Do you like this floor plan?

[cornwallsharon]

So the pencil drawing is the current layout of our new house. We will be installing bifolds on the very back wall into the garden. Someone has suggested the drawn plan of moving the kitchen into the current dining room to make a really nice dining/living room at the back. We bought the house knowing we’d be knocking some walls about but I hadn’t thought of this. Won’t have the money to move the toilet as suggested, (nor to do a side return extension) but we’d end up with a 3.5x3.5m kitchen and a 5.7x 3.2m family room with a bit of a dog leg linking the two. I have a feeling that the current dining room will just end up as dead space otherwise. Thoughts???

If you leave the toilet where it is, how wide would the room be at that point?

It’s around 3m at the narrowest point

Personally I prefer the current layout as I hate being "cut off" in a smallish kitchen, I'd much rather the kitchen was part of a larger space so I can be sociable when cooking.

I would make the dining room a playroom or TV snug and put the dining table near the garden, where current "sitting room" is.

Are you redoing the kitchen in any case? If so then I would rejig it so that you can access kitchen straight off hall, and also to have more units (as a dining table doesn't need as much space as a sitting room).

I’d be tempted to leave it for now and save up more or try to borrow some money to move the toilet. People going to the loo off a kitchen living area is not ideal but the location of the loo on the professional plan is really good. It would be cheaper and easier to do all this as one job so why not wait until you’ve got the funds?

The proportions aren’t quite right if we move the toilet. The red line is a more realistic idea of the shape we’d end up with, and also how big a gap it would be from th kitchen into the dining room. (He very kindly did a super quick mock-up for me to show me what he meant, it wasn’t a properly measured out plan)

Other than the cost, my other concern with moving the loo there is that I’d end up with a 2.5m x 3.5 m kitchen which is starting to feel rather small. The current loo has the washing machine / tumble dryer stacked in it so they’d have to move into that small space too....

Would it be possible to move the staircase over to the right hand wall?

Ah ok, yes I see the connection is larger. I still think you'd end up feeling like the kitchen was quite cut off though, and it wouldn't be as nice a space to cook in as the back room, due to size and because those middle rooms are usualy a bit dark. So I would still go for current layout (but with improved kitchen layout and swap dining and sitting).

However it depends how you feel about open plan. Some people like their kitchen hidden away a bit so the mess isn't on display when they are eating and so they can have peace and quiet when they cook. If that's you then the suggested layout will be better.

I agree the kitchen feels small and cut off. There would be no seating in it. No opportunity for helpers (big or small!). I am planning a similar very long space and have placed the kitchen in the middle with a large island

Also the stub of wall you'd have to knock down to open up that bigger connection between dining and rear room, that's the main back wall of the house, so not a small job...

Yeah we know we’ll need to get some steels in and that’s in the budget. That’s why moving the toilet / utility is probably a stretch too far. I’m not convinced that the kitchen would feel small or cramped though. I was thinking a breakfast bar could stretch across some of the gap so people could sit there while I was cooking. This is the current dining room and kitchen so the wall the sink is on is already pencilled to come out

I think you need to move the loo/utility. I cannot think it’s desirable to have it off a sitting room or a dining room and it isn’t a good use of space. So, where else can it go? I think if you don’t move it, the layouts are all a compromise.

Always have a bigger kitchen than dining. Walking around breakfast bars gets annoying in the end. I don’t think that’s a good solution. I would have the kitchen where you have written lounge and try and get the utility and loo off the hall. You have to accept that there might be some circulation space where you move around but you can build in cupboards to make use of it. A laundry cupboard for example.

If you cannot afford to do a good job right now, I’d leave it until you can.

Do you need a second living room? Could you have the current dining room as a utility/loo/boot room and then open up the current kitchen/sitting/loo room at the back to a lovely kitchen diner overlooking the garden? You might be able to have a run of units along one wall or an island if the space is big enough.

Saw your dilemma on Houzz. Why don't you try Karen, @OnePlanOnHouzz.
She will work with you and with the right sizes. Not just guess stuff. Seen a few posts on mumsnet that she has helped posters with too.