Hi Kate. We have three children under 8 so are in a similar position to you. If it was my house I would..... In response to your first question, a 33ft x 14ft open plan room would not necessarily be too big, but it would leave you without a downstairs utility or WC. As tamp75 has commented, a hallway is good for isolating noise to upstairs bedrooms, and you need somewhere for coats, bags, shoes etc. With three storeys, having the kitchen open to the hall may create problems with building regulations (fire safety). I'm not an expert in this area but it should be considered. 2. I would definitely reposition the cloakroom. It looks like the drainage to your house will be on the right hand side of the plan, so I would not put the WC under the stairs. Something like Jonathan's second suggestion would work well. 3. I would create a utility room, but only a small one. Large enough to hold a washing machine and tumble drier (stacked to save space), sink and some storage. If you can get hold of a copy of George Clarke's Home Bible he has a whole chapter devoted to utility rooms - it is well worth a read. 4. I would reconfigure the property in a similar manner to Jonathan's second suggestion. The only minor changes would be to move shorten the hall slightly by bringing the entrance to the kitchen level with the stairs, and possibly reconfigure the area for utility/WC/cloaks. I recommend retaining the first floor living room as it stops the house feeling too 'top heavy' and could be a really good family space. 5. It's hard to answer this without knowing more about you. I think it might be possible to have a kitchen, seating area and dining area but I suspect that you might have to make some compromises. You have the potential to create two lounges elsewhere in the house, so I would compromise on the seating area. Given the scale of this project I would take my time to consider all of the options. I think it is definitely worth spending a few £100s on a concept planner as they could save you £1000s in the long run. Good luck.

Block doorway into garage would allow kitchen units at that side. I would remove wc/utility from that corner to allow large doors to garden. could you do wc under stairs?

Thanks but we're not going to fully renovate the garage, it will still be pretty 'garage-like' inside hence why it will be the gym. (Financial reasons) Plus I want the open plan kitchen/living, it's always been my dream!

Hi Jonathan! Wow! Thanks for taking the time, this is so helpful, especially the upstairs visual that I hadn’t considered. So considerate of you. The garden is east facing but with no house to the South side, so my only concern about extending the full depth to the right side of the house is it would mean the patio would be in shadow once the sun passes round it after morning. I guess if we have to knock down the garage space to redo the foundations, it might make sense to just build the extension on the left hand side and create a patio on the right hand side instead. Then window then wouldn’t look onto the cars. Or perhaps by the time we do foundations again for garage it isn’t much more squaremeters/ cost to do the side extension, perhaps 3m out so the shape of the house is less peculiar. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond so we don’t invest anymore time looking into something that isn’t feasible for the space.