How to use this space?

[KitchenQuestion]

Hi all, we recently moved into this house and are trying to decide how best to use the kitchen/diner/living space.

The obvious one is to have the dining table near the kitchen and then the rest of the room is for a sofa/chair, a sideboard, TV etc.

But we really like having the dining table aligned with the back set of patio doors. It’s much better light, positioned under a light for evening and nice to look out on the garden.

If we do that, we end up with a huge empty space between the kitchen and the dining table that we don’t know what to do with. The space is about 3m from peninsular to dining table. We need to keep a clear path to the patio doors nearest the kitchen but the rest of the space is free for whatever.

I’ve included the floor plan and a photo taken from the peninsular in the kitchen. The floor plan isn’t really to scale though, so the gap between the kitchen end patio doors and the dining table is a lot bigger in reality. The green are radiators. Any ideas how to use this space?

Ooh, that's a good one! It's not often I see something like this and don't have a really clear and strong opinion 😁. Hmmmm.....

• To clarify, you can't block the patio doors by the kitchen? Why not, and is that negotiable? Otherwise that feels like the obvious thing to do, and put a low-backed sofa across it / nearby and get a mini snug area between the kitchen and dining (e.g. with a TV on the wall opposite that sofa, to take up very little profile).
• What's the light like in the room? Is it good enough that you could place some shelves across the space (perpendicular to the patio door wall) as a nice divider - and maybe it's a type of storage that keeps some dining items in it, like mats, salt and pepper, napkins, even crockery, etc. Like a 5x5 Kallax, for an inexpensive option.
• What kind of space / function do you actually need or are lacking in the house? E.g. Would it be super handy to have another living / snug space? Or is it office space you're lacking? Or storage? Playroom? etc.

I’m glad it’s stumping someone else! Thank you for the ideas/questions, good to think about the purpose of the space. We have an office and playroom already, so a snug/living space is the most logical solution, I think.

The patio doors are the main door to the house, as our driveway is at the back and it’s quite a hike to walk around from the front door. If we found a sofa that blocked one side of the doors, that might work.

A divider is an interesting idea! The light is pretty good already and we could go for a multi-bulb fitting to add more if we needed to.

The obvious solution to me would be to bring your dining table down to the patio doors nearest the kitchen, which would then allow you to put a sofa across the room and create a small snug area at the far end. I've just seen your reply about using the patio doors as access from the driveway - it looks from your photo that there would be enough room to get past the dining table if you moved it along? Would turning the table through 90° give you more access room? I can't quite make out the table footprint from your photo but it looks rectangular, so if you rotated it and kept the benches pushed under when not in use, you would get a larger gap between the table and patio doors.

Can you take a photo of the kitchen end of the dining room?

I did say in my OP that what you’re suggesting is the obvious solution, and I did also explain why we don’t want to do that. But thanks anyway.

I’m not home at the moment to take another photo, but the only bit you can’t see in the existing photo is the kitchen itself (not changeable) and the patio doors (which run right up to the peninsular).

I would start by measuring the room and drawing it out to scale. Then mark on it the routes that you walk around, your main paths of travel. Ideally you want to keep these routes clear so things don’t get in your way.

if a sofa in the middle area is what you wanted, I don’t think you’d be asking strangers in the internet for ideas. So in the spirit of trying to think of something different. I wonder if there is something you could do to make sort of drop zone for Shoes, coats bags etc as you enter in the patio doors by the kitchen. As this sounds like your main entrance. . This could probably be done with furniture rather than building walls. You may still be able to fit an armchair in the space too. Is it possible to move the fridge closer to the kitchen?

I think you need a nice big rug in the middle area.

Do you have a separate lounge?

If yes, then I'd get a much bigger dining table so one end is by your preferred dining space but long enough for it to extend into some of the dead space. Then add properly comfortable dining chairs with arms so it's a nice place to sit.

@lifetheuniverseandeverything42 I’m really just looking for something that looks better than the nothing we have now. If a sofa is the only thing that ends up working, so be it!

The freezer can’t be moved closer to the kitchen, there’s no extra space at that end.

Definitely agree a big rug is needed! I think the main problem is that the enormous tiles really highlight the empty space and draw your eyes to it with the grid-like grout. Maybe the rug softens/hides that.

We did consider some kind of drop zone unit that people have in mud rooms but did wonder if that still left the middle of the room looking a bit bare. Maybe with the rug that won’t be such an issue. I’ll definitely look into that, thank you!

We do have a separate lounge, yes. Nice dining chairs are definitely on the shopping list. Our benches are a hangover from our old house where had the opposite extreme and no space at all!

We prefer the dining table oriented the way we have it so everyone gets the view but it’s definitely an option to look at a bigger table turned into the empty space too. Thank you!

