Help reconfiguring ground floor layout – small kitchen & hallway

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We’ve had an offer accepted on this house and are now thinking about how to improve the ground floor layout, particularly the small kitchen and hallway, which feel a bit tight and disconnected.

I’ve attached the ground floor plan only, as the basement (large entertainment space) and first floor work well for us and don’t need changing. Ideally we’d like to improve the flow and make better use of the space without extending.

Has anyone have ideas on how the kitchen/hall/reception space could work better? Very open to suggestions.

My first thought was knock the wall from kitchen to hallway down, but you would have to walk through your kitchen to go through to the back of the house also if budget allows maybe build a porch.

Will you need to keep the garage? What does the house look like from the front?

Large room at the back as the kitchen diner, block up the door to the utility and have a new one to connect to the kitchen diner at the back.

the current kitchen to become a living room/ two small reception rooms if large enough.

Will your garage be used for a car? Or other?

Assuming that the internal walls are stud walls and not load bearing. I would create a utility and boot room at the front of the house, maybe making the hallway a tiny bit wider, with slightly less than half the kitchen space. Then I'd end the hallway just after that with a doorway across and take out all of the other walls on the left after the doorway.
I'd also block up that side door but probably retain a window there as the majority of my cabinets would be going on that wall. So the remaining part of the kitchen and utility are now knocked into one and have taken the hallway space too. This would be the new kitchen space.
I'd probably have this open to the living area so I could extend it as far down as I wanted. I'd have room for a breakfast bar at one end I think, if I did a u shaped kitchen on it's side.

Ppersonally, I hate a tiny hallway. You need space to take your coat off, change your shoes , store your brolly, hats, gloves etc, say your goodbyes, and so on. As you have a good entertain ment space in the basement , I would change the whole of the back room into a kitchen, maybe with some sitting space , move the utility forward, and turn the current one into a pantry or storage space.

Does the spiral stairs go up or down
Do you need the garage
Do you want a kitchen diner
How many are in your family ( relevant to sizes )

It the house has more than 2 floors there are safety issues with removing a wall between the kitchen and the staircase. You would need to put a sprinkler system in to protect the escape route. It's a building regs thing.

Might also be why the kitchen isn't in the room with the spiral staircase.

Thanks everyone, some really helpful ideas here.

We’ll definitely be keeping the garage, as we need it for storage/workshop rather than a car, and we’d also prefer not to change the front of the house as it’s a mirrored semi.
We’re quite keen on the idea of opening up the kitchen to improve flow, but would still like to keep some kind of seating/living area on the ground floor. We’re also thinking about having a laundry area in the garage rather than a separate laundry room.

@HmmmCat – I really like what you’ve done with the hallway in your plan – that feels like a big improvement.

@Geneticsbunny – thank you for flagging the fire regulations point. That’s not something we’d considered and it’s really useful to know.

It's a very narrow house! Has it got a spiral staircase and a normal one between the garage and downstairs loo?
You could take the utility room out and put it in the back of the garage but that would mean you don't have a door to outside from it which means dirty garden shoes etc would all end up living in the kitchen or living room.
If you've got a basement space for entertainment space then could that be your living room and make the back room into a kitchen diner then take down the kitchen wall and turn that into a wider hall way / store cupboard?

Can you get rid of the spiral stair as that would free up lots of space?

As for the opening up the kitchen part, have you considered building a 3d model based on the plan you have and move things around in there, remove and add walls, etc? There is an interior design app for pc that you can use to do that, and it'll be much easier to see which planning would work better for you. And also I agree that the spiral stair takes up plenty of space, though it might look very pretty, but how practical is it keep it?