To not want a house with this floor plan (pic included)

[Raymond1989]

In the area I want and with my budget I'm only going to get a terraced house. All the terraced houses I've seen a tiny and I feel like I'm in a prison cell.

I've found a house that's within budget and I love it! Feels spacious and is end terrace with a big park next to it. I love the area.

It feels cosy and there's still a yard for own use eventhough it's small. It's big enough to have a washing line and an outdoor table and chairs. I'm moving from a semi detached house with front and back garden but it's worth it to live in a better location.

My issue is the floor plan (see pic)

An extension has been added but to preserve some yard space it's been added in a long rectangle. This then leaves a large dining room but another lounge with no use to it!

My friend has th exact same floor plan and her living room is redundant!

I only have my daughter and I but family stay a lot so I could make the 'lounge' into a multi use room with a guest bed,computer desk etc.

Would this floor plan put you off? Is it a disaster?

Any ideas on how to make it work?

I don't see the problem. We have our front room as our living room with TV an sofas, then the back room leading to the kitchen is the dining room where the table is.
I'm not sure why you'd always want to sit in the back room.

I must admit that I don't get the problem tbh. You want a separate room for a living room, which is exactly what this is. Is it that you have to walk back down the hall?

How old is dd?

It could make a playroom / spare bedroom. When she is in her teens it might be better for sleepovers so you get some sleep upstairs.

You could take up a hobby that is creative and have it for that.

Are you ever likely to have another child?

Have it as a TV room?

I think the layout is lovely. You have the kitchen and the dining area as your day to day living/eating/kids playing room. Put in a table and chairs and small sofa. Then the front room make cosy and grown up wth the TV in for relaxing in the evening or for your DD to watch TV quietly while you can read and potter in the other area. When your DD is older you will be glad two living spaces when she is hanging out with a gaggle of noisy friends! How old is your DD now?

Put folding doors between the 2 rooms

Put the TV in the front room

Read your update now.

Front room is cosy tv space, maybe sofa bed for guests.

Larger kitchen dinning area. Plenty of wall storage, nice extending table, many comfy chairs that you can fit in. Then you can have friends round and hang out in the back room, still cook and talk to them. Or you can be cooking dinner and daughter doing homework on the dining table. The back room could be pretty flexible.

Another one baffled by the problem. Longe as longe, dining room as dining room and kitchen as kitchen. It's a completely standard layout for a house. We have it. And we don't have enough space! We're always in our lounge.

Longe =lounge obviously. No idea what I did there.

Another one who doesn't see the problem. You love the house, but it's got too many rooms? Have I understood correctly?

I know what everyone means.

But I think a dining room is a bit odd not being a combined kitchen/dining room.

Just a dining room on its own, I'd just not know how to make that work.

My house had a big kitchen and diner and that's what I've got now. It's preferable to a kitchen and dining room being separate.

I'd not know how to decorate or arrange a dining room thats not combined with a kitchen.

OMG I have the extra rooms dream too! Sometimes it is the attic - it is transformed into three bedrooms. Other times a staircase appears somewhere leading to a whole new 'wing'. Sometimes a new garden appears

OP just so we can understand the problem, what sort of layout would you prefer? I honestly don't understand the problem here. Even if the family room ends up with a TV and a dining table, surely you just leave the TV off during meal times, so shouldn't matter? I would definitely have the 'lounge' as a playroom/study/sofa bed for family type room. The 'dining' room looks large enough to accommodate a small dining table, sofa and TV, so a family room really. Sounds ideal to me!

We have a main dining/family room and a separate front room. The front room is mainly used by DH and I after the kids are in bed, but it's nice to have a room in the house that is toy-free!

I'm so confused - just use the dining room as a dining room and the living room as a living room
Seriously, what is the problem??

Maybe this house isn't for you then?

You've never seen a dining room that's just a dining room??
You just paint the walls and put a table and chairs in
I'm still so confused

Are you quite young, OP? It's just that the open plan layout you are describing is a relatively recent thing. Most of us who were born in the 70s or early 80s in areas with terraces probably remember most places looking much like this!

My BIL has a similar layout in a stunning terrace with loads of period features. He's opened out the kitchen and dining room into one room, but because of the layout they still feel very much like two distinct spaces. It works brilliantly. We will sit there for a few hours having dinner, then move to the front room later in the evening.

I really don't like kitchen diners so it's not preferable to everyone.

Just use the dining room however you want. There are no rules.

Yes I'm in my 20s. I've literally never seen a separate dining room in my life. Well except my friends Josue who hasn't itikised it as a dining room.

I almost bought a house like this - it fell through alas. I would have turned the big room into a dining room / study / playroom because it was huge. Planned to have no TV but a sofa facing the front wall about a third of the way up the room (we had a fireplace) with lots of storage for toys and a small desk at the side. Then a dining table at the back of the room, near the kitchen. It would have been great.

I'm sorry I also don't understand - you don't know how to decorate or arrange a dining room? Just put in a table and chairs, a sideboard/cabinet for some storage, couple of pictures on the wall. Job done surely.

House not Josue!

Oh I definitely wouldn't leave it just set up as a dining room, that seems a terrible waste when there are only two of you. But really it is up to you, you can do whatever what you like :-) I think I am starting to see your concern, you want the dining table in the kitchen? I definitely wouldn't buy a house without that, for us it is extremely important. I am at the kitchen table now, mumsnetting and drinking tea. Shortly my little one will get up from his nap and have snack at the table while I potter around the kitchen. When I make dinner the kids will be sat here doing their homeworks at the same time. It works well.

Have the living room as a grownup space, no toys stored in it and not full of clutter. Then it's easy to clean and a nice space to relax in. And get a decent sofa beds so it can become a guest bedroom

Just seen your update that you've never seen a dining room! Try googling or looking on Pinterest for images? It's really not an unusual layout, you'd be mad to write off a house just because of this.

You are not going to get a nice open plan kitchen diner with that layout.

Not knowing how to use a dining room is just odd. Whack a table or chairs in there and decorate it how the hell you like - it's your house! And as others have said you can have a desk for homework or bookshelves in there too if there's room.

Sofas and telly in lounge.