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Advice needed on kitchen and utility room renovation
Kitty34
Posts: 11 Forumite
Hi, I am looking for some advice on renovating our kitchen and utility room (sorry, this might be long).
We currently have a small kitchen and small utility room. The kitchen is an extension at the back of the house, built decades ago. The utility room is a newer extension to the side of the kitchen, built in the last 10 years by the previous owner. The back door is now off the utility room. The utility room floor is lower than the kitchen floor (two steps, at least 6"). The utility room extension was a bad job - it is drafty, the steps are breaking, some of the ceiling lights don't work and the plumbing is all over the place. As the kitchen is small, we have the bin, fridge freezer and dish washer in the utility room, so we don't currently have a door between the two rooms. The kitchen units are old and desperately need replacing.
Ideally, we would like to knock down the dividing wall (non load bearing) and merge the two rooms. The utility room floor would need raising to the height of the kitchen floor and the external wall of the utility room would need to be rebuilt in brick (it is currently plastic!). Then we would like to replace the kitchen and redecorate.
Some more background info. The house is worth approx 200-220K and we have an outstanding mortgage of 150K. We will have to borrow more from the mortgage to pay for the work. We intend to stay in the house for another 3-4 years and then move.
My questions are:
1. Do my plans to merge the two rooms sound reasonable?
2. Is it likely that we would increase the value of the house by the cost of the work?
3. Would we be better off just doing up the two rooms and leaving them separate? I expect some buyers would prefer a utility room, although maybe not at the expense of a smaller kitchen.
4. Or should we just tolerate the scruffy kitchen for a few years as we are going to sell anyway?
5. Any ideas on what this will cost approximately (I have a number of people coming his week to quote, but I don't really have a ball park figure in mind). I wouldn't want to spend more than 10k.
Many thanks for reading all this and for any advice.
We currently have a small kitchen and small utility room. The kitchen is an extension at the back of the house, built decades ago. The utility room is a newer extension to the side of the kitchen, built in the last 10 years by the previous owner. The back door is now off the utility room. The utility room floor is lower than the kitchen floor (two steps, at least 6"). The utility room extension was a bad job - it is drafty, the steps are breaking, some of the ceiling lights don't work and the plumbing is all over the place. As the kitchen is small, we have the bin, fridge freezer and dish washer in the utility room, so we don't currently have a door between the two rooms. The kitchen units are old and desperately need replacing.
Ideally, we would like to knock down the dividing wall (non load bearing) and merge the two rooms. The utility room floor would need raising to the height of the kitchen floor and the external wall of the utility room would need to be rebuilt in brick (it is currently plastic!). Then we would like to replace the kitchen and redecorate.
Some more background info. The house is worth approx 200-220K and we have an outstanding mortgage of 150K. We will have to borrow more from the mortgage to pay for the work. We intend to stay in the house for another 3-4 years and then move.
My questions are:
1. Do my plans to merge the two rooms sound reasonable?
2. Is it likely that we would increase the value of the house by the cost of the work?
3. Would we be better off just doing up the two rooms and leaving them separate? I expect some buyers would prefer a utility room, although maybe not at the expense of a smaller kitchen.
4. Or should we just tolerate the scruffy kitchen for a few years as we are going to sell anyway?
5. Any ideas on what this will cost approximately (I have a number of people coming his week to quote, but I don't really have a ball park figure in mind). I wouldn't want to spend more than 10k.
Many thanks for reading all this and for any advice.
0
Comments
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I'm no expert but we're planning an extension where we're rebuilding existing single skin extensions and they have to be knocked down and built again from foundations up. So I'm pretty sure you're looking at more than 10k.
Try and upload a floor plan as there are some people on here who will be able to give you good advice0
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