Best Layout for Family

[LondonGirl83]

In an ideal world, I'd love to have a combined kitchen-diner-family room and a separate adult lounge to escape to.

Unfortunately, even post extension, that's not entirely possible. We are about to buy furniture for our new house and I am trying to figure out the best way to use the rooms we have.

We have a small front room that is connected via double doors to the 2nd reception room which when the doors are open makes both rooms feel much larger.

The 2nd reception room has also been connected to the new kitchen extension via a recessed sliding door so you can easily get between them but its not totally open plan to the kitchen. The kitchen extension is large enough to either have a dining table or have a family room leading into the south-facing garden. The kitchen also has an island with counter seating.

Our options are:

A. Popular English kitchen-diner and have the 2nd reception room as a study or play room- if a play room, I'd keep the lounge doors closed all the time which would make the lounge feel tiny.

B. More typical American kitchen-family room layout witht he family room leading on to the garden. The 2nd reception room would be our dining room connected to the kitchen but not fully open plan.

What would you do and why?

Thanks!

[TheLeftovermonster]

Depends how you want to use the rooms. How old are your children?

[noddyholder]

Why don't you block up the double doors to recep 1 and replaster to gain an adult snug

[LondonGirl83]

Regarding blocking up the double doors into the lounge- when they are closed there is plenty of privacy so that’s not an issue. However, we like them open because the ceilings are quite high (over 11ft) and given that the room is only 13x12, it can feel a bit like an elevator shaft when the double doors are closed. If they are open, I kind of prefer looking into a dining room or study rather than a playroom as the entire idea of the adult refuge is to escape the kid tat. A study seems totally useless as I can’t see that we would spend any time in there.

If we made the 2nd reception room the dining room, when we want adult space we can close the door between the dining room and the kitchen/family room.

However, everyone seems so obsessed with kitchen-diners these days, I wonder if I’d regret not opting for a proper open-plan kitchen-diner instead of the kitchen-family room….

DC is 2 years old

[AtiaoftheJulii]

Kitchen/family room sounds much nicer - you can eat casually at the island with dc a lot of the time, so you don't need a table in the same room. And when your dc are older, you have two nice sitting areas as far away as possible to each other, rather than on either side of the double doors!

[AtiaoftheJulii]

Kitchen/family room sounds much nicer - you can eat casually at the island with dc a lot of the time, so you don't need a table in the same room. And when your dc are older, you have two nice sitting areas as far away as possible to each other, rather than on either side of the double doors!

[AtiaoftheJulii]

Kitchen/family room sounds much nicer - you can eat casually at the island with dc a lot of the time, so you don't need a table in the same room. And when your dc are older, you have two nice sitting areas as far away as possible to each other, rather than on either side of the double doors!

[LondonGirl83]

That's reassuring. I was thinking that option made more sense but was scared I was missing a trick since kitchen-diners seem to be the only thing people do these days!

[TheLeftovermonster]

I agree, kitchen family room. You'll probably spend most of your time there. Little kids want to be where you are.

[LondonGirl83]

Yes, that's what I've realised!

[Misty9]

We've got the layout you describe with a living room leading into a 2nd reception (via double sliding doors) which in turn leads into the extended kitchen/diner. Ds is 2.4yo and we use the 2nd reception as the playroom, which is a godsend tbh as he has so much crap! But our living room is quite large, so having the doors shut isn't a problem - they're usually open though as it doesn't bother me like I thought it would and the plastic crap is overflowing into the adult room anyway

That said, I'd love to have enough room to put a sofa area in the kitchen/diner, so we may reconfigure in the future when playrooms aren't as necessary :)

[calendula]

As your DC gets older you will give anything for a room that you can retire to when there are friends round, noisy computer games or just chaos. You will not care whether it feels like a lift shaft. I would keep the doors into the lounge, as your family gets older you can close them when you need to.

[LondonGirl83]

Oh definitely going to keep the door on the lounge! I just think it might be nice to have the option to keep them open from time to time.