I'd just have a sofa there, with a side table at each end for drinks. It looks there is enough space for one, although you may have to move the dining table slightly to the left?

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Consider the use of the room - on your plan its a dining room, so do you want people to relax there or move in to the living room area after eating? Also with the furniture in its current configuration a sofa area might be a little squashed.... There is currently no storage over on that side of the room - you could have a storage unit built, to include book shelves for kitchen and gardening books, a sideboard area and maybe a drinks cabinet?

@Cathy yes I was trying to think how that area would be used. I thought I might sit with a drink and look at the garden or read a book. For socialising I would be at the breakfast bar or eating at the table, or in the living room. It's a bit far to talk to guests sitting there from the kitchen. Maybe storage is a better way to go, and have the sofas as @Jonathan suggested so you could always swivel the 2 arm chairs around. But I do like to be able to sit and look out at the garden...

Thank you guys ... food for thought as always!

@ Jonathan, it was a bit of a dilemma trying to work out what room to put into what zone as where the lounge is will be suffering from inner dark room syndrome. In the end we decided to put the lounge there as the kitchen and dining spaces are where we want the most natural light.

We have the sofa in that configuration because it's a set we own and was an expensive very big custom built U shaped one so it has to come with us! Plus with the TV going on the wall the utility wall, it would not work for us in terms of having the sofa symmetrically around the TV ... the final thing to settle it was that on some days when we have finished dinner and can't be bothered to do the dishes straightaway, at least we don't have to look at them ha ha!

@ Cathy when we tend to have large social gatherings we are always in little clusters all over the house and when we have small friends gatherings we tend to spend the whole evening at the dining table ... maybe moving to the lounge for final coffees but not always however now we are planning to have a corner fireplace it will be nice to "retire" in the lounge

Re: storage, there is going to be a sideboard behind the sofa (to hopefully stop them from moving back) which will serve as storage ... though am sure hubster will have ideas of making it a minibar!

Back to @ Jonathon - I think the bench idea for extra seating around the dining table is a very good one which I hadn't thought about. It will serve the purpose of as Jen P said, being able to sit and look at the garden and also provide the much needed extra seating when we have family get togethers and save us having to stock up on extra chairs!

I think a bench with storage underneath perhaps the way to go?