Modern open plan kitchen in Edwardian Semi
Lisa HE
6 years ago
When we moved into our Edwardian semi at the beginning of 2015, we knew the big job was the kitchen. Most of our friends thought we were mad: high quality cherry cabinets, granite work tops, a range oven in the fireplace and a huge utility room. But we had three big problems: the kitchen table was in the position that would originally have been the old pantry - the darkest spot in what is otherwise a lovely light house. Second, we couldn't access - or even see - our beautiful garden apart from a small and awkward back door leading to equally small and awkward steps. And our dining room was completely separate: we have a large extended family and completely missed last Christmas lunch, trekking in between rooms.
Our plan was to amalgamate the laundry and kitchen, create a new wc and utility, reinstate the pantry, create an upper terrace in the garden, bring in light via roof lights and bifolds, connect into the dining room and have enough kitchen space to seat 18. But no additional floor space apart from nicking a bit off the garage - at 2500 square foot, we had plenty of space already.
We appointed a fabulous builder and budgeted to include new boiler, electric boards, full outdoor redecoration and sorting a dodgy chimney as part of the build.
It was a sizeable project - taking off the side wall of a 5 storey house with huge chimney stacks meant a lot of steel. We had to move drains and create new cellar access and we blew our contingency and timing plan in week 2 with a missing soakaway that meant digging a tunnel through our patio and far into the garden. After doing a phenomenal deal on the kitchen units, the supplier insisted on delivery 3 months early. So at one point we were storing 3 kitchens - the temporary one, the new one and the old one (to repurpose as our new laundry room). And then the new kitchen didn't fit once the wonky old laundry room had been squared up.
Once the shell was ready, we chose a modern kitchen for great contrast in a house otherwise rammed with period features. So handle-less gloss, drawers, drawers and more drawers, neff appliances, wine cooler, induction hob, hot tap, ufh. We know we should have integrated the fridge freezer but previous experiences had put us off so we went American. We repurposed and re-used where we could, sourced matching door handles to the rest of the house and found wood effect tiles for our terrace that matched the karndean indoors.
We're not quite done – we need to sort the glass balastrade outside, new dining chairs and need to sort the dining room. But nearly there and just love it. I wanted to share before and after pics as I’ve sought inspiration and advice from Houzz all the way along – what a great forum it is!
Our plan was to amalgamate the laundry and kitchen, create a new wc and utility, reinstate the pantry, create an upper terrace in the garden, bring in light via roof lights and bifolds, connect into the dining room and have enough kitchen space to seat 18. But no additional floor space apart from nicking a bit off the garage - at 2500 square foot, we had plenty of space already.
We appointed a fabulous builder and budgeted to include new boiler, electric boards, full outdoor redecoration and sorting a dodgy chimney as part of the build.
It was a sizeable project - taking off the side wall of a 5 storey house with huge chimney stacks meant a lot of steel. We had to move drains and create new cellar access and we blew our contingency and timing plan in week 2 with a missing soakaway that meant digging a tunnel through our patio and far into the garden. After doing a phenomenal deal on the kitchen units, the supplier insisted on delivery 3 months early. So at one point we were storing 3 kitchens - the temporary one, the new one and the old one (to repurpose as our new laundry room). And then the new kitchen didn't fit once the wonky old laundry room had been squared up.
Once the shell was ready, we chose a modern kitchen for great contrast in a house otherwise rammed with period features. So handle-less gloss, drawers, drawers and more drawers, neff appliances, wine cooler, induction hob, hot tap, ufh. We know we should have integrated the fridge freezer but previous experiences had put us off so we went American. We repurposed and re-used where we could, sourced matching door handles to the rest of the house and found wood effect tiles for our terrace that matched the karndean indoors.
We're not quite done – we need to sort the glass balastrade outside, new dining chairs and need to sort the dining room. But nearly there and just love it. I wanted to share before and after pics as I’ve sought inspiration and advice from Houzz all the way along – what a great forum it is!
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Comments (19)
Lisa HE
6 years agoJayne Smith
6 years agoRelated Discussions
1930’s semi - best open plan layout for kitchen/diner or all open?
