Create/design a Kitchen

warwick2001

Hi everyone,

Hope all is well. We have bought a house, hopefully gonna move in in the next few weeks. The house is an ex-rental, and needs a new kitchen, the one in at the moment is in very poor condition, so we're looking to replace ASAP. This is the link:

3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale in Croft Avenue, Penrith, Cumbria, CA11 7RG, CA11 (rightmove.co.uk)

And the floor plan, with measurements:



We intend to keep the kitchen in the same place, on the right hand side of the above floorplan. Our plan is to have 2 x 60cm full height units (coming into the room from the end wall) on the 2.55m wall, with a 120cm unit (or 2 x 60cm base units) with the hob built into the worktop. On the opposite/external wall have a few base units, with the sink, washer and hopefully dishwasher. The other plan we have discussed is having a length of worktop run into the main area of the room (so if you can see where the boiler is, just to the left of that the worktop would extend out into the room (vertically on the floorplan), by approx 1.5m) This obviously would reduce the size of the 'main' area of the room, but would give us more worktop.

The floor is raised floorboards, but the area to the right of the pencil line running down the middle of the room is tiled. I think they have just laid the tiles on top of the floorboards, and we intend to pull up the tiles, and that's another problem to address when we come round to fitting the kitchen. We also intend to open up the chimney breast and reinstate a stove there.

I'm just interested on how you clever lot would plan this room out. We are also thinking of having full height cupboards on the wall with the door into the room (top wall in the floorplan as seen above), as there is approx 3.5m of space to be used.

Any ideas welcome.

Thanks

P.S Apologies the floorplan is upside down, I have no idea how to flip it round. And for scale, each tiny square is 5cm.

Doozergirl

I'd probably move the kitchen.  Put the cooker into the opened-up chimney breast and have one run of units on that wall with an island in front.  This sort of thing... 

I'd open up the cupboard area to increase the size of the existing kitchen and use that as a dining area. 

I'd put a stove in the lounge.  

phoebe1989seb

I'm with Doozer 😀

Imho, it makes sense to put the kitchen cabinets into the larger space and utilise the smaller - current kitchen - as a dining area. It will give you more options and you'll have a far better, more functional space that looks aesthetically pleasing too!

We did something similar in our current house (a 400 year old mill), although ours was admittedly more complex as we moved the kitchen into the front and middle rooms (having first knocked them through, removed a chimney breast, added lots of steels etc), whilst turning the old kitchen into a snug.

In our case we didn't want the oven in the remaining chimney breast - mainly because we'd already got the cabinets including a decorative cooker hood 😉 - so we had a wood burner fitted there instead. But having done the whole range inset into chimney with island in front at a previous house, I agree it would look great!

Initially we put a table in front of the wood burner here (our island is at the other end), but now have a sofa and it's a lovely place for someone to sit whilst the other is cooking....

Rosa_Damascena

Can I ask what is going on on the render above the GF bay window?

ka7e

I've got a 1930s house with a similar layout and I initially wanted the kitchen moved to the larger area, but the cost and rigmarole of moving drainage put me off. Personally, I would block up the back door and install French doors were the window is currently. That would give you nearly 4m of base units - plenty of room for hob, sink, dishwasher, deep drawers etc. Do away with the wall units to make the space seem bigger. I also have all tall units on the opposite wall housing double oven and fridge/freezer and you would have room for tall larder units with drawers inside. That boiler stuck in the middle of the wall would bug me though!

warwick2001

Rosa_Damascena said:

Can I ask what is going on on the render above the GF bay window?

No you can not.....

Just joking. Its actually just pretty dirty. The render itself isn't in the best condition, and we have planned to chip it all off and replace it in a few years time. We asked the surveyor to have a good look at that bit, and he reckons its fine, but could do with a good power-wash. Hopefully that's all it is....

warwick2001

Doozergirl said:

I'd probably move the kitchen.  Put the cooker into the opened-up chimney breast and have one run of units on that wall with an island in front.  This sort of thing... 

I'd open up the cupboard area to increase the size of the existing kitchen and use that as a dining area. 

I'd put a stove in the lounge.  

Thanks for the idea's Doozer. And you're right, moving the kitchen into the main room would be the absolute ideal, it would make the entire area far more appealing, and useable. I'm just not sure we'll have the budget to do this in the next 4/5 years.

Its defo something to keep in mind tho, and if I can befriend some tradesmen that'll help with weekend work, I'll certainly by doing this sooner.

warwick2001

phoebe1989seb said:

I'm with Doozer 😀

Imho, it makes sense to put the kitchen cabinets into the larger space and utilise the smaller - current kitchen - as a dining area. It will give you more options and you'll have a far better, more functional space that looks aesthetically pleasing too!

We did something similar in our current house (a 400 year old mill), although ours was admittedly more complex as we moved the kitchen into the front and middle rooms (having first knocked them through, removed a chimney breast, added lots of steels etc), whilst turning the old kitchen into a snug.

