What can I do with this?

[Lifeandjoy]

I am really struggling to make the ground floor flow and to use the space well. Your ideas would be most welcome. My main problems are:

1. Where to put the dining table - if I put it with the sitting room in the long reception space then what flooring should I have?

1. If I put it in the rear reception area then how do I get from the kitchen to it without having to walk from the kitchen through part of the long reception to the back reception?

The rear reception is an orangery but it is only accessed through the long reception.

How much work are you happy to do and what’s your lifestyle?

Does the space feel as awkward as it looks with the WC set back at the front and 2 bits sticking out at the back?

For my own lifestyle, I’d combine the kitchen + the back extension + half of the double reception room. That would leave the front reception room to be a separate sitting room. The storage room would be divided Into a study and a utility.

If spending even more, I’d sort out the random bits at the front and the back.

We are turning the storage area into a gym and utility room. The toilet will be redesigned. The gap infront of the toilet will be relocated to the side. It’s difficult to explain that area but we are clear about what we need to do there.

I should have mentioned that we would like to keep the kitchen. It’s a very expensive one and there seems to all be in good nick. If we got rid of it we would have to replace with normal much cheaper stuff 😂.

Arrggghhh! We are willing to cut a doorway through somewhere but want to avoid breaking down walls.

Is it hopeless?

I’d just make the kitchen an eat in kitchen. There is room for a table for 4 in there. But I don’t really entertain/host for sit down meals. I’d maybe have a garden party in summer/good weather and put food out in orangery and have garden seatIng. Orangery would be good place to put large table for homework, art, crafts, jigsaw puzzles....(not to eat at daily).

The other dog leg to the back is also there for very good reason. It’s a short passage way leading to the garden. We would want to keep. To remove it would mean extending the entire rear reception all the way across. We’ve considered this and it would solve a lot of the problem but it would be a very expensive job, leaving us with a massive space that we don’t have much use for. We would then not be able to convert the loft.

I don't think you have many options without reconfiguring the kitchen, because the worktop cuts across the entrance to the orangery. However the room sizes are great.

I think I'd just be conventional. Small kitchen table for 4 up against the kitchen wall. Big reception room as a lounge diner, hard flooring with an enormous rug in the living room area. Orangery a playroom or second living area with sofa(s). Some comfy but fairly light lounge chairs (Eg tub chairs or John Lewis Arlo chairs), or storage cubes, that could be move around to create extra seating in either lounge area when you have guests.

We have a kitchen table and a dining table and it works well with older children. We eat in the kitchen and the dining table is always free for homework, games, projects etc. You'd just need to ensure you can easily get past the dining table, so choose a narrow one and minimise storage in the dining area.

Another option might be to see if you can reconfigure the kitchen using existing units and worktops, and knock through into the orangery, but I can't see that working unless you lost one of the other doors.

(that said, we do have carpet in our lounge diner. It's not that hygenic, but we hardly ever eat at the dining table and the kids do the messiest crafts at the kitchen table.)

I'd put a table in rear of big through reception room. Maybe with bench seating along far wall so that table can be pushed to the left most of the time to maximise space accessing orangery

Murmurur that’s useful. I was thinking of porcelain tiles in the long through lounge with a huge rug in the living room. But that might be too cold/hard?

If we created an archway through the kitchen directly into the orangery, what should I do with the other section of the all through lounge? A reading space, game space?

Nice idea @Bruce

How often will you use the dining table?
If it's just for entertaining, get a hostess trolley and put it in the orangery.
If more often, then at the back of the long reception room. Proper wood flooring would be perfect for dining and seating areas. Just add rugs in the seating area.

I'd put it at the rear of the through reception too.

I can't see this obsession for hard floors at the moment. We still have carpet in the dining room, so don't see why you can't carpet throughout.

Depends a bit on-

• how old are your kids? younger kids and you wnat a play space. Older a homework zone or a separate teen chill zone.
• how useable is the orangery? All year round? friendly warm space? or not? This depends on what you want to use it for. No-one will sit in it if it is cold for example.
• how often would you use a dining table? For eating? for craft projects?
• How often do you have visitors/how much sofa space do you need?

