House with a downstairs kitchen - annoying?

ajazztune

Hi folks,

You might have seen my previous post about a house I'm thinkig of buying where I had the 'North or South facing bedroom' dilemma. (Concluded that a cool bedroom with en-suite was better).

Anyway, this thread is about the same crazy house with its crazy layout. It's a 3 storey Victorian townhouse. It is entered via the south side through the original vestibule (which is quite large), has a large hallway with staircase on the right. At the end of the hallway there is the north facing dining kitchen. It is newly fitted, has a large window and a back door that goes into a courtyard garden. There is a wc right beside the kitchen.

The living room is up the stairs on the first floor, as is a bathroom, bedroom and then two further bedrooms are on the second floor.

I'm wondering if anyone has lived in a house with a downstairs kitchen? Is it really annoying and inconvenient? How practical is it with children?

I have thought about the practicality and thought of some pros and cons, but you never really know until you live with it, right?

Pros:
*No cooking smells/washing machine noise
*Back door to let dog out
*Shopping can be brought in from the back, no stairs, straight into the kitchen.
*Access to garden for kids with supevision (if I'm in the kitchen)
*Possibility to extend into garden if need be
*Lounge gets lovely river views being on first floor.

Cons
*Eating in lounge would be a hassle (though maybe not a bad thing?)
*Getting things to and from the kitchen from other rooms (dishes/laundry/hoover etc) would involve lots of stairs.
*Entertaining guests might be awkward.

There must be more? It's not something we could ever change so really don't want to regret buying a house with a downstairs kitchen.

brians_daughter

we love our downstairs kitchen, but we have a large dining area too,

TBH we tend to spend all our family time in the dining-kitchen (we call it the downstairs lounge lol as we have sofa, tv, kids stuff down there) We have patio doors that lead into our courtyard and the kids love being in and out.

Once kids are bathed and in bed we use the middle floor living room as an adult only room really, never intended that way, its just the kids are either in the dining/lounge area of the kitchen or in their rooms.

When we entertain we usually end up in the dining area anyway TBH

Hoover is a small issue so we have 2 lol. A small hand held on ground floor and the 'proper' hoover upstairs.
Keeps all the cooking smells from upstairs and we have a laundry basket on the 1st and 2nd floor to make it more likely the kids will actually use the basket rather than the floor

Works perfectly for us, but if it was a small dining area where we couldn't fit a sofa/tv/toy box etc i'm not sure it would be ideal

lincroft1710

The problem isn't the "downstairs" kitchen, it's the "upstairs" lounge.

Most kitchens are on the ground floor, upstairs lounges are a feature of some new style 3 storey townhouses, although the idea dates back to the 18th century.

abankerbutnotafatcat

We have almost exactly the same layout. We quite like it as there is a distinct progression from kitchen to dining room (we have a separate dining room) and then off to the upstairs lounge to relax and we joke 'shall we retire to the drawing room?'.

The only inconvenience is cups of tea/glasses of wine up to the lounge but to be honest, you get used to it very quickly and we have a tv in the dining room so if we want to watch tv when we're eating we do so in the dining room rather than the lounge. The only time we eat in the lounge is the odd plate of 'nibbles' or crisps which is no hassle to carry upstairs.

For us the layout has the benefit that we can use the lounge as a temporary extra bedroom if we need to so that's exactly what we're doing when we have family staying in a few weeks.

It's not for everyone but then personally I don't like bungalows because of the lack of 'upstairs to bed' so each to their own.

We have a light weight cylinder vacuum cleaner. Most houses have stairs so it's not that much of an issue.

I can see that if we had children we might make the day room/evening 'grown ups' room distinction. As I said, we kind of do that anyway.

brians_daughter

lincroft1710 wrote: »

The problem isn't the "downstairs" kitchen, it's the "upstairs" lounge.

Most kitchens are on the ground floor, upstairs lounges are a feature of some new style 3 storey townhouses, although the idea dates back to the 18th century.

I deffo have a downstairs kitchen. the way the house is built it looks like it has a ground floor and 1st floor from the front but due to the way its built it has 3 storeys to the back so i go 'downstairs' to get to the kitchen and courtyard but i do know what you mean, a lot of the newer townhouses do have a first floor living room

sammyjammy

We lived in a townhouse like this when I was little. It was in the days before central heating and situated in Scotland, in winter my mum would have to go dow nt othe kitchen to make our porridge and bring it upstairs to us while we sat around the gas fire, I'm not sure I ever went in the kitchen !(we only lived there a few months).

If its heated then no problem for me.

mummyroysof3

If the kitchen floor is faily big and has room for kids toys sofa and tv I think would be ok. With small children I wouldn't want them on a different floor to me while I was cooking or cleaning the kitchen etc. once they a little older it wouldn't be too bad I guess though. I would have too hovers too if my house was 3 floors or bigger than one I'm in now lol

ajazztune

Thanks for shairng your experiences of actually living with this set up, it is so helpful.

I wouldn't say the kitchen is big enough for a sofa/tv/toys AND a dining table. It would fit a dining table OR a small sofa but it would end up being at the back of the kitchen kind of inbetwen the back door and the cupboard which houses the washing machine and boiler..
A separate dining room would be perfect, which is where I'm thinking an extension in the future might be a good solution, though would take up a good chunk of the garden area.
At the moment the house we live in drives me nuts because all the doors come into the open plan lounge/dining room/kitchen, and the mess just gets everywhere! I like the idea of containing mess, (dust, leaves, mud, puppy paw prints!) to the ground floor and the upstairs rooms would be a no-shoes area.

seven-day-weekend

I had a large downstairs kitchen in my house in Spain, it was large enough for a table, so we could eat there if necessary.

We also had a dining area, upstairs, behind the stairs.

I loved it. I loved being able to just leave all the mess in the kitchen if we had friends round and not having to unpack the shopping until I was ready.

We had no small children though, but if your kitchen is big enough they could just come in there with you.

Full_of_angst

Sounds like a lovely Victorian town house. I went to look at a modern version of what you describe and absolutely loved the set up. The kitchen had a dining area and a room off it as an adjoining sitting room; formal living room on the middle floor with bedrooms and bathroom and 2 further bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor.

I think it would make for an ideal way to live, however, I may have thought otherwise when I had toddlers (all those stairs!).

hazyjo

I've just moved from a four storey house.

Ground: kitchen/diner, and separate dining room and loo
1st: lounge and study/bed 4
2nd: bathroom, 2 beds
3rd: bedroom, en-suite

Makes me laugh when people think about 'all those stairs' - (yeah, I know it's different with kids!) in your case, it's only one more flight. People don't seem to give it a second thought when they do a loft conversion. How many stairs on a staircase? 10-15? Is it really that big a deal?

I liked having the lounge on the first floor, but possibly missed being able to wander outside from it (I'm a wanderer and hate sitting still - fidgety legs all the time). You have to be SUPER-CAREFUL when taking things upstairs. I fall over regularly (honestly, I skidded on a flower twice and fall over every pavement irregularity), so you do have to tread very carefully, especially if things are sliding around on a tray (tomato soup! Yikes!). But you do get used to just nipping downstairs for something. It wasn't hugely deep, my house, so you'd probably use the same number of steps in something like a bungalow.

The lounge definitely stayed tidier - you tend to dump things downstairs when you come in.

I do like townhouses, and I'd much rather the kitchen on the ground than on the first like in some.

It can be a pain if you've left something on the top floor and have to go up to get it if you're in a rush to get out, but you learn to double check everything pretty quickly! And with three storeys, I doubt it'd be a pain at all. Just means two staircases instead of one. Great exercise too!

Good luck!

Jx