Utility room or bigger kitchen

Sez88

Hi everyone.
We are in the process of buying a house, aiming to complete by the end of this month!
We would like to put in a new kitchen and are considering our options, at the moment:
We have a smallish kitchen leading into a similar size dining room on the left. To the right of the kitchen (accessed by going outside) is a utility room.
I was going to add a link to a pic of the floor plan but cant as I'm a new user


Currently there is no internal door to the utility room, the wall between the kitchen and utility is load bearing and the wall between the kitchen and dining room is not.

We are trying to decide between...
A) Removing wall between kitchen and diner to create a bigger kitchen/diner and putting a doorway into the utility.
Remove both walls to create a larger kitchen/diner

We are worried we will lose money (in the long term) if we make the wrong decision.

Please give your opinions on what you think would be best...or maybe give us a different option.

Thanks in advance

Meepster

Personally, I'd go with plan A: it makes sense to keep a utility room if you have the space as most people looking at buying a house would rather have a seperate room where they can put the washing machine/tumble drier etc.

It would also negate the need to buy an integrated washing machine to put into the kitchen. (Some people are fussy and want everything in the kitchen hidden away)

More and more people are wanting kitchen diners opposed to a kitchen with a seperate dining room, which is seen as more old fashioned...

loracan1

I'd sooner keep a separate utility room, keeps things out of the way.

You could post a link to your plan by leaving spaces in, anyone interested can remove the spaces and copy/paste into their browser.

Sez88

Thanks, option A is my personal fav too but the OH prefers option B

Ok so the pic of the floor plan is at
http: //i838 .photobucket .com /albums /zz309 /sez88 /groundfloorplan .png

loracan1

Just made it a clicky

Sez88

Thank you, hopefully that will make it easier for people to understand what I mean

Paul_the_Painter

It would take a lot more work, but I would do the following.

Create door between lounge and dining room.

Get rid of door between kitchen and dining room

Have Utility room knocked down, and rebuild as a 2 story extension, (expand the width a bit if you can)

Make current bath into en-suite for Bed 2 (to become Bed 1) bed 1 becomes Bed 2, bed 3 becomes family bath, extension room 1st floor becomes bed 3.

Knock through into extension to make a large spacious kitchen diner, with a small utility room containing just washing machine and dryer.

Set you back a fair bit, but leaves you with a "modern" layout, of master bed with ensuite, 2 further beds, family bath, 2 receptions, and kitchen diner with utility.

Penny_Farthing_2

Another vote for keeping the utility room. I like a separate kitchen and dining room but I'm definitely in the minority. However, given your layout, I would make the kitchen and dining room into one big room (and learn not to be so messy in the kitchen!)

slummymummyof3

Kitchen/diner. Block up the kitchen back door so it is just a window and turn utility window into a back door - that way all the 'mess' from the garden etc can be contained in the utility room rather than dragged into the kitchen/diner and you will have more useable space in the kitchen, obviously you will need to create a doorway from the utility to the kitchen.

Loobylooe

We're having similar discussions and decided to go utility & kitchen rather than larger kitchen. Think a utility room is a check list item if you were to sell on.

Sez88

@ Paul the Painter:
I love your ideas (i even drew them out so I could visualise what you were saying) but I just don't think we will have the money. We would be doing the kitchen up on a budget so wouldn't be able to add more work. Such a shame tho.
Maybe we would be able to extend on first floor in the future to make those changes.


@ slummymummyof3:
That's just what I was thinking, its actually sliding doors in the utility room so that makes it easier. But yeah getting rid of the kitchen door= more wall space


Thanks for all your responses, Utility room is definitely in favour!
Keep them coming...still got to convince the OH.