Kitchen/ diner/ family room layout

Appletrees2024

Planning an extension to create an open plan kitchen/ diner/ family space. We’ve had the attached kitchen design done and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it/ suggestions for improvements. The green scribble is a door to a study (can be moved) and the blue one goes to a large utility (cannot be moved). Ideally we’d like to have space for a dining table and small sofa/ soft seating area. Can’t decide if it would work best to have a sofa by the sliding doors at the end of the island or if that is too squished. Plan allows 2.6 metres from the end of the island to the doors. Or maybe in the dining area? Island is currently designed as 3 metres which we can reduce. Would love some suggestions of how to layout the furniture/ improvements to kitchen design please!

Brie

Personal opinions obviously but I wouldn't like a cooker on an island.  I'd want it against an exterior wall so there can be a proper extractor fan rather than something that recycles.  Also you are potentially cooking things that are going onto plates on the counter against the exterior wall and then to get them to the table you have to go around the island.  I'd find this pretty tedious quite quickly.  If the cooker is against the wall then the plates can go on to the island and there's plenty of room to eat things there or move them to the table.  

I also wonder about soft furnishings in a kitchen area.  How long before they absorb all the cooking smells?  Is there a need for a sofa AND stools around the island?  In my dream world I'd be cooking for friends while they sat on their stools with their glass of wine and I could turn from the cooking to chat while the potatoes boiled or whatever.  

Where might the green door be moved to?  I can't see any alternative unless the study was accessed via the utility room but I'd think that less than ideal.

Hope you're getting a honking big 3 burner Weber for the patio - always an essential in my mind!!!

Doozergirl

I'd prefer to see the whole floor plan to get an idea for the house.  One room in isolation is difficult to get a feel for.  

Appletrees2024

Thank you. Yes we might lose the sofa area and just have comfy chairs/ stools around the island underneath the roof lantern and in front of the sliding doors. At the moment just exploring possible layouts in case someone comes up with something we haven’t thought of! Ideally it’d be nice to have a small sofa the kids could lounge on while I’m cooking etc. But if it would have to be squished in somewhere then I’m happy to lose it.

We have a Weber kettle bbq and a pizza oven that will sit on the patio. Patio will also have a glass roof over it so we can use it year round (we bbq at Christmas!). This is why we haven’t extended the whole way across as we wanted to include a large patio too.

For moving the green door I just meant a bit further down that wall, it doesn’t need to be right at the end. I did think about access via the utility room but the room would be quite cut off from the rest of the house.

Appletrees2024

This is the floorplan for downstairs. The dotted line is where the existing house ends. Ignore the furniture placement in the kitchen diner bit!