Help me plan an extension or conversion

[DownmarketSellingSunset]

We bought a lovely house last year, but we've decided we need to either do a kitchen extension or open up the downstairs more so that we've got a kitchen diner rather than a separate kitchen, dining room, living room and playroom. Floorplan attached - I originally thought we'd just take out the chimney in the dining room but it's incredibly expensive to do, and would take out a lovely original feature.

Instead I think opening up the back of the house and moving the downstairs loo is the best solution - but would be be better just to do an extension outwards of the kitchen? And what sort of costs would we be looking at, does anyone know?

If this were my house, I would open up the back of the house, and also take the walls down either side of the fireplace between the kitchen and dining room (like a broken plan layout there)
We did extend, and a shell single storey extension was approx £100k plus VAT. But your ground floor seems spacious, so you might not need to extend, and can maybe focus less money on improving the flow

Whats the random space back left of the kitchen?

It’s a pantry - it had occurred to me that it could be a loo but it’s a bit close to the kitchen currently I think?!

can you put the toilet in the 'store'? then just knock through the back half and have the utility coming off the kitchen diner.

I'd make a lootility and then make the kitchen / dining right across the back. Add some nice double door soit into the garden (im guessing).

Or, knock either side of fireplace out in kitchen/dining room and have a double sided fire put in? I'd be tempted to get rid of pantry as you dont have many walls to work with if you knock either side of fireplace out. I would also consider putting the kitchen in the dining side and dining at rear of house, with garden access.

Depends on budgets.

Hmm this is tricky because even though I’m with others on opening up the back it’ll make for quite a narrow space.
Some ideas:
1: WC under the stair. left front room is tv/snug, closing off gives you more kitchen cabinet space. Clear walls around the second fireplace.
2: “loo-tility”, clock/storage under the stairs. Galley kitchen, keep access from left living room/ snug
3: more a version of 1 really. Less kitchen cupboards but access from left front room.

tough one!

If it were me, I’d swap the rooms over and have the kitchen on the right, with an extension to give access to the store and utility (store could become a nice pantry) then open up the sides of the fireplace to have a diner/ playroom at the front. Then put sitting room/ office on the other side.

Thanks everyone, lots of food for thought! We can’t put anything under the stairs as there is another set of stairs down to the cellar. It’s not tanked so just storage. Does anyone know roughly what sort of cost we’d be look at for option 2? I need to persuade my husband. He thinks we should do a new roof first. There is nothing wrong with our roof though so he will be talked round I think!

That's frustrating that the cellar can't be unlisted! I'm with you on the chimney removal, I was shocked by the cost.

I do like @Heronwatcher idea of swapping the kitchen, I think it makes more sense with their layout.

We used a design team called Home Tales for ours, they gave us a free quote for a few different options (we were between extending and making do but reconfiguring). Might be worth getting some quotes and seeing what works best for you and the budget