New layout for kitchen after side-return extension

6 years ago

Hello,

We have a house in north London built in 1901. The garden is north facing so have the dilemma of lack of light at the back of the house. We're planning on extending out the back and over the side return, a total of 6 meters from the current back of the beginning of the side return (not sure this is the best explanation!).

We plan to move the kitchen to where the current dining room is and have the dining/social space towards the new bifolding doors. Our idea is to make the whole of downstairs (except for the lounge at the front) one social space. Most of our evenings revolve around the kitchen anyway.

We're not sure our kitchen idea of having one long (double width) island is going to be too unusual. We haven't been able to find any similar design by trawling the internet.

Attached is a pic of how layout is now, the new area for new extension (ignore internal layout on this pic) and a rough sketch of our idea, starting from after the lounge. I hope it's not too confusing!

Any feedback from people who have experienced similar projects? We're a little out of our depth!!

Thanks!!

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Comments (4)

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6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
The room looks like it is about 3m wide? Really not wide enough for a 110 cm island I would say. If your evenings revolve around the kitchen, why not have it in the spacious new extension? It would really be worth working with a designer or concept planner now as the space has huge potential but it will be tricky to maximise and make the best of the light. I bet you can fit an island in somewhere :)
Lauren
6 years ago
I'm sure you could get around the aesthetics of the kitchen design but I'm not convinced theres enough space around the island for safe and comfortable cooking.

You really need 90cm all around an island. You sort of do except both the fridge and ovens eat into the space and thats without accounting for when you need to open the doors.

I wonder if you could open up the fireplace to put a range style oven in, reduce the island in width and include a peninsula to create more counter top space?

You could situate the sink in the island or peninsula but at least with the latter you would be facing the natural light.

Kind like this pic below but the island would be running parallel and you'd have a peninsula to the right.
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Hi Imran, Very exciting to be starting your project! I'm not going to make any suggestions on how to layout your space as I'm not an expert but having just gone through a very similar process I thought a few words of advice might be helpful? We were looking at remodelling the downstairs of our house and got structural engineers and architects involved but to be honest it was our designer who was the most help and has stopped us making a couple of silly and costly mistakes with space planning (nothing to do with colours, paint choices or curtains!!!) I would highly recommend working with someone who can do some 3D models and renders of the proposed space for you, so you can see how it will all look. Our designer was amazing and we ended up with 4 or 5 different computer generated 3D images (and YouTube videos!!!) of how the space would look as you walked around it. Not only was it amazingly helpful but she also saved us a lot of money on structural work by pointing out things that would have been costly and not really add anything to the space. I've attached a couple of pics of our space and then the 3D images she did for us. Structural work and remodelling is expensive and our designer (Gina from Create Perfect) was a fraction of what we're spending on the house (far less than I would have expected) and has been worth her weight in gold for getting the space right! I was also surprised by the amount of money we saved using her trade discounts for things like worktops, appliances, carpeting and lighting etc) We're in the middle of building work right now, so I can't post any finished pics but my advice would definitely be to spend a little bit of money now and make sure you get it right as the wrong decisions with walls and structures are mistakes you can't change without a lot more time and money! Good luck whatever you do- it's all very exciting!!!
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Hi OnePlan, many thanks for quick feedback. Valid points you made. The hallway to WC has a small cloakroom before you enter the WC. This is because I may not have enough space to put a door due to some structural elements and the clearing from front wall to stairs is just 36 inch. This is a southern aspect garden . I plan to put some sky lights/windows across the width of rear extension so yes its a valid point about evening sun affecting TV. Peninsula is also good option to give us more spaces. Let me work it and post back results. We could open a door to pantry/laundry room but then loose the wall to put stuff.
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A B
6 years ago
I would do something like this. Huge kitchen island facing garden with lots of seating. Living space in front of doors to garden. Slightly enlarged separate living room to the front, then make the middle room into a utility. This would allow you to have all the laundry, clutter and appliances out of your kitchen
Chris Martin
Original Author
6 years ago
Wow - these are some excellent ideas! Going to explore them in more detail for sure. My sketch is really not very accurate - the width of the room from the chimney stack to the 'pantry' side is 320cm. So I guess there is room for the large island, but now I'm rethinking the whole thing!

We have put in the permitted development request to the council, so the space won't change. These suggestions will really help us finalise the layout.

1 other question. The ceiling height in the current dining space is 280cm, it then drops with a step to where the current kitchen is to 260cm. We're thinking of removing the step and making the who new extension space a floating floor to allow the existing house to breath. This will make the extension space ceiling height 245cm. Do you think this is too low or will look strange? Or should we keep the step down for the benefit of a higher ceiling in the extension section - but sacrifice the floor being able to 'breath'.

New layout for kitchen after side-return extension

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Lauren

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New layout for kitchen after side-return extension

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Lauren

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Chris Martin
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