Susie, this type of problem is becoming a regular issue/post here. The issue is that the design process is not robustly managing the practical costs appropriately to budget, and also managing client's expectations of what can be achieved for certain budget limits. All projects involve balancing requirements to budget in specific context. There will be structural costs either way. The question is rather, how best to maximise the investment in regards to the functional benefits and overall result. If you want my 2 cents I'm never a fan of squeezing down flow into areas such as dining spaces and creating internal doglegged corners unless it serves a specific function. It's a strange (poor) set-up to have the the only external access via the dining room that you have to walk past the island bench and negotiate living room furniture etc. There's however no furniture in this plan which doesn't help us fully understanding the design or functional rationale behind the proposal. I think it's good to take the opportunity to re-think this. We are finding increasingly that we are being asked to come in and sort issues like this out properly when clearly the design process hasn't been managed properly. Don't mean to be overly critical however the fact is it had been designed properly then you wouldn't be posting your problem on a design dilemma forum. If you're interested in hearing further about how we could professionally assist you in resolving the design solution feel free to contact us directly for further discussion and details. There's not a quick answer to this as it involves understanding details of your requirements, budget and context in order to provide the appropriate advice. The best advice I can provide is you need to be working with a design professional who is experienced with these types & scale of projects and inherently understands the cost consequences of design decisions one way or the other. In your case you require a clever simple solution that balances, connects and maximises both the internal and external functional requirements. I can think of various configuration options that could achieve this general requirement of living/kitchen dining but making much better use of your land on a tight site, retaining/maximising the external space required or even better still give the illusion that it's bigger than it is by exploiting the site length - however this requires a deeper and proper level of design service than just a few comments provided here. I've been involved with trouble shooting this type of situation on numerous occasions and in order to get it right it unfortunately requires us coming in, unpicking it and going backwards to go forwards, however I can confidently say it is always is worth the effort and investment as we ultimately need to be working to maximise the long term end result. Cheers PD :)

I have been involved with clients who have gone through the same process, and invariably the sliding doors that meet at a slender corner post is the pragmatic, more cost-effective solution. It doesn't have quite the same wow factor, but is functionally identical. Save your money and put half of it into upgrading your kitchen finishes, and get much more bang for your buck.

Best of luck

Dr Retro

of Dr Retro House Calls