Can anyone suggest a better layout please?

[FuglyHouse]

Our house was extended by the previous owners and we need to make sense of the odd layout. The long utility room/family room is part of an extension, and is only accessible from the doorway in the dining area of the kitchen diner. It's a huge waste of space, and we'd like to make changes to make it far more usable.

Our current plan is to divide the space into two rooms (roughly along the red line on the plan) and put in a door from the hall (by the coat cupboard), a new back door in the side wall of the house as well as a door way in the new dividing wall. The current door leading into the garden would be converted into a window. The new room that connects with the kitchen diner would become a snug/family room, and the room leading from the hall would be a large utility/boot room. We're also hoping to remove the wall between the kitchen and dining area to make a much more open space.

Does our plan make any sense? I'm not entirely happy with it, especially the three doors we'd have in the utility room, but I'm struggling with ideas. Does anybody have any other ideas for making better use of the space?

Do you have to have a door off the top part of the family room.?

I was just about to ask exactly this!

I presume you don't want to move the kitchen? If you were willing to do that then I might have the kitchen running along the left hand side of that room with an island. Then you could have a door from where the existing units are into the utility which would mean you were much closer

You'd probably need to knock down the wall though between kitchen and dining which would also add cost to make that idea flow

I definetly wouldn't have a door from the family room into the utility. Do you need frequent access to it from the kitchen (eg if fridge freezer in there)?

On the assumption you are relocating the plumbing and sink / worktops in the new boot room utility etc I would make the new utility room a lot smaller. I also would not have a door off the new snug into it. The whole point of a snug is it is tucked away and cosy not off a utility room. Not having a door gives you more space ofr furniture, radiator sofa etc too and maximise the external aspect form the back of the house.

People could access the side external door and the logical flow is shoes off there or muddy boots etc then through to hanging coats up, washing hands etc in downstairs loo.

Questions are
Do you have a garage?
Are you going to use the new utility room for washing and doing clothes too?

Depending on the age of your kids I would also suggest or you could use it a play space for the kids or space for them to hang out with their friends depending on bedroom size.

Imo if you already have a separate living room at the front, then the snug would work better opened fully out to the kitchen diner to make the whole back of the house a space where the family hang out most of the time.

The front living room would then be more for evenings or movies etc

Is the door through to the utility from the family room to make loo trips more convenient and avoid walking all the way around the ground floor? I do think 3 door in that small room will make that a pain of a room to plan and will really reduce your useable wall space for cupboards/machines.

@whensmynexthol1day

I presume you don't want to move the kitchen? If you were willing to do that then I might have the kitchen running along the left hand side of that room with an island. Then you could have a door from where the existing units are into the utility which would mean you were much closer

That’s an excellent idea especially if you are going to have a fridge freezer in there or a pantry type set up

What about keeping the room as it is, for either an office, or an entertaining room with a large e.g. Dinning table or something along those lines, and just alter the door access ?

Or without structural alterations, what about using a custom barrier or something similar that marks the divide, and just have a opening that goes between the two sections e.g. A gate or something similar ?

Definitely avoid 3 doors into that one space, and avoid any snug type room becoming a corridor.

Requires a lot of structural work but I’d go simpler and more open. Hope this makes sense. I’d put an island in too in front of the left run of cabinets in the main kitchen.

How old are your children as I see that room as an ideal place to have a toy room/teen hangout separate from the rest of the house. It’s. It clear how big it is but it doesn’t look big enough to make two decent rooms if split.

Thanks for all the comments so far!

To answer a couple of points, I know that 3 doors in the utility is far from ideal, but at the moment anyone in that back room has to go all the way round through the kitchen to answer the front door or go to the loo. Not a huge problem but it annoys me! However, I can see that it might be better not to have a door in between the two rooms. I'll just have to practice running for the front door .

The utility room is currently 22ft long, so I'm reasonably confident that we can split it and have a smallish teen hangout space and smaller utility. The utility will mainly be for laundry and for storing outdoor stuff and my Costco hoard, although I hope to have a back up fridge/freezer in there. I don't need access from the kitchen and I'm concerned that if we put a door from the kitchen it will give me less space for kitchen units. The plumbing/drainage is around the left hand wall of the current utility and I'm not keen to mess around with it too much unless we have to, as we have a concrete floor.

All of the walls around the kitchen and current utility are load bearing so we know that we have to do some structural work. We're OK with that, but we have to be realistic and not overspend too much as our house has a definite ceiling price. However, I like that idea @LemonViolet although I'd probably stick to having a door from the hall rather than the kitchen. I'll have to talk to DP and see what he thinks.

Do you really need a separate walk-in coat cupboard as well as a boot room?

If you don't need access from the kitchen to the utility - understandable IMO if it's mainly a laundry/boot room - then I'd be tempted to make it smaller and combine it with the existing coat cupboard. The family room can then be bigger than in the OP and have more satisfactory access to the hall as well as the door to the dining area.

The utility itself is smaller, but because it isn't a thoroughfare you can go to town on filling every inch of wall space with useful storage: wall cupboards, coat hooks, a drying rack on the ceiling (just make sure the ventilation is good). It doesn't need to be spacious, it's not a room for relaxation.

With the family room, lots of people will suggest opening up the wall to the dining area but for my family I'd keep the separation. I might consider widening the doorway into double doors to give the option of opening it up a bit when occasions demand?

Ooh that’s a great suggestion Casper, especially with large doors between the two halves of the back of the house, maybe internal bifolds even, so the space is very flexible.

I agree, without direct utility-kitchen access, the use of the utility changes. In my plan I’d have anything noisy, ugly etc from the kitchen in there - dishwasher etc as well, you might use the counter for things like the bread maker, you might have a large freezer in there - it’s a direct extension of the kitchen and used as such throughout the day. Without that access it is focused purely on laundry and cleaning I guess. Casper’s design gives that option well with minimal detraction from the rest of the house and gives you your door to the toilet you’re worried about!

Also think about how you’re going to be bringing things into the house like groceries etc, with the direct kitchen-utility & side entrance doors, the utility is also your functional ‘service’ entrance. Without the kitchen-utility door, you either have to carry all the groceries via the family room, or use the main front door anyway which kinda negates the point of creating a separate entrance.

I think this all hinges on what specific function you actually want this room to be.

Thanks @CasperGutman, that's a really good idea and something I hadn't considered. I've got so used to having a big utility space, I didn't think about how much space I really need. I'm also wondering if it's necessary to have the side door at all.

Thanks to everyone for giving me lots to think about. This has been very helpful.

If the utility is mainly for laundry and overstock cupboards, then I'd only really consider if I needed outside access for line drying

If you mainly dry using a tumble then no outside access required

I actually like your original plan

Where does your sun fall? I wonder if Casper's plan could be slightly amended so that you align
front-door,
family-room-door and
window/door in family-room (needs to be moved).
This will allow light to flood through the house from front to back. It also means that the first thing you see when you come home is a lovely view of your garden. It was always IIRC a favourite idea of Laura-Jane's on Your House Made Perfect.

Thats a great idea!

Could even do a frosted glass door between front hall and back sitting room.

I've just noticed that the floorplan I posted isn't 100% accurate, the window and door on the back wall of the utility are swapped around. We already have a window that would be opposite the front door if we put in a corridor from the hall.

That's a cost saved!