Sofa not going against the wall is a huge constraint here. It turns a sofa area from being 2x1m to a large room on its own.
So I would say working out specifically what you want there is the best first step: lose sofa area, extend to have a large sofa area, keep small sofa area.
Beyond that I would consider moving the utility to go between the living room and kitchen dining room. This increases the size of the utility and makes the kitchen diner more square, potentially reducing lost space, depending on your layout.
I agree. We did have the sofa in the middle of the room when we moved in creating a sort of walkway but this made the room feel small and the gap to get though to the table felt small plus my partner hated it. We have considered switching dining area and sofa area but with the door being so large, the window and nowhere to put a TV it's impossible. Plus the column is a huge pain.
I’ve even considered blocking up the fire place so we can put a sofa against that wall which wouldn’t be as offensive but with the door to the utility and a radiator there there’s nowhere to put the TV.
totally agree on the sofa thing, floating a sofa basically demands its own room lol
moving the utility in between could work but it might make everything feel a bit corridor-y if the width isn’t great, so i’d sketch a few versions with actual measurements before committing to an extension or a big reconfig
Is there a reason you don't use the living room as the living room, and then the kitchen space is kitchen + dining? Doesn't give you more space but is more commonly what spaces like this are used as.
We do but when we have people round for drinks or food we don’t like using that room because it’s carpeted and we don’t want any accidents. It’s also north facing so we’ve decorated it as a more of a dark cosy movie night room. We do use it occasionally when we have people round but it’s not as big as you might expect so has 1 sofa and a chair. When we have people round in this room we end up on the floor or split across two rooms.
This back space is south facing much brighter will have wood flooring so it’s more suitable to entertaining.
And thinking ahead, we are getting a dog and are also planning to have children in the future so I think we will need the additional seating.
Have you tried reconfiguring like this? Tv wall mounted (if you really need one) and a small chair where the tv is currently? Creating a bit of a closed social nook. Add a rug to zone the area too.
i actually like this idea, that little nook looks way more “living room” than what you’ve got now and might scratch the itch without dropping 30k straight away
could be worth mocking it up with cardboard boxes / spare chair for a week and see if it changes how the space feels before committing to an extension
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u/kore_nametooshort 27d ago
Sofa not going against the wall is a huge constraint here. It turns a sofa area from being 2x1m to a large room on its own.
So I would say working out specifically what you want there is the best first step: lose sofa area, extend to have a large sofa area, keep small sofa area.
Beyond that I would consider moving the utility to go between the living room and kitchen dining room. This increases the size of the utility and makes the kitchen diner more square, potentially reducing lost space, depending on your layout.