Kitchen renew or move

perbinder

I have an L shaped lounge diner kitchen

am wondering if it would be better to swap the lounge and kitchen to make the kitchen bigger or just renew it where it is

it was a 2 bed bungalow now 4 bed with loft extension 

any thoughts?

AdrianC

I presume the kitchen started off in what's now the big sitting room, before the L-shaped extension was built, so there's going to be gas/plumbing relatively easily available in there.

Swapping the two over is going to give a very odd layout - through the kitchen to get to the living room? Moving that wall to make the kitchen rectangular would be major, because that's structural to the original property.

I can see why you'd want to - I presume it's a bit of a galley kitchen, with the square bit as breakfast room in front of the outside doors?

If you want more kitchen space, your best bet may be to use the whole of the extension for the kitchen, and sacrifice the "breakfast room", with a table in the sitting room, which would become more living/dining. There's certainly space.

perbinder

AdrianC said:

I presume the kitchen started off in what's now the big sitting room, before the L-shaped extension was built, so there's going to be gas/plumbing relatively easily available in there.

Swapping the two over is going to give a very odd layout - through the kitchen to get to the living room? Moving that wall to make the kitchen rectangular would be major, because that's structural to the original property.

I can see why you'd want to - I presume it's a bit of a galley kitchen, with the square bit as breakfast room in front of the outside doors?

If you want more kitchen space, your best bet may be to use the whole of the extension for the kitchen, and sacrifice the "breakfast room", with a table in the sitting room, which would become more living/dining. There's certainly space.

I was thinking of moving the kitchen to the front of the house. The doorway to the lounge is at the end of the hallway so would come in behind the kitchen. 

The reason for me was to get a bigger kitchen but then the lounge would be smaller 

NinjaTune

I guess it depends on how much time you like to spend in the kitchen vs the living room.  If you entertain, e.g. dinner parties, regularly then swapping it round could work well - plenty of space to have a sofa plus dining area.  The french doors would be lovely in a living room during the summer months, bringing the garden in, but it might feel cramped during the winter months.

coachman12

I agree entirely with what AdrianC said to the O/P in the first reply. Does anyone really want a bigger kitchen than lounge?  Does anyone really spend more time in a kitchen as opposed to a lounge? A larger kitchen could easily be obtained by merely switching a table and chairs into the lounge, next to the enlarged kitchen. As for moving the kitchen to the front of the house, I just cannot see any advantage in doing so at all. Good luck.

Doozergirl

It is a great big lounge for a two bed house! 

I'd be tempted to knock much of the dividing wall through and to play with the proportions of it a bit more, whether it's open plan or whether you put a wall in elsewhere to create two/three distinct, but quadrangular spaces.   It would cost a little bit, but I think you could improve the flow and the saleability.  I think it would make it a really nice place to live if the spaces were more balanced.  

I'd definitely take the opportunity whilst planning a new kitchen. 

MFWannabe

I’d leave kitchen where it is personally with bi fold doors on the one side in place of patio? 

MFWannabe

MFWannabe said:

I’d leave kitchen where it is personally but change the layout? I would brick up where patio door is and have kitchen over that side with dining area as you come from living room with a set of bi fold doors there so it flows through from lounge into garden

This is what I’d do 

AdrianC

coachman12 said:

Does anyone really spend more time in a kitchen as opposed to a lounge?

Yes. We spend a lot more time in the kitchen than the lounge.

Our kitchen is 6m x 4.5m, airy and light, triple aspect with windows S, E and W, an 8-person table in it, and space around that. We both love cooking, and we tend to do "proper meals" most nights, so a fair bit of time cooking and eating. In effect, it's a combined kitchen and living room.

Our living room is the opposite end of the house, still large - 6m x 3m - but darker (3 small windows in one side, albeit S) and cosier. It's where we retire to later evening if there's something we particularly want to watch on the tv (the tv goes on maybe twice a week at most), or if we're lighting the woodburner. Perhaps think of it in the old "withdrawing room" frame.

But that's a very different layout to the place the OP's looking at. You could move the kitchen into the big room - and use that as an open-plan kitchen/diner/living room, spilling into the extension on nice evenings. But then I think i'd get frustrated at the narrowness of that strip - plus it not being opener-planier in to the main room, and that'd be a big job. If you were up for that job, then it might make more sense.

As a compromise, I'd probably plan the kitchen to be more in the large end of the extension, with the galley strip more as a utility, and put a large, open doorway nearer the "kitchen end".

Scotbot

I would move the wall between the kitchen and lounge back into the lounge so both rooms are rectangular thus enlarging the kitchen. The lounge is large enough. Similar to Doozergirl's suggestion but not open plan. It is probably a  retaining wall so you would need to put steels in . Not cheap but the neither is moving plumbing. 

Splatfoot

I'd be knocking that supporting wall down and squaring off the kitchen. It's going to be cheaper than moving. I would possibly steal a bit from the lounge too. You do so much more in a kitchen than in a lounge.