Hey All, wife and I are mid-closing on a 1970's colonial.  Neither of us have an eye for design and visualizing a space's potential.
Obviously we'll reach out to a proper designer/engineer when things are wrapped up and we've spent some time living in the house and have a better sense of what we need.

But for now, anybody got anything obvious that would help open this thing out?  Rough and dirty ideas, obviously.

The first things we could come up with is opening up the wall to Family Room and Dining Room.  

The stairs / 1st flr bathroom / foyer hallway seem very tight and don't flow well...especially where they all intersect.






Welcoming all opinions.  Will have a dedicated progress thread when we get into the home since everybody likes pics!

Thanks.

Personally I would keep the family room and dining room separate.

Family over for the holidays adults chat in the living room or dining room and don't have to worry about being hit with an errant nerf dart.

The biggest issue is the master.  Bath sucks.  Make it bigger into the closet and East bedroom. Closests into the North bedroom.

Open kitchen to dining.  Too formal.

Stupid question -- what does "the stairs are backwards" mean?  First time i've heard of that
North is facing to the right side in those floorplans.  East is facing down, so the sun rises over the front of the house, and sets behind the house.

Thanks for the suggestions so far!

Based on all the 'pinterest' the wife is doing, she agrees!! Thanks for the suggestion!

Oh, yea, the foot of the stairs starts at the front door once you walk into the foyer... There's basement stairs under at the bathroom at the end of the hallway that then goes down into the basement.  That's what the door in the floorplan shows, the stairs down into the basement... I can see how that might have been misleading.

I'll swing by tomorrow and get some pics -- I really do appreciate the feedback so far.

how many bedrooms do you need?  4 bedrooms isn't real helpful sales wise (unless you need 4 bedrooms)

I'd combine the master with that bedroom above it. (13.9x13.1) and then drag the master bath down below to the left and make it much bigger. An Ensuite of a bathroom.  Cuz chicks love big bathrooms.  and since the plumbing is already there, it should stay at least ummmmmm affordable (hahahahahhaha)

steal the closet from stolen bedroom above and add that onto your 2nd floor bathroom so it gets biggie sized too. (and updated i'm sure)

it would leave you with 3 bedrooms and 3 bath's which is usually right for today.  however if you need 4 bedrooms, forget that.


main floor

open up the breakfast to the family room.  that way you have much more openness into the backyard deck (grilling!!!!!!!!!!) and right into casual food, etc.  also I don't see much storage.  basically you push the breakfast area into the existing family room (at least some) and then create more storage/updated kitchen.  (which of course will not be cheap).  Needs a pantry and more storage.  

formal dining rooms are pretty useless for most people.   I've seen lots that have been turned into home offices.  Depends on how big your family is and how it functions.   Unless you are big into entertaining.

That formal living rooms seems huge.  what are you really going to do with it.

also, just go ahead and ignore the word "budget" cuz it won't matter at all. :-)

Try to avoid messing with load bearing walls.