I don't think a door into the dining room is going to be the best - think of the shopping! Have the door swing into the utility room from the kitchen on a left hand hinge so it is then opening onto those cupboards (or whatever you've drawn in the top left corner of the utility room) and the outside door just rehung so it's a left hand hinge. You could lose a little bit of room from it and get a tiny bit more kitchen space. You are going to need space between the fridge and the counter so that the fridge door opens properly (I can't see that in your plans, but it might just be me). And jprzym utility rooms are great (although I recently heard someone refer to them as "futility rooms"). We use ours for most of what Justin said, plus as a pantry and for storage of kitchen equipment we don't use all the time.

Front hallway- I say save your money leave it up. Cost of removal is minor but you will likely have to move radiators and electrics and make good plasterwork and coving- I say protect another £1500 profit. Present the larger back reception as a living room and present the front reception as the dining room. Given that the bathroom is likely to go upstairs make the downstairs bathroom into a room to access the garden- I would present the kitchen as a kitchen/breakfast room with doors to see the garden as being able to see from the front door to the back garden should pay dividend.

Ha ha, I did wonder if that was the case. Planners might deem it overkill if we went out at the side as well as up and it would be on the boundary wall with the neighbour as well. Maybe if it was only a the end section it would be ok but I'd have to ask the planners The issue is that if we built into our driveway then we couldn't have a garage - not one that useable for cars as such. It's not a wide driveway so the garages are all set back into the garden (the owners of this one have removed it so we have to put one in anyway!) I guess it doesn't really matter as long as we leave enough drive behind the gate as I only want a garage to convert into a workshop I presume the value of a garage is really just about having a useable outbuilding??

Hi all, Thank you so much for all the helpful comments and suggestions, and sorry that it's taken me so long to respond - house renovation and work have been keeping us on our toes! This has become a long post, so a quick reminder - we were looking to renovate and rewire our 60s house to update it and also make it more wheelchair friendly downstairs for when my mother-in-law comes to visit. We employed an architect and came up with what turned out to be an 'aspirational' design (much more than the budget!) so we ended up deciding to split things into two stages: Stage One to add a downstairs wetroom for accessibility, remove chimney throughout and add a porch Stage Two to do the extension across the rear, removing the conservatory to open out a large kitchen/diner and add a utility room The layout below shows both Stages One and Two as complete. Bits shown in red are existing walls which have been/will be removed (apart from the wall in red in the seating area below which is between the existing kitchen and dining room - that's a mistake). So.....the building work is now done - hurray! Stage One is complete, we are much poorer, and we now need to decorate the whole house :-) Some before and after photos below - please bear with the terrible photography skills. The rooms aren't big enough to allow for expansive photos!: We've re-plastered throughout, apart from in the kitchen and upstairs bathroom, as we'll deal with those later. Current challenge is deciding how on earth to pick paint colours and flooring throughout.... Anyway - hopefully that gives you a sense of where we've got to. Best wishes