Would a small kitchen put you off

Westie22

Looking for plenty of opinions please

Would a small kitchen put you off buying a house?

The house has a separate dining room of 11'2" x 9'9" and a kitchen of 9'9" x 8'9" (at widest points). There are 3 double cupboards and 2 single ones, and a small cupboard over the extractor fan. The kitchen was fitted maybe 6 or 7 years ago, and is still in perfect condition. It is shaker beech style.

There is a gas hob fitted in the worktop, but no freestanding/built in oven (we just use the oven feature of a combination microwave oven).

We have the washing machine in the kitchen but the tumble drier is in the garage. No dishwasher as we never had any need for one. The fridge is under the worktop and the freezer is in a cubby-hole that would have no other use.

We have a worktop area with stools under it in the corner as well to give the feel of an eating area as there is no room for a table.

As I said there is a separate dining room, but is seems the fashion is for the 2 rooms to be joined together all as one. So I'm wondering how much the small kitchen will be putting people off.

I spoke to a builder and he said it would cost about £1200 to take the wall down between the 2 rooms.

Annisele

If I was confident that taking the wall down really would only cost £1,200, the small kitchen wouldn't put me off. But I would factor the cost of replacing the kitchen into my offer.

If I wasn't confident the rooms could be knocked together, or if the knocked-together room would be a weird shape, then personally I would be put off. However - you obviously weren't put off, and you only need one buyer!

shegar

Id be put off without having room for storage and a kitchen table and chairs ........Most people always want a decent size kitchen......

mummyroysof3

What sort of house is it?

meg72

I would be put off by a small kitchen and would want a proper cooker.

Hermoine

To me it would depend on where the kitchen was in relation to the dining room. I have just bought a house with a galley kitchen, which comes directly off the dining room - its an old terrace and the kitchen would have originally been the scullery/outside loo and the dining room would have been the kitchen. I'm fine with the current arrangement - or I wouldn't have bought it. Because the 2 are so close together you cook in the kitchen and then eat in the dining room, and it means that kitchen noise/smells can be cut off from the dining room (it is particularly great to be able to shut the door on the washing machine...). I have noticed, though, that some of the houses on the terrace have kept/turned back their dining room into a kitchen/diner and use the old scullery/outside loo area as a utility room and extra loo. So, if you have a similar layout, you can always suggest that is something buyers can consider...

BitterAndTwisted

A small kitchen would be one of the compromises I would be prepared to make, especially if there is a dining-room, if most other things about the property were favourable as long as I could do some actual cooking in it. No space for an oven could be a deal-breaker for a family but not necessarily for this singleton.

Fraise

A small kitchen wouldn't put me off (plenty of houses have tiny kitchens) providing there was a dining room, but not having a full oven would put me off considerably

phoebe1989seb

We compromised on a small kitchen when buying our previous house - it was around 11' x 11' and seemed tiny compared to the 25' x 15' eat-in kitchen in the house we were selling.

But - the house had a large footprint with several reception rooms as well as a substantial conservatory (not everyone's taste, I know) that adjoined the kitchen and we turned this into a breakfast room complete with granite-topped island.

When we sold three years later, having fitted a very nice hand-painted kitchen, our buyers - a family of five - fell in love with the character of the house and the small kitchen didn't put them off.......even though there was no room in our layout for the fridge-freezer which we housed in the conservatory They intended to change the conservatory glass roof for a solid one and open the space up into one large room.

OTOH, the kitchen did have space for both a large range cooker (110cm) and a dishwasher, plus we had both a larder cupboard (original feature) and a utility cupboard that housed the washing machine. As well as this the kitchen contained two large base cupboards, a corner cupboard with *magic baskets*, a stack of wicker basket drawers for veg, two large wall cupboards and a wall-mounted plate rack. There was also a double butler sink unit with cupboard under as well as a Rayburn (that provided heating/hot water) which was installed by the previous owners......and which took up most of one wall, lol! Elsewhere in the house there was space for two dressers for crockery etc which made up for ack of kitchen storage.

So, in answer to the OP's question - it didn't put us or our buyers off......although as other posters have commented, the rest of the space available/layout is crucial in this decision IMHO......

Edited to add - we did make sure that when buying our current house we had potential for a much larger kitchen though!

dandelionclock30

It would put me off totally, I would want a decent sized kitchen and a proper oven or room for one at least.
Different people though are different, maybe it would be o.k for like a single man who was out all the time. But for a family, where the adult/s were very into cooking then I can imagine it would be a real stumbling block.

Westie22

mummyroysof3 wrote: »

What sort of house is it?

Its a 3 bed semi, with a sunroom and an extra downstairs bathroom.
The kitchen and dining room are right beside each other with a door between. The dining room has patio doors leading to the sunroom.