Hi all, Thank you for your comments; I appreciate them! Natasha - the units you have suggested are very much what I had in mind. We will have a shaker kitchen and the media unit would also be shaker style and would have 4-6 cupboards with the TV in the middle with book shelves either side. Part of the reason we kept a partial wall was to make the space more usable. I can’t envision how the fully open plan room will be able to meet all our needs, but I am open to ideas! I feel that open plan would be more impressive, but potentially less usable. With regards to the doors. I do plan to reverse the doors both into the kitchen and family room part, but couldn’t work out how to do it on the app I used for the floor plan. It is a 1920s house and we have the original doors which we are planning to keep. We are also keeping a lot of floor space as when the table is not extended, we still have young children with lots of Lego and trains etc. I plan for these to be hidden in the cupboards at bedtime. J - we haven’t installed the kitchen but we have ordered it and paid a big deposit. Some of the units are bespoke/irregular sizes and I don’t think we would be willing to change this. I have attached a photo of our rendered kitchen plan. Thanks again for your comments. It is good to have other people’s opinions and ideas.

I’m glad you like the idea for the dining table! If I’m being completely honest I don’t really know whether the new layout ideas really give you any more useable space. Do you need a desk in the room? If so it might be worth having the bit of extra space but it could be worth making the garage storage space into a study space as well rather than having the desk intrude on your living space too much. What do you think? If you kept the bigger storage room then you could maybe do something like the picture attached so having a multi purpose room?

Don’t actually know measurements but here’s some more pics of the side. I did consider that idea but to be honest I think I’d prefer to keep the kitchen where it is as it’s nice to look out to the garden while cooking! We can still see the view through from the dining room too. Perhaps if money were no object.. but I imagine moving all the piping etc will be a lot more expensive (?!), not sure of budget yet but am thinking through different options and considering the value it will add to our lives and potential added resale value in a few years or so. Also because of dogs it’s quite handy to have separate kitchen - we have it blocked off with a dog gate atm but I love those sliding wooden doors you see on Houzz. Basically am wondering if the cost of an extension is worth the hassle, originally that was our plan but now we’re in it I don’t think we would actually get that much extra space! At the moment the dryer is in the dining room (where the desk is in the photo) and there’s no dishwasher so that’s the main issue. If we could move the sink to RH and add in double/ sliding doors, fit a slimline dishwasher where the bin is in the photo on the LH side and perhaps squeeze in the dryer too somehow then perhaps extension not needed. Unless a conservatory would be a good option... (Alternatively was thinking about getting custom built cupboard around the dryer in dining room and get the washing machine installed on top, to free up space for dishwasher in kitchen...)

We did something similar when we bought our forever home—also needed rewiring and plumbing, so I get the pressure on budget. Sometimes removing internal walls (especially non-load-bearing) can be more cost-effective than a full extension. You might want to check out home remodeling services in renton https://honeycombconstruction.us/ —they do thoughtful remodels and can help you plan it in stages to stay within your £300K.