Quite a lot of new build homes have the large kitchen diner family room. If your home is a new build do you know the style/name? You can Google the name of the home and the developer and it will show you some show homes with different setups.
Have a look at the Taylor Wimpey Downham the patio doors are in the middle with a window where your doors are but you might get some ideas.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zCUkxOn39ls

Would the fridge fit on the opposite wall, between the two sets of doors?

If you are going to get a new dining table and chairs I would consider building a banquette against the back wall.

I am not sure why you can’t use the patio doors closest to the table to enter and exit? Then you could create an informal seating area in the middle space. A circular rug with a circular coffee table and 2 mid century modern type chairs. Maybe a hamper or blanket box in front of the radiator or an upholstered bench/ottoman to provide storage and additional seating.

The Hampton armchairs from Next are an example of what I mean.

I know this isn't answering the question, but unless you're putting a piece of tall furniture there, I think you should lower the picture that's hanging between the two doors.

I don’t really like banquette seating, and the corner next to the doors isn’t quite wide enough. But thank you for the suggestion! A smaller version of what you describe could work without blocking the kitchen door too much. And I do love an upholstered ottoman!

Going out the dining end patio doors doesn’t work with our garden design. The garden was clearly designed by the previous owners to use the kitchen doors, as the only path to the drive/garage is aligned with them. If you went out the dining end doors, you’d just have to walk along the patio back to the kitchen doors anyway.

Oh we will! There was a set of shelves on that wall when we moved in and we just put the picture there so it wasn’t hanging about on the floor.

This was a great idea! I’m not certain what model it is, but I think I’ve worked it out. Unfortunately all their show homes do the obvious “dining in the middle and sofa at the end” layout but it’s given us some inspiration if we ever do go back to that layout.

I think it would, but why would that be a better position for it? What are you thinking to do with the space it’s in?

(I’m not being snarky, I just don’t understand what you’re suggesting)

No worries. I asked about the photo as I thought there may have been more space between the kitchen peninsula and the first set of doors (you said that the plan wasn't to scale). If the dining table stays at the far end then I agree that the middle bit of the room needs a "purpose", plus also needs a clear path of travel through / round it so that you can transport food and drinks down to the dining end. If it was was mine, I like the idea of a couple of comfy chairs and a small coffee table / some side tables with lamps and a big rug to pull the area together into a little zone of its own - a "having 10 minutes with a cup of tea and a magazine" sort of area. (You'll have a better idea of what sort of thing would suit your family though - eg board game zone / library area / tv / games console / craft area etc)

Definitely get a scale plan sketched up - then cut out some scale furniture that you can shuffle round and see where it fits best. Julie Jones on facebook is an American space planner - she does videos of replanning layouts to make better use of the space, she might be worth a follow if you have a spare hour or two. A lot of the homes she deals with are mahoosive American houses but the principles work anywhere. She starts with the things that are fixed, looks at paths of travel and then zones, then furniture placement.

Initially I was thinking that moving the fridge would at least give you an unbroken long wall and more flexibility on positioning things, but on reflection, the fridge being anywhere in the middle of the room makes it hard to position sofas because the fridge will be in the middle of a "living room".

I totally get why you want to keep the table down the other end (better light/ view) but I think this might be one of those situations where optimising that aspect comes at too great a cost to the rest of it.

The only other thing I can think of (but I know you already said the kitchen can't be changed) would be to lose a couple of kitchen cupboards, move the fridge into the kitchen and "replace" the lost kitchen storage by putting a row of cabinets/ cupboards at the far end behind the table to store less used kitchen stuff. Then you'd probably have room for 2 small sofas (160cm) face to face in the middle (so back to kitchen and back to table) and a TV where the picture is if desired.

@AllJoyAndNoFun That’s potentially a great idea about moving the freezer into the kitchen if we ever have it redone. It’s a backup/additional freezer so it might get annoying if that’s in the kitchen and things we need often are elsewhere, but a clever kitchen designer might be able to solve that! We had discussed making that nook into fitted storage at some point, I think it makes sense and we need to start saving for it!

@SixthWorstOption a “10 minute tea break” area sounds like the best option. I have an armchair that could be relocated so I think I’ll trial that and see how it works with transporting the food, as you point out. Thank you!

Wait! There's already a fridge in the kitchen other than that one? This could change everything! Do you have a garage? If so, sell that freezer on FB and get a Fridgemaster for the garage because they are cheap and work at low temperatures.,

If the fridge would fit on the wall of the kitchen which backs on to the wc I would do that first. Put a low storage shoe storage/bench thing backing on to the peninsula bit of the kitchen and a storage unit/divider (kallax) to the other side of the patio doors in the middle to create an entrance way and make a clear division of the space. At the other end from the kitchen I would get a round table with not very tall seats and put it nearer to the garden with a small couch where the fridge is now. You could use plants in hanging pots over the storage units to give a further visual division.