what a beautiful house, could you look at using sliding glass doors/louvered panels etc on the alfresco area to close it off during winter, it is Melbourne, this would enable you to use this space all year and would enlarge your space for entertaining, might have to re think doors though. I would have a door/s off the kitchen and not windows Tiled step over to shower needs to be removed to make the floor all the same level. The high ceilings are a great advantage adding to a feeling of space. The large dark sideboard in the entrance makes that space look smaller, so you will be able to improve on that Absolutely love the flooring We have friends who had one dining table and chairs which they moved between the indoor dining and the alfresco area, depends how formal you want to be, this allowed for more indoor space when needed. Bear Gully Coastal Cottages Victoria. Remembering parties we have had in an open plan design, everyone ends up hanging out around the kitchen, if you had an open fire it would be there. Perhaps move the study upstairs As the following idea, knowing that there are load bearing issues to address

Would be good to have more of an idea of context, but generally both Kitchen options I would say have issues. It's a tricky one to resolve and you also have to think about the relationship of the entry and flow around the different areas. I reckon Option 2 will more like an apartment, rather than a larger home. Walking past the island every day to get into the bedroom zone is not great. Option 1 has more formality and class but then has you walking in and out past the kitchen to get to the new living area which feels like it's got everything else has it's back turned to it. So I'd say it's continue to explore options On these projects Kitchen position & configuration are critical & make or break and ideally the kitchen is presenting well to the space and shouldn't feel compromised in terms of either amenity or positioning. Something like option 2 but with the kitchen at one end or the other of the space is probably what should happen, but then you have to think about priorities of aspect and which spaces you prefer to be related to the external areas one way or the other, and then also how the entry comes into play. If you take option 1, & the existing entry is retained, the kitchen could have a pantry where the proposed new entry is and configured on the internal wall, dining in the middle, potentially breaking up dining & living with some form of dividing wall or shelving unit if that's preferred. Whatever you do don't compromise on the kitchen, it needs to be scaled well to the project overall and if it's falling short or feels like it's a bit of an afterthought (like in Option2) you'll be disappointed. You sort of want something like below (completely different project but similar ideas/layout for the main space Good luck PD

I mentioned earlier to think about dropping the wall next to the stairs to hip or slightly higher height to allow for the TV, as this would further open up the top floor and perhaps show the street art, ie the framed print. I know that you don't want anything else hanging from the ceiling but because of the ceiling height you will need a reverse hanging fan to bring all the warm air down into the room that will sit up there if you don't. The heater is because you had one shown in your posted floor plan, this is one of the fires available on my 1997 CAD program, that's the colour it comes in but can be changed within the program cheers

The part of the home that you have shown, does not appear small. Room sizes are good. The problem is the kitchen in a thoroughfare, but it has plenty of storage. And the wall between sunroom and living. i would seriously look at removing the wall between sunroom and living, check with a structural engineeR. You said you do not want to remove walls, but this is the only way you can increase the size of that room. Maybe keep a supporting post in the middle, and work your furniture around it. Then install of full wall of storage on the dining/laundry wall.