Living Room size

[Clabella]

We are moving to a house with a living room 23ft x 12ft6. I'm considering making the living room 15ft by 12ft6 to make a snug area with pocket doors at the back for teens (8ft x 12ft6). Will the living room be too small?

The livingroom sounds like a very normal size.
I'd just do some floor plans of the 2 rooms, and check you can get everything you want in. You may find if you have pocket doors, main door, window and radiator you run out of places for furniture.

Mine was 24ft x 12ft with double doors about 1/3 along one long wall, a fireplace in the middle of the other long wall, sliding patio doors on the back short wall and a window at the front short wall.
It was too long for the width really.

We had a sofa along one of the walls facing the fireplace and another pulled forward from the window about 6ft and stored the kids toys behind there.

I then had a 2m (length) x 3m (width) extension, basically making it longer but splitting into 2 rooms, so now have an 18ft x 12ft living room at the back with patio doors and a smaller 12ft x 12ft (narrowing to 10ft) room at the front with windows.

The double doors still lead into the lounge, but nearer to the corner.
I had a separate door made into the new room from the hallway and also have double pocket doors between the two rooms.

It has definitely been worth doing, but my kids were much younger and it made it into a playroom that wasn't separate but could just be shut off.

They did use it as teens but less than I would have hoped.

Now it is a study (for me) / games room - still has a tv and consoles, but no one really uses them anymore (ds1 22 just left home, ds2 19 at home but working).

Images show lounge, with pocket doors slightly ajar. And "playroom" from just inside the lounge doors.

Your proposed lounge size sounds good, but I'd worry that the additional room is too small?

Also, what doors and windows are you left with in each room?

Oh, I took the fireplace out and relocated the radiators to have 2 slim tall ones either side of the patio doors and 1 by the window in the new room (rather than under the window and on the wall opposite the fireplace).
Freed up wall space for the furniture.

Can you have a different kind of doors so that the room can be all in one or split up?

The folding concertina type they have for patio doors might be good, but solid. So they can be completely folded back if necessary.