Can i board up an open fireplace? New kitchn

ST1991

Hi All,

Along with various other bits and bobs that we have been planning in our first house, we're finally getting around the planning and getting quotes for a new kitchen.
The room doesn't have a kitchen at the moment, so planning on getting plumbing and electrics sorted ahead of time.

The room has an open chimney fireplace (no gas or hidden boilers), which in order to get a decent run of units we may need to close off. It has an old cast iron fireplace which is beautiful, but I'm just not sure how else i would get the room to function as a kitchen without boarding it up.

Can i board up the fireplace and put a vent in above the units to allow air to circulate still? is there anything i need to be careful of?

I have thought about closing the fireplace and set the oven back into it, but that's not really in our price bracket, so instead i want to put the oven in the middle of the fireplace, with units either side and then into the alcoves. In this case i can leave some kind of opening/cupboard door behind the oven to access the open chimney if needs be.

This isn't what we want, but a good example of the 'oven in the middle' i'm trying to describe.
https://www.diy.com/departments/kitchen/fitted-kitchens/cooke-lewis-woburn-framed/cat710060.cat?icamp=kt_fk_woburn

The room is 3.2x3.6 and has a beautifiul large low-set window looking onto the garden. We want to put a window seat in there, and have this room as a kitchen diner.
here is the layout. bottom wall has a large radiator:

Doozergirl

Essentially yes.

I’m confused though as you don’t want to put the oven into the fireplace but you do want to put it in the middle?

Mutton_Geoff

If you put the cooker in front of the chimney breast you may have to close off the two alcoves as well, especially if they are narrow since it will be tricky to fit the units into the alcoves and around.

You can just leave a vent for the chimney behind the cooker, no need to have easy access to it.

I can recommend looking at DIY Kitchens, used them for several kitchens. A great range of pre assembled units, good quality and prices. Service is excellent. No connection to this firm, just a happy customer.

Try to get your cooker hood to extract outside. Recirculating is rubbish. You could use the chimney stack for this purpose but would need to seal the fireplace off to avoid extracting back into the room.

Doozergirl

Mutton_Geoff wrote: »

If you put the cooker in front of the chimney breast you may have to close off the two alcoves as well, especially if they are narrow since it will be tricky to fit the units into the alcoves and around.

If that is their plan, I completely agree. I was wondering if it was but there's no logic to it.

Opening it up and plastering it isn't the most expensive job in the world. £500 if that? I'd save up for it rather than lose a huge amount of space.

Mutton_Geoff

Doozergirl wrote: »

If that is their plan, I completely agree. I was wondering if it was but there's no logic to it.

Opening it up and plastering it isn't the most expensive job in the world. £500 if that? I'd save up for it rather than lose a huge amount of space.

It's not clear which is the longest wall since the OP gave the dimensions as 3.2 x 3.6m but the drawing is of a square room. If the fireplace is on the longer wall, then it may just be possible to excavate the fire surround to a builders opening or further to get 110cm width inside the chimney breast for the cooker to go into. The lintel could be raised then the extractor neatly built in, exhausting into the chimney. But, as you say, some extra cost, but well worth it compared to the cost of fitting out the whole kitchen.


Something like this (copied from Pinterest)

Doozergirl

You can do it with a less expensive (smaller) cooker too or have a regular inbuilt oven and hob and just continue the worktop in and around the opening.

ST1991

Yes sorry if i was't clear in my original post. The alcoves are probably a good 45cm deep so i don't want to lose that space (even if i just end up with shallower units in there).
The longest wall is the one with the chimney breast on, so i was thinking about building the units into the alcoves and then rounded off around the chimney breast with more units/cooker there. It doesn't necessarily have to be built 'in' to the chimney breast, if that makes sense.

I don't really want to board up the fireplace as the cast iron is beautiful and the house is very old so keeping some features would be preferable. But i don't really see how else i would fit a kitchen in this layout.

I guess i could potentially have the dining table in-front of the window, and move the doorway so it is in the bottom left, running units along the bottom and right hand side instead...? That way we could keep the fireplace, and have a tall larder unit in the top right hand side alcove.

Slinky

Could it work better if you set the oven into one of the alcoves and then have some shallow shelfed units across where the fireplace is, essentially flattening the wall rather than having the oven sticking out into the room and the recessed cupboards in the alcoves?

Doozergirl

Do you have a proper floorplan of the house?

Mutton_Geoff

Doozergirl wrote: »

Do you have a proper floorplan of the house?

Good idea. And then take that around Wren, Magnet and any other kitchen design places you can find to get ideas.

Doozergirl

Mutton_Geoff wrote: »

Good idea. And then take that around Wren, Magnet and any other kitchen design places you can find to get ideas.

I did mean the whole house. Well, the ground floor.