I have just bought a small terrace and unfortunately the ground floor is fairly small.
The house comes with planning permission to extend and make a kitchen diner but sadly I don't have a spare £30,000 and the permission will expire long before we can save up for the extension.
I think my two options are to somehow make a joint living and dining room within the fairly small living room or knock down the wall separating the utility and kitchen and make a kitchen diner (The kitchen has units on all the walls expect the wall it shares with the utility room). We don't own a television so the living room would effectively be a dining room with two ceiling height bookcases and a sofa.
We are hoping to have a child soon and I'm not sure what would be more useful for a family with kids, the utility room with cramped joint living room and dining room or the larger kitchen diner? I think we will be staying at this house long term, as I doubt we'll be able to afford a larger home.
We do have a spare 8 x 8 bedroom upstairs that could be turned into a living room, but will guests find that strange?
Thank you!