We're buying this 1930s 5-bed in the UK and trying to work out the least disruptive way of improving the layout. It's already a good-sized house, so we're not trying to completely reinvent it, just make the space work better.

It's been extended a couple of times before. The old garage became the current family room, with the utility and downstairs WC added, and there was also a two-storey extension over the kitchen area which added the two rear bedrooms upstairs.

Our downstairs wish list is:

* Proper kitchen/diner/family room
* Big bifold/sliding doors onto the rear garden
* Keep the two front rooms separate as lounge and playroom
* Keep a decent utility
* Small office somewhere
* Separate cloakroom/boot-room type space for coats, shoes, bags, pushchair etc.

We'd rather work with the existing structure and services as much as possible than end up rebuilding half the house. The downstairs WC would ideally stay where it is because of the existing waste/soil pipe.

One alternative we're considering is extending the rear again rather than trying to force everything into the current footprint. The existing rear extension is about 3m/10ft deep, and UK planning rules may allow us to extend further, potentially another 2–3m/6–10ft. That would obviously cost more, but could make the kitchen/dining/family layout much easier.

Upstairs we're fairly happy with our proposed changes, mainly moving the doorway into the main bedroom/en-suite area.

If this was yours, how would you configure the ground floor to get as much of the wish list as possible without creating loads of structural work and cost? Would you consider moving the utility to the bathroom on 1st floor to right? Would you make the existing footprint work, or extend the rear? Completely open to ideas, not just variations of what we've drawn in red.

Ideas to reconfigure 1930s house