Another layout post

[winkywinkola]

I've enjoyed reading the advice on various layout quandaries.

Here's mine. I think I could make better use of the space we have. We plan to do this this year but I have been mulling it all over and can't decide the best approach.

The dining room is currently a study. The study is currently a boot room and hanging up washing and ironing pile area. I would rather the laundry function was all in one room.

I think we could add a dining room with lots of lovely glass in its roof adjacent to the kitchen and the sitting room. Knock down that kitchen wall so it all flows into one.

Q1. The sitting room then becomes a bit dark? So what to do there?

Then a new kitchen. But with access to the utility room to the right of the kitchen sink. the utility room has all its kitchen units stripped out and has lots of pantry type shelving. Half of this room is then used for dry goods and pet food type storage. The back door is bricked up. The tumble drier sits on top of the washing machine to create more space. Lots of shelves to fit washing baskets and drying racks.

Q.2 Is it weird and or too small to have utility and dry good storage together?

The dining room stays as a study.

Then a big porch is added to front of house so boots, coats etc can be stored there. Boot room (listed as a study here) becomes a playroom and music room for drum kit and keyboard for the dcs.

The downstairs loo is very poky but I can't see a way of improving this as the hallway is very narrow.

Or are there are other glaringly obvious solutions?

My MIL has a very big utility with one wall floor to ceiling cupboards full of everything that doesn't quite need to be in the main kitchen.
The opposite wall is laundry, washer, dryer, sink.
It is a thing of beauty

What's currently in the square between kitchen and utility doors? Or is it just a corridor?

That square is a cupboard. It houses the bin and the ironing board and the dustpan and brush. I

I think it's nice the way it is. I'd knock down the inner doorway to the WC, you don't need two doors and it would make it brighter with the window.

I would also have an orangery built to the rear, with the French doors opening into it. I know that some people use their orangeries as a dining room, and it would add value to the house.

But don't you think using an entire room (the one labelled study) as a room for coats and boots and laundry is not a good use of space?

By building a big porch and the rejigging of utility room, I could have all the boots and costs in the porch and laundry stuff/dry goods in the current utility.

Sorry, missed that point. A nice big porch would solve the boots and coat problem and redesigning your utility might solve the clothes issue. Can you not make better use of the space in your utility?

Well it's currently full of kitchen units and drawers and the boiler. If I stripped out the cupboards and bricked up the back door (thereby creating another wall space), I could put heavy duty (but attractive) shelving in.

And laundry ideas like the attached!

Dry goods would be ok in utility as long as it's not steamy at all. Full height pull out larder cupboards are good in utility spaces too.

As you already have 3 other external doors, bricking up your utility door and adding more shelves or pantry would give you extra storage.

It might even bring your home insurance down slightly.

If it was my house I would combine utility and dining room (with access off hall) to make a huge utility, pantry, boot room. I'd have the study as my study. I'd knock the corner bit of wall off the kitchen to half open it up into the sitting room and have it as a kitchen, dining, living room. I'd put a door into the family room and french doors to the garden and have it as a playroom or snug. However I think your current layout works fine, so only change it if you want to!

How about make the dining room the utility/boot room (move side door to where window is), combine current utility and kitchen with that square bit of sitting room to make big kitchen diner. Then extend at back of sitting room to make that room longer and retain the light coming from the rear aspect.

I think the main issue is that you can't access the utility from the kitchen - that makes it awkward to use. Plus, there is nowhere for coats and shoes to go so they are getting dumped in the study. If you fix those two things, it will make a huge difference.