Off plan - narrow living area?

[summerlovin94]

My DH and I have reserved a 3 bed flat in London. However, it is off plan. The flat itself is 104sqm which we are happy with, but the rooms are long and narrow - the kitchen/dining/living room is 8.4m x 3.5m. Our furniture would fit, but I just can't envision what a room this size would look like.

I don't want it to look like a tunnel or corridor. Does anyone have a living room that is 3.5m width and it works? Our sofa itself is big, around 3m x 2m. I don't want it to look out of place in the room.

TIA

Do you have a floor plan? The cost of a new sofa is relatively small compared to the cost of buying and moving! I would think you'll need something to zone the room into areas to avoid it looking like a corridor.

Do you mean your sofa is 3m long by 2m deep? That's a HUGE sofa!! Bigger than the surface area of a king size bed!

Sorry, I should have mentioned it's a corner sofa! So one side is 299cm and the arm that sticks out is about 195m I think. It's this sofa.

dwell.co.uk/lugano/d501zjild?skuId=4495332

These are the measurements - sorry it's blurry!

Hmm I wouldn't like that layout, would you be constantly squeezing round furniture?

This is 11.5ft which I think is pretty normal for Victorian houses, so maybe have a look at some Victorian two up, two down terraces and (double checking the floor plan) see what they feel like.

My sitting-dining room is 11.5ft by 24ft and I don't think it feels hideously narrow or too small but I have two sofas which definitely aren't as big as yours. I also have a separate kitchen which helps a lot, but a stairwell taking up a chunk of space. I think if I imagine switching the stairwell out for kitchen space then the room would be fine, but I don't think it would accept a corner sofa very easily assuming balcony access was required in the same way I need to be able to get out my front door.

Our living room is 3m by 7m and it doesn't feel like a corridor. Just a cosy room. (Dining room is separate though, as is kitchen!)

As the only communal area in the flat, it does seem disproportionately small really.

I'm sat in a room a little longer and wider than that and I'm struggling to envisage quite how you'll fit a kitchen, dining table and lounge area in there without it all being on top of each other.

wow, they've sacrificed the living spare there to get a 3rd bedroom in! It will depend how much space the kitchen takes up along the length of the wall but if you want to get a dining table in as well i think your sofa might need to go.

Our Victorian terrace was that size for the whole ground floor basically but the kitchen was kind of a corner only, not even nearly as much as in that plan. It was fine but a bit restrictive and had to be kept tidy. We had a narrow dining table made with benches. Corner sofa is ideal.

It seems very small for all three areas.

You can fit all in, but not a 6 seater table like shown, and I imagine kitchen better as L shape and not with extra bit.

For example with have a pretty small kitchen diner. It’s 4.5m x3.5m approx. In that space we only have kitchen along one line side. Table opposite against wall, cabinet in corner. It’s tight

It should be a two bed really

That's a very small living space for a 3 bedroom flat. I wouldn't worry about the room looking like a corridor, I'd be more concerned that just getting around the room would be like negotiating a furniture obstacle course.

Are you sure that you can get the sofa into the living room? The hallway doesn't look very big and there's an awkward corner to negotiate.

Thanks everyone. We've drawn the floor plan to scale and the sofa does fit in but we would just rotate the dining table in order to get it to fit next to the sofa. It's doable but not ideal. Our sofa wouldn't block the doorway to the balcony as it faces the same way as the sofa on the floor plan.

We have one baby and would like to have another in a few years so it would be our primary family living space for a while. I have lots to think about it seems!

With just one child, and then two small children, I'd make one of the bedrooms into a living room/ playroom tbh.

So long as you don't have frequent guests who'd need the 3rd bedroom you other option until you have baby no.2 would be to use bedroom no.3 as a living room with your big sofa and have the other room as a kitchen/diner/family room with a smaller sofa and toy storage.

I’d do as pp suggests and use the third bedroom as a donning room or living room. The current lay out is way too small for the only living area of you want two children, they’d have no room to play and wouldn’t play by themselves I. Their rooms until much older. It would also be really cramped if you wanted any visitors round.

Maybe get mew furniture to fit rhe room layout?
If it’s not built yet could you ask the builder to knock through to the 3rd bedroom? You could always put a stud partition wall back in later if you wanted the 3rd bedroom

In the short term, I would do as PP suggest and make bedroom 3 your living room, with a kitchen diner next to it. Consider a sofa bed in there if you need room for guests.

When you need the third bedroom, you'll need a small sofa plus armchair rather than your current big sofa. Google zoning long rooms.

I think the living room will be fine. It won't feel like a corridor because the room is split into zones visually.

The 2 narrow bedrooms aren't great though, they aren't much longer than a bed. They should be fine with single beds placed with the side against the wall but I think it would look a bit squashed in with double beds in the position shown in the plans.

I think if you used bedroom 3 as your main sitting room (like PPs ahave suggested), it would feel a bit like a corridor, it's just too small and narrow. Your current sofa wouldn't fit.

I think it’s fine. But would use one bedroom as playroom/ study/ second living room so all general extras aren’t taking up space

My living room is 3.6x 8m and it works for us. But it is just a living room with a corner for the toddler to play in. I couldn't imagine the kitchen, dining, living and play area all fitting in. It would be very squashed.

My old 2 bed had a bigger kichen/living area and we moved when we had a baby for the space.

We are actually moving for some extra space and not only that, we do have frequent guests since our family and friends come to stay with us often and we love it so we thought to get a 3 bed so we'd have more space to for gatherings and also to grow our family so unlikely to use bedroom 3 as a living area we've only just reserved it so we can withdraw still and get our money back, I'm not even sure if we should go ahead with this place when I have doubts but my DH really likes it.

11'7" is pretty standard width for a living room. A lot of small London Victorian terraces are only 10' wide.

we've only just reserved it so we can withdraw still and get our money back
I think you'll live to regret it and will be moving again sooner than you'd planned to. It could also be hard to sell on.