In our case we didn't want the oven in the remaining chimney breast - mainly because we'd already got the cabinets including a decorative cooker hood 😉 - so we had a wood burner fitted there instead. But having done the whole range inset into chimney with island in front at a previous house, I agree it would look great!

Initially we put a table in front of the wood burner here (our island is at the other end), but now have a sofa and it's a lovely place for someone to sit whilst the other is cooking....

If you don't mind me asking, how much did all of the work cost? And did you do a lot of it yourself? I'm going to be working away for the next 3 years, so I'll find it difficult to DIY this project, hence the costs could be prohibitive to do this in the immediate future.

phoebe1989seb

Of course, although it's quite hard to break it down 😃

We did do a lot of it ourselves (DH has since set up his own property renovation/project management business, based on 20 years experience of design work and DIYing several complicated house projects for us!), but obviously had to get trades in for some stuff.

Our property had no water supply so first huge expense was drilling a borehole (£11k) as the previous set up whereby water was supplied via a well on a nearby farmer's land had been terminated, so plumbing was all going to be changed anyway. The property was a repossession with an ancient boiler and trashed kitchen, bathroom etc, so needed gutting and improving sympathetically to the age of the building (400 years).

We were new to the area (long distance move from England to Wales) so knew no trades locally to start with and had to go by recommendations, most of which fortunately turned out ok. The sparks (full rewire) and heating engineer/plumber we paid on a day rate with us supplying some of the materials - this was 2018 before prices rose exponentially! - and we found a guy locally who was able to help DH with fitting the rsjs for a fixed price of £600.

Stuff like knocking walls down (after getting calcs done by a structural engineer obviously!), plastering, fitting the kitchen - including building a large island that incorporated a couple of cabinets we'd purchased with microcement top - was all done by DH with me labouring 😉

Overall the kitchen and associated works to relocate it cost slightly in excess of £20k, although that includes a wood burner/fitting which was about £3k. Of that total, the kitchen cabinets (Handmade Kitchens of Christchurch), tap, sink, worktops - but not the appliances or massive vintage larder we found on eBay - were approximately £10k.

As we'd downsized from a larger, more expensive house we had cash reserves to pay for this work and the rest of the first phase. Four years on we're still not in sight of the end, with plans to extend and make further reconfigurations during 2022/3. Things at home have slowed down since DH's business took off 🙄

If you plan to be working away, it might be best to defer for a while!

warwick2001

phoebe1989seb said:

Of course, although it's quite hard to break it down 😃

We did do a lot of it ourselves (DH has since set up his own property renovation/project management business, based on 20 years experience of design work and DIYing several complicated house projects for us!), but obviously had to get trades in for some stuff.

Our property had no water supply so first huge expense was drilling a borehole (£11k) as the previous set up whereby water was supplied via a well on a nearby farmer's land had been terminated, so plumbing was all going to be changed anyway. The property was a repossession with an ancient boiler and trashed kitchen, bathroom etc, so needed gutting and improving sympathetically to the age of the building (400 years).

We were new to the area (long distance move from England to Wales) so knew no trades locally to start with and had to go by recommendations, most of which fortunately turned out ok. The sparks (full rewire) and heating engineer/plumber we paid on a day rate with us supplying some of the materials - this was 2018 before prices rose exponentially! - and we found a guy locally who was able to help DH with fitting the rsjs for a fixed price of £600.

Stuff like knocking walls down (after getting calcs done by a structural engineer obviously!), plastering, fitting the kitchen - including building a large island that incorporated a couple of cabinets we'd purchased with microcement top - was all done by DH with me labouring 😉

Overall the kitchen and associated works to relocate it cost slightly in excess of £20k, although that includes a wood burner/fitting which was about £3k. Of that total, the kitchen cabinets (Handmade Kitchens of Christchurch), tap, sink, worktops - but not the appliances or massive vintage larder we found on eBay - were approximately £10k.

As we'd downsized from a larger, more expensive house we had cash reserves to pay for this work and the rest of the first phase. Four years on we're still not in sight of the end, with plans to extend and make further reconfigurations during 2022/3. Things at home have slowed down since DH's business took off 🙄

If you plan to be working away, it might be best to defer for a while!

Thanks for this Phoebe, really great info.

Even tho I'm working away, my wife will be living in the house, so I think we might have to just replace the current kitchen with like for like (or what ka7e has suggested) for the time being. The full renovation will be penciled in for 2026, by then hopefully the world will have calmed down, and we can get tradesmen and materials without too much hassle. Its finding that balance of not spending too much when we know we are planning to rip everything out again, but also making the house livable and lovable for the 4 years in the interim. 'Tis a pickle!!

FreeBear

ka7e said: Do away with the wall units to make the space seem bigger.

Getting rid of wall units can make a huge difference in the look & feel of a kitchen. Mine is 3.4m x 2.4m and originally had wall units on half of one of the longer walls. A combination of losing the wall units and adding extra lighting has made the space seem much larger. The loss of cupboard space has just meant that I don't have so much unused crap stashed away.