What to do with wide middle room

[Changingwiththetimes]

Contemplating this house. The usual knock through between living and dining, but as they have a rather beautiful shower room (currently the only shower in the house) you have to get to the kitchen by walking through the dining room. The kitchen is pretty and big enough for a table. The dining room has an awful inset modern pebble gas fire which I wil provably lose, but other than putting our upright piano there, how do I make that room feel less like just a wide corridor? I've looked at loads of houses and this room always seems redundant, but here as it is the route to the kitchen it's use is more limited. I am thinking of putting up crittal style glass doors to separate off the living room while still getting light in to this middle room.
The shower room will either remain, or I can split it into conventional downstairs loo and small utility accessed from kitchen.
Any ideas for the middle room?

I agree that this room is often redundant - I live in an area where these houses predominate and none of my friends seem to use the room

I do use it - I haven't extended into the side return so my room still has a garden door in it, although it is a route into the kitchen too. I use it as a formal dining room. Have a lovely big table and we use it every night for dinner. Plus I now work on it during the day (as do the teen dds). Also have a smaller table in the kitchen where we can have lunch or breakfast.

I experimented with uses - used it as a second sitting room for a while, but no one except the dog sat on it. Also intending to get a piano for it and, like you, contemplating crittal doors.

Anyway, we use it now every day.

where you have your shower room, we have a small downstairs loo and a cellar/cupboard. If I were you I'd split it into a loo and a coat cupboard rather than a utility room. I would love not to have all of our coats, shoes and crap in the passage.

Is this a house of compromises. What did the previous owner do to the upstairs bathroom that drove the need for a down stairs shower, that then created the need for the corridor layout?

That aside, study or eating area? Would the kitchen have potential for an island/breakfast bar if you put the dining table in the middle room?

Thsnks for your suggestions. I don't want the table in the dining room. It's dark, and as you have to walk through it to get to kitchen it would be shoved to the side, and then I couldn't fit the piano in.
The kitchen does have a line of units (not on plan) ending in wine fridge (hurrah), that was used as a breakfast bar, but there's room for a decent table and overlooks garden in there. I have a separate diningroom now and hardly ever use it and swore next house evildoers have kitchen table!
No idea why they have the shower room downstairs. The first floor bathroom is very poky, and I'd be tempted to make the smallest bedroom a bathroom, snd the converted loft also doesn't have a bathroom (yet).
Yes agree about coats- I have a handy coat room come loo where I live now (house twice the size though).

Is it worth actually making a small corridor through there, making the room a bit more smaller but more usable? I would be tempted to section it off, then make a utility or small reception/ playroom/ office

What you’re worried about is the walk-through aspect, one of the solution would be to take out the shower room under the stairs, turn it into a downstairs loo under the stairs and reinstate the corridor which would run along the side of the reception room so you can get to the kitchen that way. Then you could either permanently or semi permanently block up the entrance from the back of the reception room into the kitchen (with a window or a glass door) depending on what you want to use it for. This also reinstates a nice view from the front door right through to the garden. In terms of what you might use the room for then, it depends on what your family really need. I have seen it used successfully as a playroom, a home office, and also in some houses where they have split the back part into two and used the back part of the split room as a utility room, and then just left the front part as part of the reception room and put a piano in it for example. I would really recommend looking at sold houses in London, especially Wandsworth as this layout is really common and you will be able to see what you think looks nice.

@Heronwatcher thank you. I can't reinstate the hall as there are a run of kitchen units that would be directly behind loo (they aren't on the plan) so kitchen is U shaped, not L as it looks. This is very useful for worktop space and wine fridge as mentioned above, so don't want to redesign kitchen just to have a hallway that leads to it. This run currently houses washing machine too, but I am tempted to halve the shower room.and have a small utility accessed from the end of the U, which is a wall.
But you are right, it's the walk through aspect which bothers me - it's a good size room but has no purpose. I have looked at sold houses and it is a redundant room in many of them, kinda used as a playroom (my kids are teens), or second sitting room (previous owners used it as TV room). But you still need to walk through it. I might make it more part of the kitchen end by removing all of that wall, and less of the reception room at front.

It's a pretty terrible layout and unless you have the budget to move the kitchen and redo the bathrooms and some structural work I would totally avoid it.

The ground floor of our Georgian terrace is like that. We have a door from the hallway into each half of the "long room".

Most of us have a big dining table in one half usually in the front bit and a cosy lounge area in the middle (where most of us have working fireplaces or wood burner). We swap furniture around in the summer when we get lots of evening light.

Some partition off the front room and use it as a study or music room. That's the best place to have TVs etc as it is next to the neighbour's hallway.

Sorry, I've just spotted that room isn't very wide. Would it work to have the piano perpendicular across the middle of the room up against a floor to ceiling bookcase/display cabinet.

Have a look at IKEA's big KALLAX shelving units for the budget solution.

Personally I would reinstate the wall between dining room and living room, then knock through between dining room and kitchen - so you have a big L-shaped kitchen/diner/family room, and a seperate smaller cosy lounge.

@Rbe78 yes I'm thinking of crittal glass doors there and removing more of the wall to kitchen.
These houses aren't that wide, and with extensions it makes that middle room dark unless they become more part of the back than front. Doesn't help that the current owner has painted it all dark grey!
Thanks for the advice everyone.

I‘s take the wall down between the kitchen and dining area and would put a wall up just to the right of the Current door I to the space so the living room is separate (with a door into it) then I’d move the kitchen into the existing dining area along the new wall and existing right hand side with either an island or breakfast bar in.

Then use the old kitchen area as a dining/ family room into the garden.

[quote Changingwiththetimes]@Rbe78 yes I'm thinking of crittal glass doors there and removing more of the wall to kitchen.
These houses aren't that wide, and with extensions it makes that middle room dark unless they become more part of the back than front. Doesn't help that the current owner has painted it all dark grey!
Thanks for the advice everyone.[/quote]
Thats sort of what we did with a relatively similar layout. We have a kitchen open to the middle room which has two sofas against the wall its a casual living room..

Sort of like this. I rubbed out the chimney but you could probably keep this in if costs are prohibitive
You’d probably still have the same amount if actual kitchen space and work surface but a much better use of the light and bigger area at the back

Posted too soon. Also that would give you two living spaces which aren’t separate and means as your teens have somewhere other than your living room to hang out

I would take out the wall between your front room and hall (maybe keep a short stretch long side the front door to make a wider more open front room.

Re-instate the wall between front and middle rooms.

Then take down as much as possible between the middle room and the kitchen to make the middle room part of the kitchen: a family room / diner.

You could put a horizontal window high in the wall between the front room and middle room to let more light through.

Is the kitchen letting in as much light as possible?