Comments (24)I’m struggling to find a way to have a kitchen/island (really would like an island to have useable counterspace), generous dining table (seating for at least 6 people) and a sitting area in the same room if we don’t open up the wall between the current front and back living rooms. Would it make more sense to have part of the garage incorporated into the kitchen? There is a slight difference in floor level though between the garage and kitchen (Step down into the garage). Or block up the current kitchen door and have the access to a dining/kitchen through the current back living room space and then somehow fit in a dining table and seating area?...See MoreHelp planning open plan kitchen/living extension on 1930's house.
Comments (8)I’m glad you like the idea for the dining table! If I’m being completely honest I don’t really know whether the new layout ideas really give you any more useable space. Do you need a desk in the room? If so it might be worth having the bit of extra space but it could be worth making the garage storage space into a study space as well rather than having the desk intrude on your living space too much. What do you think? If you kept the bigger storage room then you could maybe do something like the picture attached so having a multi purpose room?...See MoreStyle of dining table for a small open plan mid century/modern space
Comments (22)Wow, thank you so much for going through the effort of illustrating this for me! Really kind of you! Good point about gold chair and the different finish on the lamp- did say I was clueless didnt i🙈 Kids are 10,4 and 0 so bench could work, but tbh I dont want one, because as much as I like the way it looks, I dont think it would ne that comfortable and we will be using table a lot- meals, family games, working from home, arts and crafts, so I want everyone to be comfortable🙂 So you think the heavy table would go OK with the rest of the decor like the examples above? Swoon supposed to be super unreliable with deliveries and table not available till march so im tempted by 3 week delivery promise from. John lewis... 🙈...See MoreHelp with floor plan in a narrow Edwardian house
Comments (9)I like the second plan better but not sure the nook thing would be worth it just to get light into a utility room (if that was the intended use). Back door useful though. Architect - I was expecting mine to give me great ideas that I hadn't thought of myself. This wasn't my experience and others I have spoken with have said similar. Maybe I have watched too many TV makeovers and my expectations were too high. For me the architect was useful for telling me what I couldn't and couldn't do and what would add significant cost. I'm happy with my final design but I pretty much designed it myself (and changed it halfway though construction!). Maybe I would have had a different experience with a better architect. You live and learn....See Morewendy Anderson
6 years agoLisa HE
6 years ago
A S
6 years ago
nmlondon
6 years ago
LTS
6 years ago
PROBath Bespoke
6 years ago
PROTopps Tiles
6 years agoLisa HE
6 years agoThankyou all - I have not only a copper coloured cat but a copper coloured dog too! Whilst they didn't influence the copper accenting, they did influence the flooring which was once planned to be white. But really happy we switched to karndean with design strips. Much more practical.
The stools are fifteen year old wedding presents - one of our re-use economies - so unfortunately not sure where they came from. We couldn't let them go as they are amazingly comfy. We put the breakfast bar at one end of the island rather than facing in to the kitchen, so we could see the garden (and the kids could see the tv!). Here's some more pics.
Lisa HE
6 years agoLisa HE
6 years agoHi gogo, here is the new kitchen layout floor plan (excuse annotations); a second one with the lighting and power annotations that seems to have distorted a bit - and a third showing the original layout of the whole ground floor. you can see the vast chimney breast that came out. plus our cellar access (and a drain) were in the old utility room, where we needed units and the island to go. The cheaper solution to all our work would have been to knock through the kitchen and dining room and combine... but I wanted to retain 2 separate lounges. Our kitchen is space isn't vast - but it's actually perfectly proportioned now with our other rooms and apart from those giveaway pillars, almost looks like it was always like that. We lowered our ceilings so no beams showing - took a while to get use to the 2400 height but again, definitely the right decision. I've loaded more pics in my ideabook - (called 'last attempt' in reference to the loading onto houzz debacle, not the kitchen itself....). Good luck with your project.
Lisa HE
6 years agoEmily
6 years agogogo23
6 years ago
Sonia