Hi Claire,

What you can do this extend the kitchen length and width ways to fit an island and a utility room but you will need to consider planning permission and how much can extend the kitchen. I hope this helps.

Hi. I wonder if you use the drawing room as your kitchen diner? You could then use your existing kitchen as the utility and include a downstairs toilet in there as well. I was thinking you could extend the hallway so that the door into the new kitchen diner is moved up slightly so that you enter from the area that is currently your kitchen. This would give you a full run of units along the wall between the new kitchen diner and the living room. You could then have an island, peninsula or u shaped kitchen in front of that run and have your dining table in front of the windows. For what is left of the current kitchen (after a square has been taken out for the extended hallway) you could have the toilet on the right (block the current external door) and a new external door in the middle of the back wall with units either side. The alternative is extend as planned and put the utility between the living room and new kitchen diner which would give more light to the kitchen diner area. All subject to plumbing of course!

Thank you very much for your ideas! I think moving the kitchen to the back of the current drawing room (as it’s called on these plans!) which is currently our dining room, is a very good idea and possibly the best use of space, as this is the darkest part of the two back rooms. This would leave the lighter space for dining/sitting.

One thing I should have mentioned is there is actually a chimney breast and fireplace that we really like (but never use!) on the left wall of the dining room so that would have to be removed if we went down this route. I also think we’d still knock through the two rooms but as you’ve suggested, keep some of the old kitchen space for a utility area. I don’t want to sacrifice loads of space for a utility room as the whole space isn’t massive. My main priority is being able to shut away a clothes airer so our washing isn't drying in one of the bedrooms!

Thank you for your help, it’s much appreciated, lots to think about.

If you put the kitchen in the drawing room (and use the kitchen as utility) could you open up the chimney breast to house a range cooker?

There was an episode of Old House New Home where George Clarke did this and it worked well.

Having a utility space an downstairs loo would be a great addition.

In terms of drying clothes could you hang a pulley maid/ceiling airer over the stairs?

Thanks so much for your idea of putting the cooker in the chimney breast, it's a really good idea and would allow us to run the units in either alcove and have an island parallel if we still knocked through. I think we would still need to do that as the drawing room/dining room isn't big enough to be a kitchen/diner as is. It's also very dark so we want to keep the windows on the right in the current kitchen which gets a bit of light throughout the day. Having the kitchen on the opposite side would save a lot of problems as in its current location we would have to block up one or both windows to make way for the fridge, extractor fan and possible larder cupboard. I just need to come round to the idea of removing the fireplace currently in the dining room as I really like it :( Lots to think about and decide upon. Thanks again.