We have recently done something very similar. I like your idea of opening the kitchen and dining area. The island could sit fairly centrally between the two (where the wall currently is). I would also be tempted to have doors between the dining room and living room that slide into the wall, making for a fab open plan space at family gatherings/parties but can also be sectioned off during the winter for a cosier space. You don’t mention if you have a family, what your lifestyle is like so difficult to fully assess. Do you not need the office (current climate shows how we need to work from home sometimes) or do you have a relative that stays regularly hence the downstairs bedroom/en suite? If you do opt for the latter, try and configure it so that the bathroom can be accessed as a downstairs cloakroom without walking through the bedroom - perhaps jack and Jill access as I can’t see a separate cloakroom in the room plan and you will need this for such a sizeable ground floor. Keep the utility as open plan can be noisy a and ideally you need to shut off the washing machine. Think about how you live - is a separate dining table important? Do you want to be able to sit at the island or is it just extra worktop (helps denote the size). You are about to make some expensive decisions/changes so be sure this is not about trends, style over substance, balancing between what works for you and what will appeal to buyers if you plan to move on in a few years. It’s all very exciting - don’t forget to post ‘after’ pictures - good luck!

Hi vaivadr, I think a simple solution would be to put a quarter turn on the steps and then move the WC further back. That will give you a much more spacious entrance. In a small place like this you need to minimise the amount of corridors so I would make the corridor smaller and give more space to the kitchen. I would move the kitchen to the other side because you have much better option on that side with the much longer wall. I would use the space where the kitchen is now as the dining area with bench seating to save space, providing seating for up to 6. This will now allow you to open up the entire back wall with bi fold doors. Filling the house with natural light. I would add a long island with bar stool seating in parallel to the kitchen rather than peninsular as that will add to the illusion of depth to the house making it feel more spacious. The remaining area would be the lounge. This layout gives you a more usable front entrance and gives you a lot of flexibility with regards to your kitchen size, for example if you prefer a bigger kitchen you could extend it further into the living area and vice versa. It also means you are free to remove the back wall and bring the outdoors in with a large bi fold door, producing a spacious light filled home.

Thanks for your feedback. It’s good to hear from someone with a similar setup. Yes most time is spent in the lounge as it’s near the garden and is the nicest of all the rooms. The current dining room can be a bit shut away and get quite cold. If we were to change it and move the lounge to the front we know this would still be an issue but we would plan on making is cosier with furnishings. There is also an external chimney breast we would reinstate to be able to install a fire. Which as a lounge we would use, but as a dining room not so much. Yes there is a room above unfortunately but we would have two side windows facing west and the large patio doors facing south. Usually once we get to mid morning the sun fills the current lounge and kitchen through most of the day and evening, which is almost too much in the summer! But I guess in the winter that won’t necessarily be the case. Something worth thinking about I guess before deciding.

Thanks both for your comments. The corridor between the garage and kitchen is unfortunately the "outside" filled in at each end with a door and so it's about a 30cm floor height difference and we'd have significant structural work to do, so not impossible but costly. Similarly wih moving the living room/hall door sideways, it's load bearing so costly, but if it ends up being the best solution then we'll do that 😊👍