requirements to budget within a particular context/conditions.......the project outcome, whatever that is, will be very much determined by the design process and the extent it is invested in and executed....hope this all helps and best of luck with it all :) PD

Hi everyone, thanks for all your contributions. Siriuskey, really love that floorplan. To be honest, we came up with a similar floorplan where the kitchen, dining and living were all lined up. However, with 10m in length, my partner and I couldn't see it all comfortably fitting without us feeling too cramped. What measurements did you leave between kitchen bench and island, dining and living area? Our current living area is only 4m x 4m and we already feel that it's a bit cramped, let alone our plans to have kids in the near future where we are hoping to use parts of the living area as the play area (either in front or beside). Using your floorplan idea, I've come up with a slight alternative. The kitchen/dining area is approx. 7m long and living is 9m long - saving us approx. 2m x 10m of internal space when compared to our original final. I've moved the bank of pantry cupboards so they extend along the west boundary where the dining is. Gives us a living area of about 5x 6.5m with the proposed smaller study. I like that the kitchen is now closer to the deck with the north sun coming in. I don't like that we lose a WIP as we love the idea of hiding all our appliances in one. Not sure how much this floorplan will save us in build cost. If it is significant enough, we would be willing to compromise. I've sent the floorplans to a couple of builders to try and get a ballpark figure. In the mean time, what do you guys think of the alternative floorplan? Will it make a big difference to our building cost?

@oklouise@Kate much appreciated for your input. Our perference is to have master located on upstairs. BUT I must have to say I very much like the idea @oklouise proposed some hours ago about relocating the laundry and garage door location make living and kitchen more spacious. I hope you do not mind I will take this idea and share among our prospect builders.