Kitchen layout input - what shall I do with this f***ing kitchen!

[StatisticallyChallenged]

A couple of years ago, we bough a new house (newbuild) which had already been finished so kitchen was already in. Very much "the sales team chose it" - white gloss, mushroom-y greige worktops, greige floor. Not my style really, but workable. I've done everything I can to try and improve it aesthetically (new floor, changed handles, decorated) but I fundamentally just don't like the layout.

It looks good on the face of it and people come in and say "Oh it's so open", but the reality is it doesn't work for me at all. I've included our ground floor plan and a picture of a kitchen from the same house style (there's an integrated fridge freezer missing from the picture, to the right of the oven). Our house is actually a mirror image of both the floorplan and the picture

Reasons it's doing my head in:

• the fridge freezer is far too bloody small (we've got a garage drinks fridge freezer too, but I can't even get a basic week's shopping for a family in the kitchen one and I don't want to have to keep basics in the garage)
• There's not enough worktop. It looks good in pictures, but most of the workspace is on the far side of the breakfast bar or in the two corners. By the time you have the basic kettle, toaster, couple of dishes drying beside the sink there's nowhere to actually prep food, and I'm a keen baker!
• The sink is also bloody tiny - not big enough to lie an oven tray in.
• I can't actually reach one of the two wall units because it's over the corner. Didn't bother me in an old house when I had lots but when there's only 2 not being able to reach one is kind of annoying.
• There's not very much storage. We've improved it by putting pull out drawers in the tall cupboard but it's still far from great. There's basically a 60cm tall unit, 2x 60cm walls, a 40cm base, 2 spinny corner base units, a 90cm drawer unit (a godsend, holds all the pans and plates) and a 40cm drawer unit. It's not a lot for a decent sized house.
• We don't use the breakfast bar to sit at. Ever. The table is 2ft away and comfier
• Consequently the breakfast bar is my DH's dumping ground. Endless piles of stuff

So, i'm trying to work out how to improve it but the space is actually a bit awkward and has limited scope for redesigning it without structural changes. I think everything I come up with involves a bit of reconfiguration but this is a touchy subject as my DH already thinks I'm cuckoo for wanting to change a new kitchen.

Ideas I've come up with to try and help include:
A) moving the utility room door round the corner (this is definitely DH's preferred option)
B) Getting rid of the utility altogether, and just having the utilities in the garage on the other side of the wall from where they are now.
C) Removing the existing utility and creating a new one on the other side which takes a bit of space from the kitchen and a bit from the garage
D) Switching the table (currently in front of the bifolds) in to the kitchen space and putting the kitchen in the bigger end, which would let me have a run of units along the wall and a big island. Whole family hates this, they all like the table in front of the window.
E) divorcing my husband for insisting we have to maintain a double garage when we've never once put either car in it!

I've added a couple of design ideas I've drawn up which would work with option A - the first one has limited tall units and more worktop, the second has more tall units and a corner larder. I'll add 3d images in another post along with the utility room moving option (option C).

I'd appreciate any ideas anyone has; I've designed our previous kitchens (which were smaller) no problem but the space just seems really awkward. Our last kitchen was a good bit smaller but it felt so much more user friendly and I'm actually missing it.

Very large water tank!

This is what I had in mind with the designs in my first couple of posts - it's the one which keeps the floorplan intact. It definitely allows the kitchen to be better (there's plans in post 1 and 3d pics are the first 2 in post 2)

I'm just not sure if it's enough of an improvement, if that makes sense? Or will I do it and think - hmm, I should have done more...

It would be a budget option too - I could probably reuse a fair amount of the units and just get a few add ins and new doors/worktops

The outside door is needed - that's where the bins are so losing it would be really inconvenient.

The utility is already completely full - there's only room for the WM/TD and the under sink unit, but I have flexible shelving above which goes almost to the ceiling.

That's what I thought/feared, but I had hoped it was something a bit more portable.

In that case, I'd leave the W/D downstairs, in the part of the garage covered in stuff (not the gym side). You can always re-move if you're trying to sell.

Do you use the dining room at the front of the house to eat or is that the kids play room?

I'd do as others said, move kitchen to other side of the room and move the bifolds along to the other end of the wall switching it with the current window. No walls internally need to come down but make use of the bigger space

If you intend to stay, make the house work for you or you'll forever regret it.

If you could move the utility to the garage, then that would probably work best, but to keep value and not devalue by reducing the garage space I think you’d need to do it properly, and make it a self contained room, not part of the garage.

