Whilst I understand the constraints of budget I think you are approaching the planning wrong. I think the way to do this is to decide on the layout that works best and then work out what you can afford to do now- perhaps you can make economies on purchases such as the kitchen cabinets to get a better Gliw in your home. An architectural designer or a concept planner are worth considering to help with this- they would also help you visualise the finished space too. If this were my house I would be thinking the entrance wasn’t big enough for the size of house and I would be concerned about privacy of the bedrooms at the front, I also don’t like the current kitchen being some distance from a window and being a heavy traffic area. Although I can’t see the layout properly I think I have got the sizes about right to show how I would do it. I have moved the front door to the middle of the house, shown a vaulted hall with stairs to two big upstairs spaces, shown the living space as completely open plan but with the option of using one of the downstairs bedrooms or one of the upstairs rooms as an extra living room. In my opinion there are often houses with long narrow extensions across the back that should have been better considered as invariably people need bigger spaces rather than more small rooms and retrospectively opening up the original house into this space is more difficult that building in the steels originally. So my plan doesn’t change any of the external walls of the original property but a couple of internal brick walls have been removed. I have just shown what is commercial and probably wouldn’t cost the earth but a designer would spend time trying to better understand your needs.

Sorry- I don’t like your plan. In my opinion the space between the sink and hob is where the work happens so you are actually a bit tight for space. I think the door from the kitchen to the playroom is a massive fail- firstly you are inviting the kids to run past the cooking area, secondly is splits the kitchen and there are safety implication for having a walkway through the kitchen, I also think it makes your kitchen plan feel disjointed. I also think that if the children are young they won’t want to be in the playroom, they will want to be where you are. If you are worried about the playroom being dark this is easily sorted with better lighting and a pale coloured floor. Alternatively make this the grown up room and the kids playroom near the front door. I also think that putting the sitting area around the corner in the extension makes it feel enclosed and a little tight because of its location. I think you have put too many stools at the island and in reality people rarely use more than 3. In my opinion better to have fewer comfortable seats that are spread out with room to eat. I also think you missed an opportunity to have a cupboard near the front door to hide coats, shoes and a vacuum cleaner. I think that if you want an extra shower it may be easier to put this off the bootroom- a bigger utility/ bootroom area may help later to keep sports equipment/ dogs/ ironing etc etc out of sight. There is a privacy argument to put it where you have but I suspect the wall you have moved to take a corner off the kitchen is a job that will require a steel.

Thanks for your advice both of you. We live in England to answer your question Gabby. Is there a rule in Scotland that the aisles have to be 120cm and if so why ? Jonathan, I was kind of thinking we would want to use the island for eating meals on like we do now with our current kitchen table, but I guess if the DR is open to the kitchen then it wouldn't be a problem to take a few steps more to the dining room table (because we use it so infrequently at the moment I am finding that hard to visualise). I am going to post a better plan of our current kitchen and dining room (with the pantry taken out) and I am also going to post a photo looking out from the window in our dining room. I am wondering if we did turn the DR into our kitchen could we make the window ledge higher and put the units in an L-shape so we could put the sink in the window? (and still have space for an island) I know this goes against some of my earlier points, especially about being worried people would be able to look in at us/and would create a more goldfish bowl feeling but I am just playing around with ideas.

Thank you to both tamp75 and rinked. i was hoping to utilise the wasted hall space where all the doors are. its a dark area leading to the dining room, WC, and kitchen. in the corner of the utility room is the boiler. so the niche for a basin couldn’t go there as access will be required to the boiler service door. i have wondered if a Wc could go along the wall of the utility room either a joining the study or ajoining the hall. with the door off the hall. is there enough space for this? Also i am not keen on a Macerator so can the Utility plumbing be easily adapted. its such a shame both the family bathroom and downstairs WC are in the middle of the best aspect. the Ensuite is in the area to the side of the house between the dining room and lounge. many thanks for any help.