Would really appreciate help with kitchen extension design

Marmitegirly

Hi, I live in a typical 1930s semi with a knock through lounge/dining room and galley kitchen downstairs. We have had approval for an extension across the whole back of the house going out for 5 metres BUT I am so stuck on where to site the kitchen - in the extension or in the current 'back room'. This project will be a really big deal for me and it's been going nowhere as I am in a dilemma. I would really appreciate any help or advice.

Aims of the extension:
Have a big family kitchen with seating (sofa), create a utility room and downstairs loo, somewhere else for us (or the kids and friends) to go other than the current knocked through lounge/diner as my current kitchen is too small to sit in.

Options: (with both, the current kitchen will be half a downstairs loo and half a utility room)
(1) Have the kitchen in the current 'back room' (3.84m x 3.35m) (rebuild the knocked through wall to the lounge) and use the extension as a big diner/family room with the table/chairs and sofa in it.
(2) Have the kitchen in the extension with the sofa area and the dining table in the current 'back room'.

Our architect can't draw up the next plans that the builders will use to quote until I have decided as supplies/services will be in different places.

Anyone had an extension like this that has worked brilliantly and could share some thoughts?

Many thanks, Lisa

Doozergirl

Sit in the light.

Your present back room is going to be the darkest room. A kitchen is the easiest place to put artificial light as often need additional lighting for tasks anyway.

A key feature for any living space and wellbeing is daylight. Near windows.

The internals of a house are pretty irrelevant in material planning terms. Your architect only needs to have the external, visible structure agreed. Presumably that will be the same, regardless of layout. Even changing the sizes of windows is immaterial in planning terms. It's good to plan ahead, but you might have a little more time to make a final decision than you think, while planning goes through.

mishkanorman

We've just added a kitchen / lounge room to our house, the 3 separate rooms weren't great for family life and the kitchen wasn't big enough as it was. We had the same dilemma as you.

The new layout means we can in future years use the old living room and dining room as bedrooms but for now they will be used as separate living rooms for when we need some space away from each other. The old kitchen will be a utility room.

I went through so many sketches of what we could do before settling on this one, draw it out so you can mark out any positives or negatives and also work out factors like noise (we have neighbours we want to distance ourselves from) aswell as cost.

DRP

Agree with Doozergirl - put your living space in the bright & new extension bit.


We just completed our extension and created a kitchen-diner-living room and separate wc/utlity (from 1/3 of the kitchen). The new kitchen is 2/3 in the old kitchen and 1/3 in the new extension (therefore none of the utilities need moving). The diner part is exactly where it was.

Although the footprint of kitchen + diner are virtually unchanged, being in an open-plan room makes them feel much bigger.

Marmitegirly

Interesting point about light. We have the planning permission agreed so it is cruch time when it comes to design as the drawings need to to accurate to get quotes.

Supplies and services wise, if I put the kitchen in the 'back room' then it is the adjoining wall to our neigbours on the semi-detached so presumably all the supplies and services would have to go under towards the external wall to feed into the drains they currently use. I am not sure how much of a hassle this might be but presumably is possible. The existing kitchen has the external wall and half of this will be the utility room which will be ideal for the washing machine and tumble drier.

Thanks for your input and any more welcomed while I sketch out pros and cons.

Person_one

Can I make a suggestion that you didn't ask for? Sorry!

Consider comfortable upholstered bench style dining seating round a table rather than a sofa. I've never actually know a kitchen/dining room sofa to be used in reality. If you want to sit on a sofa, you have a lounge! Maybe something like this but to your taste?

http://sojoob.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/corner-bench-dining-table-set-800x705.jpg

Hoploz

I put a big extension across my old house. I used the old kitchen as dining area and had the kitchen and sitting room at the back - as already said, you want to sit & relax in daylight overlooking the garden, and I wanted to have the sink overlooking the garden (as is traditional) to watch my young children outside. Dining table mainly used in the evening with artificial light anyway so it didn't matter it only had a small side window overlooking side fence. Lived there 5 years after doing the work and loved it. We had a separate front room which was for evenings when kids out the way - a toy-free area! Spent the day times in the open plan rear.

Interestingly, the people we sold the house to have put the dining table where we had the sitting area, don't know what they use the other bit for, can't see that through the front windows lol. (But they are older and don't have kids)

Hoploz

Interesting point about querying having a sofa in the kitchen. If you only have a sofa in a kitchen it won't get used, correct. You need a big enough area to put a tv and ideally two sofas (that's what we had in old house and also in new house too and we use them all the time )

suki1964

I had a sofa in my kitchen/extension living space, as well as TVs, PC and sound system

We had a 2 up 2 down, the kitchen being a gallery. We extended out with French doors and side lights to the garden ( bi folding weren't around in the day )

We kept the kitchen where it was, just moving the sink, washing machine etc to the side walls. Meant I didn't have a view whilst washing up, but I didn't care, I had a dish washer .

Turned my back to the cooker and I had a huge space with room for an 8 seater table, tv, PC,sofa etc and believe me, the room was used all day. Kids doing homework, me cooking, someone lazing on the sofa, dogs in and out. Loved the room Deifinately used more then the living room

Marmitegirly

Thanks so much for the other comments. My mum has a small sofa in her kitchen extension and we sit on it all the time but you're quite right, a single sofa does not create an alternative lounge. As my kids are teenagers, I was looking for a second place to sit particularly when they have their friends round.

So, I need to do a scale plan but so far have sketched out either a corner sofa or two sofas in the extension so there's a TV and it properly defines the space. On reflection, I spend more time pottering in the kitchen and we are a family that likes to cook so if I was going to put the place where I spend the most time under the most light (which I thought was a great way to prioritise, thank you) then it would make more sense to have the kitchen in the extension. The size of the extension is 6m wide by 5m out so I think I can fit in a nice kitchen, island unit with a couple of bar stools and a corner sofa/two sofas in this space. Tonight's job is to get the ruler out and check my estimates actually work. (Will also look at the benches).

Your thoughts are much appreciated. It's been really useful knowing what you did and how it worked. :-)

getmore4less

I think one thing to decide is do you want to create an inside/outside space with large opening even consider part of the kitchen outdoors plumbing and gas for built in BBQ etc.

Not a big UK thing but we do get the weather enough of the year to have a planned outdoor eating/social integrated with a normal kitchen space.

The corner/bench social eating seating style is quite common in parts of Europe and Scandinavia.