How can I upgrade this kitchen

[Honeycombskl]

We live in an area of Scotland where there is currently a post-covid influx of people from other (generally wealthier areas). This has led to us being pushed out the market despite having a decent deposit and good incomes for the area. We just don't have enough to compete with people offering many 10s of thousands over the asking price.

There is one property on that we could afford and is receiving little interest, due I think to the layout. It has an incredibly small and awkward shaped kitchen. Due to the layout and where the kitchen is there would be no way for us to extend it and we couldn't put a kitchen in another room without sacrificing a bedroom (and we need them all).

I know the photos aren't the best but does anyone have any ideas of how we could utilise this space best for a tiny but practical kitchen? To the left of the cooker there is a small space with shelves in the corner, at the widest part of the kitchen, and a small pantry cupboard in the corner you can see at its smallest part.

Get on Pinterest. People do have genuinely tiny kitchens in New York, Paris etc and there are some cool ideas. You are not looking to eat in there or store all your crockery etc, simply need it for cooking. Have a table (fold down) and dresser with plates etc in the lounge.

I’d make the corner cupboard and 1/2 length of the wall next to it your kitchen area in an open plan kitchen / living room and turn that strange little kitchen into a nook for the kids to play in.

The market is crazy at the moment but it won’t last forever. If you can hang on until the end of the stamp duty holiday it’s likely that all the people paying over the odds for property will stop buying and the market will settle.

Is there space to expand where the downstairs bathroom is? Just a tiny bit. See image.

That could be possible but I don't know what I would do with that space if I did extend there? What would you suggest?

Well, given that's a bathroom (so has plumbing) I'd make that space a kitchen - open plan into a living/dining space.

Then I'd turn the current living room into a bedroom and the current kitchen into an en-suite.

Thinking about the chimney and lounge have you thought of having a double sided wood burner and knocking through into the kitchen. I have visited a house with this and it looked amazing

@SciFiScream

That would actually work really well except the current kitchen takes you out to the back garden so if that was the bedroom and en-suite you'd be going through there to go out back. It would also mean that there would be 2 en-suite bathrooms that would be accessed only via bedrooms. I'm liking the train of thought though so wondering if there's another way to play around that.

Does the garden run the length of the house? Put doors into what would be the new kitchen/diner/living space.

Move your lounge to where the dining room is and then convert the old lounge to a new kitchen, using the old kitchen as a utility room

Move the kitchen to the dining room put in a new door to the garden (assuming the garden goes across the whole house), extend the back porch and use the current kitchen as a bedroom?

Could you get a nice full height larder unit or Welsh dresser type thing to go in the living room to free up storage space?

How old are your stepkids? And are the boys or girls? Could they share a room for a while?

The new baby won't need it's own room for a while anyway.

Could you partition the bigger upstairs bedroom into 2, to make the 2 bedrooms for the kids, and the use the lounge as the new kitchen, with the current kitchen as a utility space?

Make ensuite into Jack and Jill bathroom.
Make porch and bathroom into a kitchen.
Make kitchen into a laundry. And maybe a little loo too.

How old are your stepkids? And are the boys or girls? Could they share a room for a while?
They are 4 and 8 and both boys so no issue with them sharing.

@SciFiScream

Is there space to expand where the downstairs bathroom is? Just a tiny bit. See image.

Use the cupboard near the stairs in the open plan space too.

Extend out the bathroom, make that a kitchen and small diner. Dining room as lounge. Lounge as a bedroom with en-suite and storage/walk-in wardrobe where porch is (nice adult space to sleep), kids upstairs. Can you access the garden via the front porch and them maybe have an emergency exit window in new en suite if required for fire regs?