I would definitely put a small table in the kitchen for every day meals.
Then either put the dinign table in the orangery, towards one end, with a seating area or play room at the other
Or at the back of the sitting room, and make the orangery something else - playroom/sewing room/TV zone/beanbag X-box space/calm sunny coffee spot.

I have tiles. In the winter, when the underfloor heating is on, they're fine. In the spring and autumn they are absolutely freezing. Also, anything dropped on them smashes. Biscuits, glasses, plastic toys, all will be reduced to smithereens.

not tiles in the living room, unless you have underfloor heating. They are always cold, even with rugs.

For hard flooring I'd use wood. But I woudl always have a carpet in the sitting area, so if a wooden floor, then a huge rug, that goes under the front of the sofas, so your feet hit is when sitting (my parents have this, literally 3mx 4m rug, on a hard wood floor. Lovely)

Lifeandjoy ' the rear dog leg - does it have to ne a massive job? It looks like a window in the bit off the kichen which coukd be a door, then it looks like a window at the end of the orangery to - can that be a door? Then its just a tiny glass walkway between the two

I'd make room in the kitchen or have a door instead of a window into the conservatory and put it in there.

@MillieEpple

Lifeandjoy ' the rear dog leg - does it have to ne a massive job? It looks like a window in the bit off the kichen which coukd be a door, then it looks like a window at the end of the orangery to - can that be a door? Then its just a tiny glass walkway between the two

I wondered that too

what should I do with the other section of the all through lounge? A reading space, game space?

That's the crux isn't it? If you have to make something up then it isn't going to be a well used part of your house. If you had littlies then playroom area with a low train table to define the space would work, but I'm guessing you don't. You could line it with bookshelves and make it a library area or a music room. Personally I wouldn't choose to have a gaming or reading space in the same room as the main living area because I can't see each of us sitting in different lounge areas at opposite ends of the room. Whoever is reading or gaming might as well be on the main sofas. Either use the main living area for those, or somewhere you can shut the noise off (the orangery.)

The other option is to configure the lounge diner as one big living room, sofas away from the walls and centred in the room. But it is hard to make that work well in such a long room IMO.

You could consider adding internal bifold glass doors that divide the room in 2, so you have some sound separation between reading/gaming area and main living area. But doing that and knocking through into the orangery is a lot of faff and expense when it's much easier just to use the dining area for dining (and board games, puzzles etc)

You all are great. I’m really finding your inputs helpful.

The rear dog thing is difficult. Even though it looks like a straightforward joining of the orangery with it, the house is on a hill. So there are steps leading down from the orangery to the garden and steps leading from the rear dog leg to the garden and a huge empty space between them. We would have to build a basement type thing and then build on top of that to extend the orangery across.

I hope that makes sense

Ahh. I see.

Wwll id be tempted to try out each table position for a day or two. Its not too hard to move a table.

The other thing to consider is, if you wstch TV - the gloomier bit of a room is normally good for that.

Now don't laugh.... but can you put a serving hatch of some kind between the kitchen and the back end of the lounge diner or the orangery? We had one in an old house, and at first we talked about blocking it up but my god we loved it and it was so useful. If either option works that might solve the dining area question

Another thought with WFH and any kids table top and desk are a premium so I'd think through where you can have a working space or having two tables, one in the kitchen and in one another room.

My mum did that darkmutterings. Quite a big one and put a nice bit of wood on it and some bar stools the otherside looking in. There was still space for a dining table and chairs.

Can you re-locate this run of units and knock an arch /door through to the reception room?

It’s a new kitchen (expensive too) so it would be a shame to destroy it. I’m liking the idea of making the long lounge a formal dining room and living room open plan type and using the orangery for reading, chilling out, etc. I’ll put a small bench table in the kitchen for everyday breakfast, etc.

The downsides are: (1) the carpet in the dining room (would it be odd to have a large rug over the carpet underneath the table? and (2) the walk from the kitchen to the dining room.

In your houses, is your dining room separate from your kitchen?

We’re going to go with wooden floors in the entrance and all through lounge and the porcelain tiles in kitchen and orangery. Then carpets upstairs.