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Light & space on a budget (!) please

Helen Downing-Emms

7 years ago

Hi, we live in a lovely 1870 house that incorporates different levels between living spaces. The kitchen is very small & the dining area (once called a breakfast room) is very dark & feels cut off. Some neighbours have opened up the back of the house more by taking walls down between library & dining space but they are all a bit dated & so offer no real inspiration. Others have widened the kitchen & created a long straight oblong kitchen diner but again, not terribly inspiring. We have a limited budget but would like a larger kitchen diner & would like more light, space & feel a greater attachment to the 100 ft garden beyond

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Comments (2)

Jonathan
7 years ago
It really depends on the available budget. If money were no object I would remove the chimney stack and remove most of the wall between the breakfast room and library. This will likely cost £4000.

I would put the kitchen in the former breakfast room and then get rid of the breakfast room door to the hall so that there is more wall space for units. The cost of a new kitchen can be anywhere between £7 and £45K depending on what you want.

I would make the former kitchen into a cozy dining room with banquette seating.

Don't forget that you will also have to budget for flooring, decorating, rewiring, lighting.

Do you have a budget in mind?
Helen Downing-Emms
Original Author
7 years ago
Hi Jonathan, thanks for your response. Funnily enough, very soon after posting the plea for help we came up with a solution (after months of deliberating). Whilst the library is approx 3ft higher than the breakfast room, we have empty cellar space below & so we are currently thinking that we will drop the library floor to the same level as the rest of the back of the house, remove the wall & chimney breast between the library & breakfast room, take away the back door outside empty space & join up the kitchen wall to the main house wall. This will create a large living/dining space with the kitchen remaining in the same space but with additional floor cupboards and the cooking area coming out to the living/dining room. The back garden will join the house via large bi-fold (or similar) doors. We are currently debating whether to keep both the original breakfast room & library doors into the hallway or whether to lose one..... & in which case which one! The cost of all of this work will be less than the original extension that we were considering & will enable us to remove the chimney breasts in the two floors above the breakfast room, thereby making those smallish rooms bigger. Hopefully I will get my light & airy space soon :)
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