Hi everyone.

My husband and I have just bought our first house - a 1960's 3 bed semi-detached. The previous owners lived there since it was first built, and it needs a lot of love and a bit of a rethink to make it really work as a modern home.

We've been going round in circles trying to work out how to make the best of the space and of our money, and would really appreciate any thoughts or tips you might have.

Top priorities are:

Rewiring throughout
Replacing the dodgy utility extension off the kitchen (single skin walls) and squeezing in a downstairs loo/utility space. This is the real driver, as my mother in law is in a wheelchair, so we need an accessible downstairs loo

On top of that, we're thinking about:

Raising the floor level in the conservatory to match the house, so that it's accessible
Extending the garage out the front, so that it's still usable - we're probably going to take the space for the loo out of the back of the garage, and my husband has a kit car to store
Also adding a porch at the front - a mix of aesthetic and storage reasons
Possibly removing the chimney? It takes up a large amount of space out of the living/dining room

As you can see from the photos, the front drive is long as the house is set back from the road, so we're hoping that will help.

Photos below, as well as the current layout, and some possible new layouts we've been thinking about. What do you think would make the best use of the space and meet our needs?

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(Kitchen, looking toward utility door)

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Option 1: Knocking through between kitchen and diner, adding loo and porch

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Option 2: Same as option 1, but also taking out chimney breast in the living room

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Option 3: Same again, but with a slightly bigger, angled porch

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Option 4: The megabucks version, with a kitchen extension at the rear as well (probably too much money and not sure how it could intersect with the conservatory, but we're at the blue skies thinking stage!)

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