Are you aware that building a 'L' shape extension will need planning permission first, this will set you back another 3-4 months. Plus Building Regs would need reapplying for. Also, from my experience conservatories only need building regs approval if they are over 30sqm; which means most conservatories are shoddy built and the foundations are unlikely to be suitable for the transformation into a proper extension. Also, the floor is unlikely to have been insulated - sorry but conservatories can be a hornets nest of problems. My advice is yes you should have a door off the hallway into the new room, cost of that should be minimal as you are only looking at using a couple of standard concrete lintels which are cheap as chips! Although I would have put the shower room at the front as the current layout means friends and visitors end up going through your kitchen to use the convenience. It has the advantage the new reception room as a rear garden outlook. Hope that helps

Hi SteffyTaylor, is it worth extending 1m back? Will you loose too much garden for gaining not a huge amount of space? Personally I think I'd spend the money on big bi-fold doors all along the back elevation. As the kitchen is staying where it is I'd suggest having the dining table running adjacent to the RH wall in the photo and have your living area opposite, with dual aspect into your new courtyard and garden. Lots of tall plants in the courtyard would be great and I'd think about adding a door from the bedroom (as well as the extension) out into the courtyard, that would be a lovely place to have breakfast on a summer's morning! Hope these ideas help! PB

Hi- I could have written this post myself! We too are having a partial side return resulting in an L shape layout. Our overall length is a bit shorter (5 vs your 6), but with the side return ours will be wider at 3.1m and 6m wide. Getting the layout right is so hard! We’ve decided to keep our formal dining room as is, and the kitchen in its existing galley type shape. We will have a peninsula come out at the top end to form bar seating for the kids/guests. The “old fence side” of the new area will have a toilet room and a laundry cupboard for the washer and dryer. I’m having the kitchen designed so that anything a guest/kid/non cook might need is towards the front, eg fridge, snack cupboard, window fridge, cutlery, trash receptacle etc. I am hoping that keeps everyone out of the cook’s zone, aka my way! I want to make the peninsula wide enough so it can feel more like a kitchen table, and be a comfortable spot for the kid’s homework too.

We are in the process of extending (a joint project with our neighbours to gain an extension to the front box room, then along the ground floor across the front and down the side of the house). We're having some last-minute layout dilemmas, the floor space isn't the biggest, but we will gain some essentials from it (bigger kitchen, downstairs shower/toilet, office space, porch and the bigger box room upstairs). Our shower room is going to be fairly slim (worked out as 900x2900mm at the minute). This also creates a slim corridor space beside that leading to an office which I've bumped along a bit to give some more space (sacrificing utility space at the other end, when you compare my Ikea layout with original drawings). The other option is to access the office from the lounge, meaning we could lose the corridor altogether and widen the shower room, but that would make the office open to noise from the lounge and I think it's a weird place to add a door. We're also struggling with options for the laundry/utility space too and whether to just include it as an extension to the kitchen. I've added some screenshots and links to an Ikea planner I used to map the ground floor out completely (ignore the colour and the basic mapping of furniture etc. it also doesn't include the pitched roof and Velux windows). Any input would be appreciated, I'm just looking for layout ideas and tips for anyone that has similar sizing/spacing set-ups. Thanks. Links to 3D plans: Ikea plan 1 with laundry space included in kitchen - https://kitchen.planner.ikea.com/planner/#/gb/en/planner?projectId=192B977E-9364-4348-9DF7-A3D64BC3767A&ref=share Ikea plan 2 with wall separating laundry space - https://kitchen.planner.ikea.com/planner/#/gb/en/planner?projectId=192B977E-9364-4348-9DF7-A3D64BC3767A&ref=share Screenshot of Ikea layout plan 1... Architect drawings... Internal before: Internal after: External before: External after: