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

Our sitting room is 3.5 x 8.5ms, it’s absolutely fine for a sitting room but I really can’t imagine also having a kitchen and dining table in there! It will be so cramped!

To be fair, I have seen a lot of flats in London with smaller living spaces - it's in east London zone 3 and I've noticed a lot of people just make do with smaller living spaces here.

The smaller living space isn’t an issue per say, but those floor plans of a large table and u shaped kitchen all in that space seem tight.

I’m not sure the exact measurements of our old flat in London, but it would have been similar size all in one room. But it was a galley kitchen just along one wall, and we had a small compact table to seat 4 ( bench along wall). Then small 2 seater sofa and armchair.

If you make bed3 into a 'snug' with the big L-shaped sofa & a TV, then can the guests sleep on the sofa? i.e. can it act as a sofa bed? If not, I'd ditch the big sofa & get one that can double as a sofa-bed for guests.

Then you could have a smaller sofa + a whole lot of toys & kids stuff in your kitchen / dining room.

Also, if you have a bench seat built against the wall for your dining table, that takes up a lot less space than chairs.

Yes @parietal Great idea!

The problem with the living space is that the U-shaped kitchen takes up so much room. If the plan is accurate, the kitchen area occupies around 3m of the total length (and if the plan isn't accurate, it would still have to take up a minimum of around 2.5m in order to fit 2 rows of cabinets in). This means that you only have 5-6m x 3.5m for a family living-dining space. That's fine if you're into minimalist living, but I can't see how you manage that with toddlers.

Also, as PP have mentioned, those long narrow bedrooms are awkward. Bedroom 3 is so narrow that you won't be able to get to the balcony if you have a double bed in there.

I think you need to persuade your DH to withdraw the reservation. Unless you are very tidy people with no "stuff", you'll outgrow this flat very quickly.

Ikea do KALLAX shelving units that can be used as room dividers with one end attached to a wall, I know a lot of people use them to break up really long rooms and you can get boxes and baskets that fit in them for storage :) Could maybe put one behind the sofa between the living room and dining room?

We are downsizing to a flat where the main room is about the same length and 0.7 m wider. Our kitchen is narrower but the door comes into the main part. I don’t think we could fit in a large sofa and a long table in the arrangement shown on the floor plan. The kitchen takes up 3 m (with a wide breakfast bar. Our plan is to have a folding table that we can get out when we need more than the breakfast bar to eat at. The room feels quite spacious though. I would draw a scale diagram making sure that there is room to move around your furniture. A couple of pictures showing what the room looks like attached.

Pictures didn’t post.

Ok, my recommendation would be to get graph paper - the stuff with the grids on it - and draw the floor plan to scale. Then, on a separate to sheet, draw your furniture to the same scale. Cut out your furniture and see where you might put it - I find bluetac useful to put in place. Once furniture is placed, measure the gaps between walls and furniture ie where you'd walk. Convert to actual space and set up on your house to see what it looks like. I've done this when I'm planning to move rooms around as it's really painful to reorient a room and then find you can't get past the furniture.

As a rule of thumb, when looking at rooms 3x3m is a serviceable room (IMO). I'm in a different country, but it seems that used to be a standard size in older (80s) builds. I have a 2 bedroom place and all rooms are 3x3m with lounge being approx 4x6m (can't remember exactly). I have lounge, dining kitchen in open plan, so thats about 6x7m. Given my layout, I honestly think 3.5x8m isn't big and with guests and young kids, you'd feel very squashed.

Also, to me, there seems to be a lot of wasted space in the entry way. I'm not sure if you can alter the layout but that might be worth considering changing if possible.

But the graph paper is a really good way to see what things look like. Maybe even measure your own rooms to start to get a feel for the measurements. That's what I did - went to a lot of display places and figured out what the spaces actually looked like.

4.34 x 3.14 if it helps

Another view

Agreed about the point above about the U shaped kitchen - I think if you hadn't got the U (maybe an L instead), then had a kitchen/dining table into that space so you had at least a 12ft square space for the sitting room area that would make it more workable? Recognising that there would be compromises obviously.

It's really not that bad but can you get more for your money somewhere that isn't a new build?

The main living room in our London flat is 4m x 5.3m. We have used it as a sitting room with a formal dining area in the past with an 8 seater table and sideboard in 1/3rd of the space and 2 x 3 seater sofas, a coffee table, console and large bookcase in the other 2/3rd. That is not very different from the living space you have minus the kitchen.

It feels a lot more spacious than the average London flat living room, although it has high ceilings and windows on the long side, which makes a difference. I've no doubt a modern developer would squeeze a kitchen into the space nowadays too based on the more recent conversions I've seen...

