Help! Open plan kitchen/ diner/living

[edam]

We are extending our house and one option is to make the whole ground floor open plan - kitchen/ diner/ living. I can't decide whether to put the kitchen in the middle or at the front in the old garage.
The space will be:
At the front, old garage - 8ft wide x 17/ ft long / 2.43m x 5.18m
Behind, making an L shape - 17 long x 14ft 10" wide / 5.18m x 4.3m

Any help gratefully received!

Can you sketch or do you have an existing floor plan we could look at? Maybe in the property details if you bought fairly recently. Do you live alone?

I just wouldn't do it! Chaos everywhere! If you have DC, no way of separating them from you without sending them upstairs.

Trying to post floorplan...

I'd want to access the kitchen from the front door without going vai other rooms

Natural light and garden access

This is identical but not my housee - drat can't attach pdfs - hang on! Broken arm...

Hope this works...

Front of house is the narrow bit - I haven't shown the hall or front door. Rear is the wide bit

Proper floorplan

But we are extending the big part, currently the kitchen - going back 3m

Miniwookie - there's dh and I and ds, who is 13. We are making the first floor living room a snug/ bedroom 4 and putting in a corridor where the stairs are. And an ensuite in the top back bedroom

You seem to want to zone the areas as if it's still rooms

I would keep the kitchen where it is with an island breakfast bar then a huge sofa tv - I will link some pictures later then have a snug/playroom in the existing garage -

Good point Astro but I do want dining/living area and kitchen rather than it being one enormous kitchen

Not sure if this helps but I used the service of an online floor plan designer and found it really worthwhile! They only charge £150 and they give you a nice 3D plan (I find these things so hard to read! So it was wonderful to be able to visualise the space). They are called betterspace.co
You don't renovate every day so I really think getting an expert is worth the effort.
Good luck!

There are free ones as well - look them up

Thanks!

I'd make the exsisting kitchen with 3 mts extension the kitchen diner with French doors into the garage which would be come lounge

OR make the kitchen the garage with double doors into the loung/dining area.

I would want the loung to be seperate to the kitchen so that you can close off sounds of washing machine/dishwasher and keep cooking smells and steam out of living area

I agree you want a separate room available on the ground floor

I would make the garage a separate living room, all except the back slice (beyond the side window) which could be carved off as a small utility room, or incorporated into your kitchen to make it squarer

Then with the 3m extension you should have room for kitchen, dining table and a decent sofa (maybe two) in your big room

Just remember, unless you have a sprinkler system installed or you are installing a new one, you will need to keep the stairs and route out separate from kitchen with fire door.

The cons of open plan
We are open plan down stairs and tbh I hate it and am saving up to build walls. If one DC is doing homework the others cannot watch tv as it is a distraction. If I cook fish/chilli the living area smells of it, to the point I cook food in the slow cooker outside/in the shed and never cook cabbage. Baking or using electric mixers etc disturbs the people watching tv and you will be surprised how loud the dishwasher and washing machine are. I cannot do the ironing etc listening to the radio if DP wants to watch tv or meditate. It honestly means we are more split up as people tend to drift upstairs to bedrooms and stay there. I dream of having a home where I have tv in the kitchen as I work and others watch what they want in the sitting room and DC sit at the dining room table playing games/doing homework.

Sorry all that sounds really bad I hope your build is all you want and you enjoy it.

We have open plan - but double doors between dining/living room and I agree with the noise of the machines -

Same with homework etc it at least we can shut the doors off to lessen the impact! I love the door being open so I can chat in the kitchen while the kids are in the living room but in reality they can hear me over the kettle !

I would have the kitchen area in the current garage, with the dining area at the back of the house, behind it, then sofas off to the side - it would feel claustrophobic having the seated area in the narrower part of the room but you wouldn't want to chill right next to the cooking area or have kids walking through the kitchen area from the garden, in summer. With no utility room, you'd be best off if you could zone off the kitchen, maybe with some folding or sliding doors, so you can cut out the noise and smells of the kitchen, if you're all downstairs but not eating.

Alternatively, keep some of the far end of the garage area sectioned off as a utility room, right at the front, since you appear to have a side external wall, anyhow, so won't need to rely on light from the front of the house. You have 24' depth to play with, so losing 6-7' of that shouldn't be a problem, particularly if it's given over to useful but ugly or noisy stuff, meaning that your kitchen area needn't be so big!

I'm no designer but if I was doing my "ideal" plan and it was say one long straight room I would have
Kitchen/diner/living room but huge sliding doors or something similar so you could close off between dining room and living room. Having the dining room in the middle lessens noise as further to travel and you could have doors open for a party or shut off so you can cook while someone watches TV. And a really good extractor fan
I currently have open plan, can you tell?!