to want to knock down some wall?

[deliakate]

DH thinks I'm going all Kirsty Alsopp, and seriously does not want to spend the money, but we have a room in our house that we never use, because it doesn't feel comfortable and nothing I have tried can make it so

If you look on this plan, you can see the room. Its labelled music room/dining room

picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/iFO8zfV7fcXjLnQ1Vza3Nw?feat=directlink

You can see that you have to walk through the room 100s of times a day to get from the rest of the house to the kitchen. I'd like it to be a snug/playroom, but it feels very unsnug. There are two big windows on the walls without doors, so the layout is impossible.

What would you do with the room? Would you disrupt home and family to get the builders in???

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It's a big room, isn't it? What is wrong with it, from your pov?

What about a family room? Big comfy sofas, beanbag cushions, tv and games?

We've got a room like that too, off the hall, leading to the kitchen, the study and the snug (sitting room is on the other side of the hall) It's a glorified walkthrough. I hate it. We have dining table and a sideboard in it, and while it's in a similar position to yours, it's got three doors coming off it, so not exactly cozy! It's such a waste of space, we never even use that dining table, we use the smaller one in the kicthen.

We'd have to toally redesign the downstairs of our house to do anything about it though.

I'd love all those things, but there is nowhere to put them. Really, every layout I've tried is so awkward, because its basically a wide corridor, so someone always needs to walk through, and it can get like a slalom course. Its disturbing too when you are sitting to have people crashing in and out....

Sounds similar lola. I would leave it as it is and just have a dining table in there (supposedly adds £££ when it comes to resale) BUT we really need to use it to sit in in the winter, as the main sitting room is FREEZING (Victorian house) and we can't heat it.

Well, what about losing your study, making that into the corridor from hall to kitchen, (you'd need builders in!) then the dining room wouldn't be a walkthrough and you'd have the full use of it? If you needed a study, then could one of your cellar rooms be used? Or if you have a spare bedroom on the 2nd floor?

Yeah, I can see how that would work. We'd have to loose the smaller window in the dining room then, but maybe a glass corridor would be good. Oh DH will be pleased at the cost!

Haha, oh yes, we have a freezing sitting room to! From November to Marxh it's the cats domain oly and we line in the kitchen or the snug/family room!

I would suggest you just leave the window alone. A window in a corridor can look really nice. I once lived in an old cottage that had had an extension and the original outside - iyswim - had been incorporated - including a lovely old wooden framed window. It was a really nice feature.

I can see that having the door from the hall into the dining room where it is, cuts the dining room into two smaller areas. I can't figure out the maths, but having a "footpath" crossing diagonally takes up a lot of floor space.

What about moving the hall/dining room door next to the front door, so it is immediately opposite the kitchen/dining room door? Then people would be walking along on side of the room rather than walking through the middle of it. You could also put up a wall right across (with a door, of course) to make the dining room completely separate.

do you really have a toilet that opens straight into the kitchen? that is now against building regs & would bother me.

can you move the door into the kitchen, so that it is closer to the rear exterior wall, then turn the corner that has the toilet in, so that it becomes a utility room, with toilet off it (with a second door into the kitchen) and block off the existing door into the kitchen?

your kitchen would be slightly smaller, but it looks like the entrance is unusable space.

you'd still have the same number of doors in your dining room, but they would both be at the same end of the room, so you could have sofas etc away from that bit, and it would be a straight through walk, rather than cutting diagonally across.

building a corridor across the back from the study to the kitchen is a nice idea, but more expensive and you'd still need to mess around with doors through the dining room.

Don't think toilet straight into kitchen is against building regs any more - vaguely remember some telly programme talking about how it used to be against regs when they thought that diseases were spread by smell and vapours - but now we know they are not then as long as there is a door its fine?

The loo door opens into a kind of anteroom - you can't see on the plan, but its got a lower bit inbetween.

But kickassangel, that was the thinking of an interior designer I contacted. Only she suggested double doors where you said. But the anteroom area would then be wasted - we already have a nice utility room. I guess I could put a credenza in there, but I wouldn't want to shut it off, because it has the nicest window in the house (imo), a beautiful arts and crafts window, that I wouldn't want to hide.

I also vaguely remember that lal123. I think the rule now is that it's ok providing there are handwashing facilities available.

Kitchen, loo, utility were added in 2006, and got the relevant approvals etc.

would it work to swap it round with the kitchen, so the now kitchen becomes a dining room - put a door directly between the two.

Hey, well it would be one massive dining room if we did that! I think prob kick's idea is the best....

there probably a reason I'm not an interior designer1