Does anyone have this room layout (kitchen in middle room of terrace)

[Zone4flaneur]

We're going to have a look at this house hopefully. It probably has slightly less space downstairs than our current house but is overall much bigger with 5 bedrooms, which is one of our priorities for reno/moving with 2 pre teens and a need for a home office.

Does anyone have this layout with the kitchen in the middle, and how does it work? I thought the back could be a nice loungey dining space with a table and a sofa (south facing) and the front room more of a TV snug. Just wondering how it feels and if anyone had any experience of it- we can't seem to afford anywhere with the side return and the space upstairs and the location we need.

Have attached a floor plan, might take a bit to be approved.

I don't have this layout, but have just spend 3yrs renovating a derelict property so some thoughts. We did view a property vaguely similar though.

-Is that an outside toilet downstairs next to the store? I'd extend into that area and make an open kitchen/diner
-I wouldn't like to have to walk right to the back of the house, via the diner to get to the kitchen. I'd move the lounge to the diner, otherwise, being in the kitchen would be very isolating if everyone else is in the front lounge.
-I'm surprised you can fit 5 bedrooms above that floor plan
-Have neighbours extended out? Are there any similar properties in the street you could look up the floor plan on rightmove?

It's a classic London full loft conversion, gives in total 2 very big doubles and 3x small doubles (although bigger than our current small double), meaning we get a study and a spare. Most of the houses we're looking at have that sort of extension, somewhat limited by the prevailing housing stock.

I definitely think it could be extended out but that's not really what I'm asking- moving to this house would cost about the same as getting 5x bedrooms in our current house and no side return, and we can't really do the side return at the moment as well financially (although could leave that an option for a few years' time).

I'm more wondering how it feels- I think the kitchen and the back room could be linked by knocking through the side entrance vestibule area perhaps. I do think it's a bit weird to have to loop back into the kitchen, maybe the side could be opened up or something.

Could you make the reception room and current kitchen open plan? And use current dinning room as reception room so you’d be open on to your garden. Going to be sitting in the reception room more so more privacy at the back perhaps.

My bigger concern would be toilets in the house. Is there just one upstairs? Do you have to go outside to get to the downstairs one? If so, that would make it a bit limited for 4 people, very limited when you had guests staying.

I have a friend who has this set up

tjey have extended down the side - in your case where the loo is located - to make an L shap kitchen dinner and big island.

there longer and dinning room are the other way round though so the L wraps round the longer at the back and the L has french doors into the garden

This is the layout of my house (and originally all houses on my street). I didn’t mind it but when you’re cooking you felt a bit ‘cut off’ from others in the house. We ended up doing a side return and knocking through the back to have open plan kitchen/diner. Some others on our street knocked through with the front room to have open plan at the front. But I think it’s definitely liveable as it is. Making a direct door between kitchen and diner would be a great improvement though and not too difficult.

We have this OP but with a door into the kitchen. Would be a pain without it but we really like it as it makes the room more functional than a dining room which lots of families just walk through. We have the front room as our nice living room and the back room as a tv room/play room/dining room.

We would love to do the side return but hugely expensive.

Looking at this again - I hadn't realised you have to double back on yourself to get to the kitchen. It would be painful to my mind, id rather have one door to the kitchen though the passage/hallway. Every time you want to put shopping away or make a cup of tea you have to go round into the dinning room

I think this could work, but if it were mine, I would:

—put a sliding pocket door between the kitchen and the hallway. If possible, have a reeded glass door so there would be a bit more light
-open up the wall between the kitchen and the reception room, and make that a kitchen diner.
-put bigger glazed doors between the kitchen and back room, and make this back room the lounge. It’s bigger so you could fit more furniture in to seat a family

And is there any chance of a loo under the stairs etc? The outside one will be great for garden parties, but a downstairs loo would make a big difference I think

We dont have the same layout but our kitchen is in the middle of the house with rooms off each side. one side is the lounge / diner and the other side is through what used to be an external side door in the kitchen to the study and downstairs bathroom. At first I wasnt sure but now I quite like the kitchen being in the middle and more of a hub, In the old house the kitchen was out the back and felt more cut off from the rest of the living spaces.

I'd dislike having to walk all the way round to get to the kitchen with shopping etc, so would definitely want to change that - either by making a door from the hall into the kitchen or knocking through, probably into the front room.

I appreciate it's not always popular, but I prefer my kitchen near the front of the house, so we've relocated ours a few times, including in our current cottage where we've swapped kitchen and living room so the latter is now in a more cosy/private space at the back. I like to be able to walk in with shopping and plonk it down on a table or (the ever hated on mumsnet) island, without having to traipse through the house with it.

Excellent, thanks for all the suggestions, will bear them all in mind when we look around.