Galley or U shaped kitchen? (With diagram!)

[Worsthousebeststreet]

We are planning a small kitchen extension at the back of our typical Victorian terrace. while we wait for drawings I'm planning my imaginary kitchen!

The external door on the bottom left is existing. We use it 90% of the time because the side alley leads to our parking space to the side of the house (kids/buggies/shopping etc) so I definitely want to keep a door there.

The question is, do I also have a door opening onto the 'garden proper' ? Is that door overkill/would I lose too much counter? Or would I find it annoying having to go down and up every time I wanted to go in the garden. We have a dog and young kids (1 & 3) so are in and out of the garden a lot especially in summer, so I'm leaning towards the galley option with second door.

Wise mumsnetters, is this a good idea? Is there something I haven't thought of? (For scale, each large grid is 1metre) Thank you!

Could you put the second door where I've put it in yellow and move the table over a bit? A U shape is so much better than galley and I wouldn't want a kitchen which was also a corridor.

OK. This is just a thought so bear with me...

Where table is in diagram, you make that area the washing up/ cooking area.

Put the table near the new door, which can be a large patio door opening onto the garden. It's lovely to eat by the open doors/ view of the garden.

The rest of the space can be configured with storage cabinets floor to ceiling on the left and lots of worktop/ bottom cabinets on the right (window side).

I would put the kitchen in the larger area / bottom half and dining table in the extension (with a patio/bifold door out to the back). This is what we did for our extension and having meals looking out at the garden is lovely.

I think the galley layout is so much more functional than a U so I would go for the door if you want it. With a U-shape all you do is get a load of extra corner cabinets which are hard to use unless you have the kind of complicated baskets that take up most of the interior of the cabinet and only leave room to store a few items.You lose as much worktop as you gain because the U cuts across perfectly usable accessible worktop.

I'd go for the galley layout as shown with the door. Make the window at the table as big as possible, full length looking onto the garden.

No expert, but do have a 2nd door that leads out into your garden if at all possible. And as per previous poster corner units do not give you tons of extra space. I have a U shape kitchen cos I have a larger space to play withI like the idea of the table by the 2nd door looking out into the garden.

Also do not put sink opposite cooker. I had this in my old kitchen and the floor always got so dirty between cooker and sink. It's definitely better if they're on the same side, or round a corner from each other.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone! All much appreciated. I totally get the ideas to swap the dining and kitchen area but trust me I've worked through all possibilities, and due to various quirks of the house that aren't worth getting into, this layout give me the best use of the space.

Hadn't thought of the corner cupboards of doom, which I did have in my last house and keen to avoid!

@PrincessOfPreschool of course I hadn't thought of this! I could put them both on the right hand side and have a nice clear run on the left....but have it in my head that the sink should be under a window facing into the garden......don't ask me why!