To ask for help arranging my home, diagram included

[HomeSweetHome101]

I've NC, purely because this is very identifying.

We are a family of 5, and I'm frustrated with trying to organise our home.
The first picture is the layout, and the second picture I've added the basic, main furniture. Apologies for the 'off' scale.
Any suggestions would be great.

Is there no chance of moving somewhere bigger? There really isn't much space for 5 of you. Are you in the SE?

Not for the foreseeable future MyOtherProfile Yes, in the SE.

These suggestions are all good, and I did google kitchens in living rooms. They did look lovely, mainly the ones with money thrown at it though, and I'm not currently in that position.

If you're going to be living there long term I would do what fantastic suggests and move the kitchen into the living room. Then have a regular sofa, move the tv cabinet nearer the coat room side of the room and buy an extendable table.

Hard to tell from the diagram but how big are the bedrooms - would you be able to have them made into 3 (albeit very small) bedrooms so you maximise on living space?

If you move the kitchen that cold be quire expensive and you still need to get to the new bedroom through the kitchen/diner. Could you partition off the right part of the lounge to form a bedroom accessed from hall and knock wall between kitchen and what remains of lounge? This would make (a small) open plan kitchen / living / dining room

Without doing any structural alterations and to give the impression of more floor space - I'd turn your sofa bed so the short side was against the wall where your tv is - move the tv closer to the window.

Turn the drawers sideways so they are against the wall next to the tv unit in the bunk bed room.

Turn the desk in dd's room sideways so that it's in line with her bed.

Can you knock the kitchen and hallway into one and turn the kitchen into a bedroom as pp suggested.

This is the problem with the SE. I know people have family and job commitments which make it hard to live elsewhere but I think I'd be looking at a move to somewhere I could afford a bigger place. It's a big thing to move areas but I've done it several times and it is so worth it to get what you want, if you can.

The hallway looks like a lot of dead space. I'd think about removing the wall between the hallway and living room, put a kitchen on the wall with the tv unit and turn the kitchen into a bedroom. If the front door opens into the coat room, then you still have a door between coat room and hallway area so that gives some separation between outside and living space.

Can you not use the coat room. Could take doors off to make hallway bigger

I'd do what Ipswich said. Knock out the wall between the hallway and living room. Make that into one large space. Move the kitchen into this larger space and then make the current kitchen into a bedroom for you. It could be a lovely open plan living space with three bedrooms.

For a cheap change I would go for a butterfly table with fold down chairs. When we lived in small places it was fantastic as table folds up small and you can get ones where the chairs slip inside table. My parents had one that fitted 7 people and folded up small. That would free up space

For bedrooms when I was growing up I shared a small room. Instead of wardrobe and drawers we had underbed boxes which saved space

If you can I would also mount tv on wall as it saves so much space

Do you own or rent? Sorry if I've missed that bit. Honestly I'd just move even if it was to another affordable area whilst the kids are young. The cost of moving a kitchen (if even possible) would be enough for me to move rather than pay out all that.

I agree with pp - partition the living room between the windows to create a separate sleeping space for you. You could still use the sofa bed and get a retractable screen if you want to open it up for guests. Then do what you can to open up the kitchen - either totally, or partially so you have a window from the kitchen into the living room.

Mainly, though - get the younger kids to share and give older ds his own room. He'll be leaving home in a few years and the others can split up again. But a teenager needs his own space.

Move the children into the living room by partitioning the room and having access through the existing door and knocking through into the 'coat room'.

You can put the bookcase in your bedroom (2) and bedroom 1 would become the living room.

Remove some units in the kitchen and put a table and tv in there.

This makes all of your rooms smaller, but gives you all more of your own space.

I think moving the kitchen might cost more than you want to spend!

I would give the teenager his own room. Get him a cabin bed With a desk underneath and then put loads of storage in his room that you can all use.

Put the younger two in together. How big is the biggest room? Would it fit two single beds ( or one single one toddler bed?) with some sort of curtain/screen down the middle?

The hallway looks underused. Could you put a fold down desk in there or some kallax units for toy storage ? Our hallway doubles as the playroom!!

Make use of vertical space. Get some baskets to put on top of cupboards/ wardrobes. Fix shelves to the walls rather than having floor standing book cases.

How big is the coat storage space? Could you steal a bit if it to create a cupboard accessed from the living room to store your clothes? Or could you convert the airing cupboard into your clothes cupboard?

Room divider www.diy.com/departments/karalis-room-divider/1012710_BQ.prd?ppc_type=shopping&ds_kids=92700025340637601&utm_source=google_cpc&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=PX_GSC_Building_Outdoor_Best_Sellers&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItaq8-vC61gIVzr3tCh2lXQ0wEAQYASABEgI5bvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CJnewv_wutYCFYIw0wodwewBBQ

That room divider thing looks great! Could be the perfect solution to the arguments between two of my DS who are sharing a room..... (sorry for derailing your thread OP)

Here are my suggestions. Without knowing exact dimensions, I don't know if any of this will work, but hopefully it might inspire you. I quite often move furniture around, not least because it makes me do some clearing out and then everything looks better. The other thing I do when I move stuff around, is live with an arrangement that isn't quite perfect but work out what furniture I would need to make it work and then keep a look out for that. I often buy second hand things from the charity furniture shops, but you need to carry with you the measurements of the spaces you've got.

In general, I would say, try to put the taller pieces in the corners of rooms and shorter/smaller pieces nearer the centre. The one thing I would consider getting rid of is the TV unit in one of the bedrooms. Either put the TV on top of the chest of drawers, or get a wall mounted thing for it.