I think what makes the long open plan living spaces in new build developments look like a corridor is that they usually have the windows on the short side so the focal point (window) is a long way away and the room can be dark at the opposite end. You can counteract that with clever interior design tricks (eg mirrors, alternative focal points in the different zones, not placing all the furniture against the wall).

TBH, it was never our family home with DC and I think it would have felt a bit cramped with a gazillion toddler toys and a Brio railway in the middle of the floor but no worse than your average Victorian terrace.

I am going to go back on what I said before about bedroom 3 not being suitable as a sitting room. I think I would buy an L shape sofa and chaise that is a sofa bed for that room and use it as a multiuse second living area/guest room/playroom or study. You don't actually need easy access to the balcony from bedroom 3 and it would look fine with a chaise in front of the balcony french doors. If you have another DC, I would even consider having them share a bedroom for sleeping and use bedroom 3 as play space, especially as bedroom 3 isn't really suitable for a child (too noisy at night next to the living area and it's better not to have balcony access from a young child's room).

The problem with new builds is they want to squeeze in as many double bedrooms as they can so all the bedrooms are suitable for adult flat sharers to be able to sell to landlords whereas slightly smaller bedrooms and more living space would be a better layout for families.

Thank you everyone. We've done the floor plan to scale with our own furniture and moved our furniture around the lounge to envision how it might look. To me it seemed cramped especially as an area to play and have guests in, but my DH is adamant it's fine. However he has said that we can withdraw if I have doubts but I can tell he's stressed because he likes the place. He's said we can buy a new sofa and ditch the tv unit if ours is too big, but I love our sofa and it doubles up as a bed on both sides without even being a sofa bed because it's so wide and comfy. Obviously I would get a new one if needs be.

Our current flat is only a 1 bed but but the lounge/dining area is around 6m x 5.3m with a floor to ceiling window, and a separate but small kitchen, so it feels very spacious which might also be making me feel worse.

Our living room is our garage converted so is only 2.5m wide. That is what I would call too thin. And extra metre would be liveable with.

One option that came to me last night is the bedrooms are long. That means you may be able to have both kids in one room using double bunks as the separator (when old enough).

Then in the bedroom near the lounge, if you had a double murphy bed, the space could also be used as a play room for the kids or a home office. You could use the same type of beds in the kids rooms and fold up during the day so they can play on their room.

Get smart about your space and furniture and it could work.

Never seen one of these, but excellent concept
m.alibaba.com/product/62367223630/revolving-murphy-bed-smart-home-furniture.html

Or with a desk like the pic.

Also a pic of the bunks. The room is long enough both kids would have close to a full bedroom each.

As a person with a 2 bed unit, don't give away space for a guest room. Turn it into a room you use but where guests can sleep when they visit. Much smarter use of limited space. I had a dedicated guest room for years. COVID put rest to that - it's now the office and it's lovely to be able to close the door on work.

OP who does narrow?
Hear yourself.
Don't do it. Good luck 🤞

Your sofa could still work but TV unit wouldn't fit.

If sofa is 3m, kitchen 3m you still have 2.4x3.5 m space for dining. A square table or round table might be a better fit than rectangular. I've got a round table that expands to a 6 seater, might be squishy expanded but ok if round for most of the time. Someone above mentioned bench seats have a narrower profile - that's a consideration with end seats for the kids until they're bigger.

Or you could move the table to bedroom 3 if you expand it out.

Google ideas for small spaces - so many smaller apartments these days that there's fantastic options.

We had a beautiful l shape dwell sofa when I had a big open plan room - it fitted when we moved but in the end we decided to sell it and got a comfy sofa bed. I loved that sofa! But it was the right thing to do! Could you do the same and your 3rd bedroom be a living room with sofa bed for guests? I think otherwise you should move and put the sofa in situ to decide if it works or you want a smaller sofa. I think the living space is fine for London and actually is well proportioned with the 3rd bedroom being flexible living room/bedroom. Is the location where you want it?

These ideas actually all sound great but I decided if we haven't even appointed a solicitor yet then I don't want to change my life to fit around a home that I'm not tied to. I would rather find one that fits well around us! So my husband and I withdrew.

It's in the area we live in now, I love where we live because it's quiet and you can see the Thames from our flat but this flat was opposite a new block by an industrial estate and a busy A road, although still a short walk from the park and river. I wasn't too keen on the immediate surrounding area though and it's not a borough where I want to live very long term.

I think you’ve done the right thing, something will come along that you’re both happy with.