How would you design this kitchen diner?

[LuckyEarthDragon]

Calling all interior design experts! (please excuse the scribbly drawing!).

We're considering knocking through our dining room into the downstairs bathroom/utility/hallway areas to create a big kitchen diner.

The brown line through the hallway is supposed to be a new wall, and the total new room would be the bit ringed in red. Interested in people's thoughts as to best layout, whether you'd bother with a kitchen island, whether you think there's enough room to include an armchair or two? I can't really visualise how big the space would be and what could be fitted into it - spacial awareness not my strong suit!

One extra consideration is we're also interested in turning the bay window into French doors that open into the garden. But probably don't have the funds for it just now!

We can't knock the current small kitchen through into the dining room without causing big structural issues as there's a massive double fireplace/chimney breast in the way which would be a total pain to remove.

Last consideration - is there a way to get a downstairs toilet in somewhere without using up the entire original kitchen space (on the left) for this? In an ideal world we'd somehow squeeze a small toilet in somewhere and use the old kitchen for a small kids' playroom/similar but can't feasibly see how that would be possible. Any creative people out there? It couldn't go down beside the staircase as we'd have to build a wall where the staircase rail is and that would look ugly, and the head height is too low to go under the stairs.

We have a structural engineer scheduled for the next couple of weeks to look at the walls as we think at least 1 will be load bearing, and a kitchen design appointment scheduled too.

Open to all views and opinions :)

P.S. Open to moving the door from hallway into dining room too if that creates a better space...

Not much help, but I would always opt for a separate kitchen and eating area if you possibly can. Who wants to eat surrounded by dirty saucepans and other cooking and eating paraphernalia? It's ok-ish for family dinners but not for when you have other people round to eat.

So is this the structural layout you are going for? Is that an outside door to the right of the picture where the bathroom was?

Ohh well done chergar, that’s exactly right.

It’s a door (into a shared alleyway) and a window on the right. We’d probably want to keep the door as it’s useful for safely dropping off parcels / deliveries when we’re out.

can you post the upstairs floorplan? it is useful to see the location of the other bathrooms to work out how best to fit in a downstairs loo. it is best to put it where there is already the right pipes nearby.

Hmm, the door from the new kitchen to the outside is tricky because it takes out a whole corner that could otherwise be useful space.

here is a version without that door. S = sink, F = fridge & freezer, O = oven & hob. there is just about enough space for a small island, but you'd need to draw it out properly with measurements.

I'd make the old kitchen into loo plus decent utility room. If you have open kitchen /living /dining space, it's good to have washing machine elsewhere because of noise.

Parietal - as usual - has nailed it

What are you planning to do with the existing kitchen?

Its a bit hard to work out the exact sizes, as only the current sitting room size is shown. I'm sure you know, that replacing a kitchen/bathroom to a room with an existing water supply is cheaper than a room with no pipes insitu at all.

Another option which works really well in my FIL's house is an island on wheels. They can move it to sweep underneath and move about if extra space is needed. Similar to these ones:
www.idealhome.co.uk/kitchen/kitchen-ideas/portable-kitchen-island-ideas-289048

To build on PP suggestion...
Keep the alley way door by moving it further down the external wall, kitchen layout (sink, oven, fridge) per Parietal, micro powder room off the stair hallway, old kitchen becomes a play room/study etc.

I'm probably not much help here, but there is a 3d kitchen planner that could be useful for building a volume model 🤔

Gosh thanks everyone so much for all your posts - this is really helpful! Approx dimensions at max length / width across each way is 6x5,5m. Would that give us enough space to squeeze in a sofa or armchair anywhere?

Parietal thanks so much, that’s super helpful. Yes door in the corner is tricky.

TattoedLady has actually moved the door to right where we have an old blocked up one (must have been an outside lav) which has only been covered other with plasterboard so we could def move it to there if layout would work better?

Will try to post a pic of upstairs layout later but the two upstairs bathrooms are both on the right hand side so suspect we’d definitely be needing to move the soil pipe to fit one in downstairs on the left.

Live the idea of fitting in a small powder room - any thoughts on ventilation? As we have neighbours on the left side so can’t do anything through that wall.

Corresponding upstairs bit - you’ll see a lot of the walls line up with the ones we want to remove downstairs which is why we think we’ll need a couple of RSJs.

I think moving the foul to the other side of the house would be massively expensive, although could you ventilate through the chimney?

Would you consider leaving your downstairs loo where it is, and using the space where the handbasin was as a utility, because it will already have a water connection in that area. Keep the backdoor where it is. Then you could use your former kitchen as a kids room/relaxing space (with a sofa/chair!). Instead of a doorway to the stairs add an archway?