Help with how to use / decorate new kitchen diner extension

[namechangedtoday15]

We have a fairly typical 1930s semi. Builder is about to start extension and wanting to know where lights etc will be.

We are going to have large rectangular room about 7m x 7m. The bottom left corner (where kitchen is currently) will be utility, then kitchen (4m run of units) will be along right hand wall with large island unit in front of it. Services / drains are on that wall so makes sense.

Left hand side is where we're struggling - thinking dining table & chairs in top left corner (opening onto garden - having bifold doors) and lounge / seating area in bottom left corner. That will be the darkest part of the room I think. Need to incorporate some storage too but not sure how to do that.

Anyone have any tips? Really want it to be "right" but struggling with the magnitude of the decisions!

Utility is bottom right - doh!!

Sounds similar to ours - so maybe of help:

www.houzz.co.uk/projects/787449/open-plan-extension-with-office-corner

I've seen your house before Marmite. It's lovely. Do you find the seating area works well at the back of the extension (I. E in the old part of the house?)

If you've got a room that big I'm surprised you're not dividing off your utility area? In our kitchen diner we've got a sofa in the darkest corner and round dining table by the bifolds as the shape breaks up the angular space. It's all white paint which I am getting a bit bored of but I can't work out what will work in such a big space.

Watching with interest, I have a 7m by 7m kitchen dinner that I have no idea what to do with. We have a separate living room and dinning room so the kitchen space is just wasted in our house.

Someone suggested to me (if you've got the time) to look on the houses for sale websites and look at the kitchens of houses you like the look of for ideas.

I know table and chairs takes a lot of room as you have to have space to be able to pull out each chair to allow you to sit on it. Also you probably want to have nothing in front of garden doors.
My neighbor has a new house and the drier and washing machine are in a wall cupboard so you can shut the doors on them, the boiler is in there too. A larger cupboard would mean there is room for wellies and coats.
When I do my kitchen I'm having some wall to ceiling cupboards (or nearly ceiling) rather than wall units to make it less kitcheny.

You can draw plan on graph paper and then cut out sized table etc to study the space.

Marmite- please link to where those lights came from? Desperately need some!!

Yes, the utility room will be divided off, very similar to Marmite's photos, I just meant that the utility room was taking up the bottom corner of the rectangle if you see what I mean. We'll still have a sitting room at the front of the house, so yes to separate space.

Thank you for all the replies, its just daunting when you consider the cost to make mistakes.

Yes the sitting area works very well where it is. It's quite bright in there in the morning but cosy in the evening, especially when we light the fire.

The lights are Nordlux Ripasso pendants which I got from Wayfair online (think also on Amazon) - sorry can't link as have error since updating to IOS 9.3 .

Marmite Did you know where all your furniture would go before the build started, could you visualise it? Did you know the lights would go where they are, where you'd need sockets etc? Our room is going to be very similar to yours I think except the back wall is straight (looks like your kitchen goes out further) and our kitchen will run immediately after the utility room so we won't have the office nook that you have.

But there is nothing else there - we don't have the fireplace wall with alcoves, we're going double storey for most of it so don't have the lovely glass roof feature - which I think kind of act as a starting point for where to place things /furniture. It will literally be a rectangular box, flat ceiling, flat walls etc so wanting to add "something".

Our architect drew plans with furniture shown, which was a big help.

In terms of decor, we started with the fireplace which still has the original Victorian bluey/grey tiles and went from there.

The architect also did a separate poa showing the electrical and plumbing layout. The kitchen fitter also liaised with the builder re electrics and plumbing, to make sure everything was in the right place. Hope that helps.

Poa = plan

Thank you