I went a bit wild.............I converted the porch area in to a proper porch with storage. Walk through in to Kitchen, now opened up in to dining area.

Utility and downstairs loo to stay where they are, with the odd door moved.

Dining area and lounge, now one big area, or if you prefer, put french doors in.

I also removed the wall separating the lounge from the Hallway, but blocked the stairs, you could leave them open, ours are.

At least it flows:-

Yes don't worry you have lots of opportunity to improve your layout and create better open plan space with more flow and less circulation space. It will need some more creative thinking and some structural changes to make that happen but it is possible.

I have a free checklist with support emails to help with getting your project off to a good start and making the right decisions for you. You can get a copy via my website: www.i-architect.co.uk

Also I do a weekly live Q&A on my facebook page and have done a few on how to make open plan work for you and how to make sure you have a good layout with minimal wasted / dead space, minimal circulation space and better flow. You can find these here: https://www.facebook.com/iarchitectUK

Thank you for your suggestions and taking the time to model out different options.

Jonathan we have looked at what you suggest (although not also blocking up doorway from lounge to kitchen so that’s an interesting idea), I perhaps should have noticed from the floor plan but the cupboard actually extends further then the floor plan I posted, which is my error. The cupboard is about 1.4m into the dining room, and the wall between dining and kitchen without cupboard is 1.8m gap, so although opened up i wonder if it might be quite tight.

man about the house - thank you for all your input, that’s really helpful to see it visualised and gives lots of food for thought. We had wondered about extending into the porch area (there is actually a bedroom above there already), and maybe moving the front door to the front. But in my narrow mind on that it was just about extending the kitchen into that space, and the concern with that option was that we would have a really long narrow room and still not create the social space (albeit existing front door would be a second door into kitchen from front of the house).

All really helpful input, thank you!

By creating the 'proper porch', I was endeavouring to make one wall in the kitchen a better insulated wall. II think the kitchen is long and narrow enough and needs opening out in to the dining room to make it feel more spacious and connected. You then not only have somewhere to hang coats, but most importantly, you have the direct route to the kitchen with shopping instead of going through the lounge, dining room and Utility................i'm amazed it's stayed like that as long as it has, it's a horrible layout.

There are all sorts of products that you can buy to externally insulate the walls, so that may be something to look in to.

So this is the world's roughest sketch done by finger on my phone. But if you could take out all the walls in the back area, you've got a nice workable space. Even leave a post to hold up the house in the middle of the island. Maybe extend out into the porch and create a utility/boot room. Or just pop the utility into a cupboard. Maybe you can add a WC into that downstairs porch area, depending on where the drains are etc.

P.S Taking on board your cupboard in the kitchen / dining area..................of course you do have the opportunity to keep this as a pantry , by amending the Island. I've put it back in with the dimensions you've given. I made the Island 1.5m long, so that you've got walk around room. The thing is with Islands, you aren't limited to super wide or super long, you can have them 600mm or 900mm wide, it doesn't matter, if you can buy the kitchen cupboards, you can have the island to suit you. All you need is back and end panels and it can be whatever size you want. Here it's just connecting the two spaces and that's it's primary function. You have a 2.4m width to play with, so 630mm coming off the back wall with your long run, then a metre walk through, leaves 770mm, so if you go for another 600 set of base units with your work top & overhang on top, you do have plenty of room.

Here it is wrapped around the pantry giving you a wider Island - another option:-

Given the option, I probably would remove it if possible as I think it's a better perspective from all around with it gone.

Thanks for the further ideas.

Actually our garden is at the side of the house, to the left of the floor plan so the dining room French doors and lounge bay window look out onto it. to open up the current utility space into the dining room/kitchen might be possible re drainage as from what we can work out the kitchen used to be in the utility. The WC was created about 10 years ago so it would need lots of steel I think.

Having the kitchen that far away from entering house is frustrating, more so for taking bins and recycling out actually! Thanks for the wall insulation prompt, off to have a quick google of options.

We do want to retain the downstairs toilet, less fussed about a utility space but it is useful.

thanks for the visualisation of the rooms with/without the cupboard and the layouts, that has given us lots to think about. The cupboard can only be removed/opened up to a certain extent as the stairs are above half of it so obviously has a sloping ceiling. having that becoming a pantry with door in kitchen is a fantastic curveball that I like, as is the inclusion of a small breakfast bar around it in the opened up space.

You’ve all been so helpful and provided more inventive suggestions in a couple of days than we’ve had in 2 years - it’s so helpful to try to crystallise our thinking before we give a narrower brief to design/architects etc.

What about this

you'd reduce the dining room, but will get a better access to the kitchen and utility rooms. can create a storage or mud room or put a china cabinet to the left of the entrance to the utility room.

the kitchen would have too zones. one is cooking and socialising and the other is more pantry / preparing part. i will send you some 3D visualisation later today i you like this layout.

Thanks for another perspective. I do like the pantry end of the kitchen as it seems to make best use of space to have units in that end of the kitchen too. But also like keeping the dining room open as per the other ideas.

Love Marina's render. That's what's so good about this site, you get so many opinions and good ideas. I think you have to take them all and combine all the bits you like from the individual comments and make your own one up in the end.

The only thing that concerns me re using the porch end of the kitchen is that you don't solve the walk through the house with the shopping problem. I think that's one of your major issues.

Thus, i'd still either knock through the porch with another door to the kitchen, or, build the porch out and use the space for your coats shoes etc, plus put in another door.

Plus, I'm not sure that your plumbing will reach far enough to have a sink where it is, as i'm guessing all the drains are at the far end by the Utility, meaning that the sink will need to be on that wall under the window. Like this:-

if the plumbing is an issue, as Man About The House pointed, it is a good idea to put the sink on the other side of the kitchen then. if you create a door to the kitchen from the porch it might compromise the light in the kitchen. it could be good to install a skylight to bring a good source of light.