See plan. There are French doors at the end of the room to back garden. This is the only natural light to the new room. Decided not to knock through to kitchen rather to create a new room

We did love some of the suggestions above… but stuck with our original plan! Although we did change the kitchen layout from U-shaped to ”farmhouse” style, with the table in the middle and sink under the window overlooking the garden. The old dining room has become an office with two desks - partly due to COVID and the need to work from home and homeschool etc! We have also moved a lot of the children’s toy storage in here although they still bring things into the main lounge to play where there’s more room. At 8 and 5, they also actually now keep and play with a lot of toys in their rooms, so I think the old dining room will remain as more of a computer and homework room - it’s nice being able to shut the door! The ”study” on the plan is very much a workshop/gym/play room for my husband! We didnt want to sacrifice that space. It might turn into a teenage den later on perhaps, or even a downstairs bedroom for my Nan. The small upstairs bedroom has become a second office as I’m also still working from home (and my husband has too many meetings downstairs!). It houses our sofa bed too so acts as a spare room and my space to do yoga and sewing. Overall, we are pleased with how everything turned out. We quite like the option to have space away from each other and the flexibility to change the use of the different rooms. We do all spend a lot time together in either the kitchen or main lounge as plenty of space in both.

I'm in Jonathan's camp re splitting the lounge, I'd also think before doing it about your lounge furniture. The wall that you are thinking of having a hatch in looks like a prime sofa wall. Therefore, where will you put sofas? Also, why would you want a serving hatch going through in to a lounge anyway? They traditionally go through to the dining room, which, here is not the case. Not sure why you would want one on that wall, and what you would be passing through it? I don't like to pooh pooh peoples ideas, but it does sound just a little odd. I think that a lot more could possibly made of the space in general, with the help of a good concept planner maybe, as they're worth their weight in gold for using all available space to the utmost. Here's one idea:- Bearing in mind it's not to scale, just 'an idea' .

Thanks for your advice both of you. We live in England to answer your question Gabby. Is there a rule in Scotland that the aisles have to be 120cm and if so why ? Jonathan, I was kind of thinking we would want to use the island for eating meals on like we do now with our current kitchen table, but I guess if the DR is open to the kitchen then it wouldn't be a problem to take a few steps more to the dining room table (because we use it so infrequently at the moment I am finding that hard to visualise). I am going to post a better plan of our current kitchen and dining room (with the pantry taken out) and I am also going to post a photo looking out from the window in our dining room. I am wondering if we did turn the DR into our kitchen could we make the window ledge higher and put the units in an L-shape so we could put the sink in the window? (and still have space for an island) I know this goes against some of my earlier points, especially about being worried people would be able to look in at us/and would create a more goldfish bowl feeling but I am just playing around with ideas.