What would you do with this awful layout?

[HopelessLayout]

Help! This is the ground floor of my apartment. Bedrooms are upstairs. The hallway is huge (relatively) and the sitting room is awkwardly narrow. Any thoughts on how this could be reconfigured to use the overall space better? I'm thinking about taking down the internal walls and starting all over again—possibly even reconfiguring the staircase.

Some considerations are that the stairs going up to the bedrooms have have a wall separating them from the kitchen (fire regs), and there are only three windows on this floor, as shown.

It's doing my head in. Grateful for any suggestions!

Could you flip the main room put the sofa against the wall backing onto the fridge so you are not opening door into sofa and put table where orange chairs are
unless you could reconfigure a type of spiral / dog leg stairs next to airing cupboard the move wall to other side of kitchen door

You're losing an awful lot of space to hallway and it's not ideal having the dining area and kitchen in separate rooms.

From the plan I'd say it definitely lacks good "flow" and the lounge cramped.

I'd be really tempted to start again OP as you say.

I can't really see how knocking out a wall is going to resolve this - but someone else may be along with a good suggestion.

That said, It would be an improvement if you blocked off the door to the lounge and knocked down the wall between the kitchen/dining area. Id consider moving the "u" of the kitchen 90% anti clockwise to give better flow into the room and you could also then make the last leg of the "u" a breakfast bar between the kitchen and dining area (or put in an island).

This way you could "centre" the lounge area better without needing the access for the door. This doesn't resolve reclaiming space from the hall however.

Without seeing the upper floor layout it's quite hard to come up with any more suggestions - where might the stairs be moved to without causing more issues upstairs? Could the airing cupboard be moved? (if so you might be able to create a small utility room off the kitchen - that would need an "L" kitchen but could still work with an island) Etc

If it's any help I did a staircase relocation and it made a huge difference.

I would however get in a architect. Pricy but I've found pays dividends when it comes to reconfiguring space in a radical way.

Apologies! Didn't see the upstairs pictures!

Ignore me - it's just the ground layout again.

Can you move the kitchen into the big room, have a kitchen-diner, and then have a cosy lounge in the current kitchen?

You could also knock down the (current kitchen) wall so the stairs are part of the lounge - depends if you're happy with that openness into your lounge and straight in from the front door

How about:

Move the kitchen into the current lounge/diner to make a kitchen/diner

Wall of current kitchen gets taken down. That middle space is now the sitting room.

Like this

Are you sure you need a door between the kitchen and stairs?

We've just got building regs sign off last week on a house extension and there is no door between the kitchen and the stairs?

Which way do the stairs run?

Thanks for all the suggestions!
@TeacupDrama I have tried just about every configuration of furniture in the sitting room, including locating the sofa as you suggested. The door knocks into it when it's in that position and it blocks the lower half of the bookcase. Also, having the sofa parallel with the longer dimension of the room just seems to make the room seem even more narrow somehow.
@DeRigueurMortis upstairs floor plan attached. The dimensions aren't exactly right but it sits directly above the kitchen/sitting room.
@underthebridgedowntown That's an interesting idea, it might work well in conjunction with reconfiguring the stairs. I could install an interior door at the end of the narrow part of the corridor so the lounge wouldn't be straight in from the front door.

@BlueSkiesLies Many thanks for the drawing! I think that is what Underthebridge was suggesting too.

@bluebery I'm fairly sure about that. If you come down the stairs you are directly facing the kitchen wall that contains the door, if that makes sense. I was told the stairs/corridor are part of the fire escape routs so have to be separated from the kitchen. Perhaps you have an alternative escape route from your upper level?

I would make the kitchen and dining room all one, then pull the wall of the now separate living room forward to lose the big bit of the hall.

Looking at the upstairs I think you'll struggle to move the staircase without sacrificing space in the master bedroom (though you may regain space in the smaller bedroom).

Given the cost of doing this, it's probably not worth it tbh.

As such I'd explore my or Blue's suggestion.

Blues has the advantage of reclaiming hall space but it will cost a lot to move all the services in the kitchen to a new room and your lounge becomes the through route to the kitchen diner.

Mine potentially might give you a utility room (if you can move the airing cupboard- I assume the boiler is in here) upstairs to the hallway, but this can be pricy re:plumbing.

Otherwise it's likely to be cheaper as you keep services in the same room and are knocking down fewer walls.

The kitchen becomes your walk through (which id probably prefer rather than my lounge - but that's a personal preference).

Swings and roundabouts....

Very shit diagram - I'm on a mobile and it's as good as I can do....obviously you'd then centre your sofa better.

@HopelessLayout
That's probably it, you have to walk past the front door to get to the stairs from the kitchen.

The way the stairs face doesn't really make it easy, but reconfiguring them will be a lot of hassle and cost.

I like the idea of moving the kitchen and dining room into where the living room is. Then you could expand the current kitchen so the stairs are in it then making that the lounge. Could even possibly take the airing cupboard if you don't need it anymore.

Like this?

Ooh that's good reef...

Ooooh +1 for reefedsail - that would give you best overall space for cheapest £ probably

We had an open plan design house (built like that) we enclosed the stair case and had a small hallway at the bottom then a glass door. Privacy/noise reduction from upstairs and get to use the hallway as part of another room.

If this is a flat then will you need permission to do this kind of work? The lease for my old flat specified I couldn’t change the layout without permission from the freeholder.

Liking Reefsail's for maximum effect and minimum effort. I would have to slightly reconfigure the bottom of the stairs so they are facing the front door instead of the kitchen door, but that wouldn't be difficult as there is a landing two steps from the bottom.
I could potentially also utilize the under-stairs space as part of the sitting room that way too.
Big thanks to everyone! This has all given me loads to go on with!

thecapitalsunited I own the internal walls and the freeholder owns the external walls, so I believe I can do what I like inside (subject to building regs). I will double-check that though. Thank you.

While you're at it, reverse the front door so that it opens back against the wall rather than the bathroom door.

I'd have the kitchen where the bathroom is - but right across that area a really big kitchen, and then out the bathroom where the kitchen is but make living room open plan and bring it over a bit? If doable?

Or a big kitchen diner and then a "snug" where the bathroom is nice and big?

I'd halve the size of the airing cupboard and access the bathroom through what is now half the airing cupboard. Wall up the side of the stairs to widen lounge and pull the wall straight across. Then remove all walls between lounge/diner/kitchen so access to the whole open plan is through your current kitchen door. Move dining table to current kitchen, kitchen to corner where table is now.
So you'll walk in past the table and turn left but the living area will be wider with no door to bang the sofas.
Similar to reef's design above but moving the kitchen units/plumbing too and leaving a tiny square of hall for the star return/living room access where the kitchen is now.