Why don’t you leave the fridge where it is and still have your walk in pantry. Then everyday food items and appliances can be in the existing pantry, and other items in the larger pantry. You need to live in a home for a while, the rooms will then evolve into the correct use for your family. For me, I would have it as a large dining area with a 10 seater table. And just have a round 4 seater in the dining area. But this is as per How I live and our family gatherings. As said, let the space evolve as you live in the home overtime.

Remember fridge spaces need more depth than normal cabinets. If you move the fridge to pantry, is there a power point and efficient depth for the fridge to be housed without jutting out into the hallway?

I don’t think it would be a convenient pantry. But a storeroom, which could house excess from kitchen and other items may be good in that space. It really depends on what you need.

Firstly , I'm a bit confused . The two pictures are similar houses ? This is an 'off-the-rack' design ?

Just a general observation now -- there is a lot of wasted space ! The rumpus room is huge -- do you need it that big , or was it just made that size to fit the space and/or because the designer wanted a wall along that side of the dining room , so made the rumpus that size ?

Then the 4.1 x 5.7 metre room I am guessing is the lounge ? Why not make the rumpus smaller , have a larger area that is almost communal between the dining and lounge -- makes it more open plan ? The other advantage will be that that 'lounge' ( I'm assuming ) will get some natural light -- I doubt it would now .

Then you would then turn the kitchen 90 degrees , have a whole wall that is pantry/storage/fridge , with the island looking towards the dining and then outside ? That 'wall' can also make an 'almost' hallway along the back -- right now you have basically a hallway with a linen cupboard , and then another hallway straight behind it to get to 2 bedrooms , laundry and bathroom -- a bit of planning could cut that back to 1 hall , and an extra 4 or 5 sq metres in your kitchen , or move the island and get extra space in the dining room if you prefer ?

To me , the overall design looks like quite a lazy designer .

Potty’s, this is an existing house. Note the photos of the rooms. the two plans are the poster showing what they are thinking of doing......

Makes it a bit clearer thanks . Just looking at the plans , I'm still inclined to think that turning the whole kitchen 90 degrees -- right now , it appears to look over the Family room and a couple of narrow windows , whereas overlooking the dining area and the larger doors and windows seems more logical to me ( if the views were great to the North , surely bigger windows would have been placed along that wall ) . Like I also said above , it ( presumably ) wouldn't take much to get rid of one hallway there too .

Hello everyone… thanks so much for the input. Dreamer, i like how you mention that as the family grows the room will adapt to our needs. As for the existing pantry, perhaps we change the doors to match the future joinery in kitchen. Im still in 2 minds about adding an additonal wall behind the kitchen wall to lounge 2 (as the walk in pantry). Just wanted to reiterate that the photos attached are of the existing home we plan to settle first week of January 2022. The previous owners added an additional rumpus room to the house as a man cave I suppose. We plan to update the flooring with herringbone or either straight timber flooring (light/sandy coloured engineered timber), this includes removing thr carpet and replacing with timber into lounge 2. Also we plan to install new carpet into the bedrooms (window frame colour is monument blue). The house has plenty of light throughout which is why we loved this house. It's a north facing home which is a bonus for us. Blinds, flooring will be changed along with a newly renovated kitchen in the future. Later down the track we plan to update the bathrooms too. The walls will definitely need painting, I'm still in two minds (either vivid white or white on white)!?

It’s great to have a plan, but wait until you are actually in the house. You say it won’t settle until jan 2022. That is still some time. It’s all very exciting to be moving into your first home. My advice is to move in. See where the sun comes up and goes down, see where the breezes come from. You will learn about the home once you live in it. Until then just save up for your potential changes, once you have actually worked out how you and the home work together.

always best to live in the house for a while before making any decisions and i would never add new floor coverings until you know exactly how you will use every room and if the dimensions are correct using enough space for a walk in pantry will reduce the leftover room to be too small for much more than an extra study and if you plan to eventually upgrade the kitchen i would invest enough to move the kitchen to include the dining area to allow it to be better connected to the alfresco and rumpus room, use the family room for dining and the windowless room for a media lounge and the small hallways could be included to make the study into a fourth bedroom but always depends on how you will use the rooms and budget

And just to clarify, the back of home appears to face north. Your house is not north facing. But it does appear that the north side of your home has the least amount of windows, which is not ideal. This is another reason to live in the home, and work out which rooms are hot in the summer and which rooms are cold etc etc.

Something like this that stops it being such a through zone bight be an option, Making it like a master retreat space seperate from the rumpus access. , with light from front entry.

Opt 2 changing entry to rumpus, working better with columns

Another slight variation moving access from garage to rumpus to be off hall. This creates a walkthrough from front via rumpus giving two routes around the more private living zone

imo there are two many doorways in odd locations so my suggestions includes the pantry (with side door) using space off the original lounge but i've closed off and opened new doorways to make kitchen space, furniture arrangement and walking paths more specific including the extra opening to the kids hallway that is unnecessary (blocking this opening will help avoid unnecessary traffic through the kitchen) the external sliding glass doors also need the openings altered as shown and resizing and opening up the kitchen allows space for a bigger dining area and the small meals area can be a useful MPR for study nook, hobby or play room

The following moves the kitchen and dining and adding a single or two way fireplace between the kitchen/dining. Changing the entrance from the garage into the large Den which then opens into the kitchen,. The study becomes a larger Bedroom.