Alternatively what about running the kitchen units around the corner and having just a gap between units into the utility by the back door. You could have nice floor to ceiling cupboards? Dining storage and lesser used things?

I'd move the washer/dryer to the garage or take 2 feet off the right of the box room and create a utility cupboard upstairs opening onto the hallway. Then turn your utility into a pantry where you have all your appliances along a worktop out of sight and ready to use, and lots of storage in the cupboards below. Your baking stuff is already in there anyway.

Take away the unused breakfast bar. Yellow bed is a lovely pantry cupboard. Red bit is a new sliding door, purple bit is your extended utility, now lovely big pantry for loads of baking space, appliances and storage. Blue is your new cupboards/worktops.

Upstairs is your new laundry cupboard, near the bathroom and wardrobes, where you'd actually want to use it.

*Yellow bit, not bed

Thanks @Readyforspringtime
The box rom is actually our youngest's bedroom (it's not that boxy in real life!) - we could possibly reduce the wardrobe space, I'd need to check the dimensions. We have bookcases running all along the hall wall on the opposite side at the moment, will have a look to see if that's possible.

I think we would eventually build a proper utility - certainly if we were ever looking to sell - but whilst we're just living here I don't think we'd mind it just being at the back of the garage so it's more of an interim solution. And means no fannying with building warrants immediately as it wouldn't count as a conversion...

We could run units around that corner; we currently have a small sofa there which we (mostly accompanied by the sad eyed spaniel) make a lot of use of. It is a proper kitchen/family/dining room in terms of how we use it!

Either of these??

With the utility you could add a secret door into the unit run if you put tall ones against that wall (attaching a pic of one which i particularly admire). I think utility is a massive deal, as you still have to have that stuff somewhere but without the utility you can’t shut the door on it, so we’ll worth the hassle in my view (but you could do it in two stages, inside the kitchen first with washer/dryer in garage. Make the garage/utility room as a second stage. External door optional). Whether you want an island or a version of peninsula, gives you more options as PP have said.

if option 2, which I way more structural than I think you want to go, then relocate the tank to the garage if you still want direct access from/to house. Put the door where the tank was.

Forgot the secret door picture!

I think I'd start by keeping it simple - move the door to the utility to the end wall. If you can bear not having the garage connect to the house (you could always create a new door next to the back door) then I'd relocate your wm/td stack, plus second ff to utility. Cheap & you keep the utility and garage.

Ah I didn't spot the second ST on the floor plan! The upstairs ST is the tank, downstairs is the meter cupboard. Directly behind it, on the garage side, is the batteries and inverter for the newly fitted solar system so that area is untouchable without serious cost and complexity.

Keeping a garage connecting door, surprisingly important. It's Scotland, it's just too damn cold to go outside daily and wrestle a heavy garage door open. I'd do even less exercise than I currently do 😁. We have lots stored in there too so it would get nippy fast!

I think a big reconfiguration like (re)moving the bifolds or the livingroom is probably beyond budget at the moment, and I like the rest of the layout and it's all freshy decorated so I don't really want to go much beyond the current kitchen/dining/utility/garage/under stair cupboard area.

I was originally thinking/hoping I'd shuffle the units, add a few extras and some new worktops - I don't see me keeping it that simple anymore as I can't seem to find a satisfactory solution with the current walls and doors! Have to be practical though, everything is so darned expensive now - the price rise since I last ordered from DIY kitchens is already a shocker.

If you reverse your kitchen & dining area you would still have a usable kitchen while your new one is being installed. I would go with that option & in the future if you wanted you could add further bifold doors in the dining area.

(Sorry, should have clarified -, thin black lines between garage and utility and utility/kitchen are doors. You could do pocket doors to save space)

Much family debating today!

DH is firmly of the opinion that the kitchen is functional. I argue it's really not. He says "everything works, it's functional, it's just not got as much space as you want". I told him his next car could be a Nissan Micra then (he likes cars, preferably big roomy SUVs) - it's functional, it would fit us all in, it would just be a bit cramped. 😂

Apparently that's totally different😁

After a bit of measurement with everything except the actual tape measure (which has hidden in fear), I think that if we added doors from the hall side then we could create a laundry cupboard in the under stair cupboard. Between that, the garage, upstairs options and the cloakroom there's definitely other places the utility/laundry can go.

Rough design below - not perfect yet by any stretch but I think if we did that then something like this it would work for the kitchen. The weird armchair is just a rough holding place, we have a small 2 seater sofa that would fit that slot perfectly but the planner only has a few bits of furniture.

No idea what's going on with the colours, it's meant to be cashmere which looks like a pinky beige!