Hi Will, I have one other question about the dev you did too. I saw in your profile photos of the finished extension. One thing i noticed is that you kept the rear bay window shaped aspect of the flat and added the glass panel or perhaps door on the right hand side. Why did you choose this over having a completely flat back with bifolds / sliding doors? I had a builder round last week and he said changing the bay window shaped bit to a flat rear is complicated due to the steel / support needed. I just wondered of your decision was planning / cost / design related? Thanks

Loving the island thanks. Feels really open. We dropped the ceiling height when it's non kitchen to differentiate spaces/zones for dining v's kitchen. We haven't got round to buying stools for island yet and not sure we will, with the dining table being so near and a toddler who likes to run around it!

Hey Andrei, Thanks for your advice - I should have mentioned that yes we are getting the proper advice, we are choosing an architect at the moment and I will make a note to ask them specifically about the stairs/kitchen fire risk aspect. I totally agree that if the kitchen was moved to the middle room (ie next to the open stairs) it would be ok to have it as the 'passage' to other rooms, however if it isn't a kitchen and is used as living space I'm more concerned about this. I guess because in a kitchen you're probably busy, whereas if you're in living area you're more likely to be relaxing and regular disturbance isnt great? We're not keen on moving the kitchen to another room, I feel it would look really out of place in either the front room with bay window, or the middle room with the open stairs (cooking smells/smoke/noise would travel upstairs easily etc). Equally, we're keen to avoid closing off the stairs too - worried it would make them pretty dark and would also affect the light to the middle room! I think I've narrowed down my worries to being basically that if the current dining room becomes living space, and has a large entrance to the kitchen where the current window is (plus maybe an additional entrance where the current doorway is), it makes the room really hard to use in terms of layout and furniture etc. It won't have much usable wall space and I'm struggling to think of how we could layout anything like storage/some seating, maybe a desk etc. Does that make more sense?

Hi Jane! You said you have little ones so want to avoid climbing opportunities for now. That makes sense but it's also worth thinking about in a year or so when you might want to start involving them in cooking, baking cakes etc, and then you could find it really helpful to be able to sit them up so they can also "work" along with you. If you're on the other side of a peninsula or island to them then you can keep sharp stuff away from them and help them with mixing, weighing, etc... Always worth looking towards the next stages when you're designing with kids because they'll grow and it can take a bit of time to finish a project - they likely will have changed in many tiny and maybe big ways before it's all complete. Hope this helps! Jane, i-architect.co.uk