Hmm. I can see why you’ve done it this way and I agree you want a separate utility for laundry. However I would be concerned that the corridor bit would feel like a corridor (!) and also that it could become a bit of a dumping ground.

Personally I’d also want some more prep space near my hob rather than having to move prepped food from island to hob all the time.

Are you able to post the whole ground floor? Is the space just before the corridor the hallway - it looks quite generous? Also what are you planning to put in the utility aside from the laundry machines?

Island to hob though is only a turn of the body. As long as you’re not standing the other side of the island it’s close enough to the hob

@minipie

This is the current arrangement. The extension, as you can see from the previous drawing is behind all of this. Does this help at all?

@Jonathan

Thanks for your efforts. I love the bigger utility room and the worktop in the alcove the other side. However its probably not apparent on my plans but removing the other wall is not really an option for two reasons:

1) We really want to keep the existing Lounge/Dining room as a single room with a bifold or similar door to the extension. This will give us both a formal and informal entertaining area which can be combined.

2) From a practical point of view the wall running down the middle of the house is a main spine wall from which everything else is hung so it would be non-trivial (although not by any means impossible) to remove.

@ Ian Matthews

Please no, not an American fridge freezer. We hate them :-) Would much rather have integrated. We did think about putting the fridge in that location but as you point out that would mean moving the hob to the island unit which we want to avoid.

It would be interesting to see the whole of the ground floor as Minipie says. I don't mind the design, although, I don't think i'd put the ovens where you have them, and there's a huge expanse of under utilised space in the family room / living area. The trouble with open plan, is the lack of walls to place anything on. Realistically you can have a sofa, and nowhere to put even a small T.V.

The dining room is also segregated from the kitchen area, when it should be opposite the kitchen or at least feel like it's part of the same room.

I presume you probably have a window in the dining room, otherwise it's going to be very dark.

Changing the areas over would be better, so have the dining table in the kitchen

Or maybe change the plan completely, a lot of people have this type of arrangement, so you use the space in the extension to it's best advantage.

I do like your current design, as long as you have at least 30 cm counter space on the left side of the hob (as you're facing it). It's not quite clear to me whether you've planned a tall cabinet there. It's a safety issue and a practical one, space for pan handles.

Also, if you're planning to have your coffee machine in the "corridor" (which I don't think will feel like a corridor, since it's wide enough), it might be a good idea to have a small sink there too. Easy for emptying and filling the machine.

Wow, thanks for all the comments. Perhaps one thing that I didn’t make clear enough in my original question is that the extension is new, the existing kitchen will get reconfigured but the intention is that nothing else changes. This is not a whole house refurbishment – that has been done already.

So, what we will have is:

Existing lounge/dining room as a formal entertaining area. The existing French windows at the rear will be replaced with something like internal bifold doors into the extension.

Existing hall with cloakroom.

The family room will have a table and (probably four) chairs for day-to-day eating. It will have a small sofa, a comfy chair or two and a coffee table so we can sit and look out over the back garden. There is likely also to be bookcases / additional storage. There will be a TV socket on the far wall although it will probably go unused.

The wall separating the utility room from the kitchen will likely be a stud wall. It is not in place yet so could be moved if that helps with the layout but the wall the other side is firmly fixed and supporting half the house. Besides we don’t want to open up the dining room any further.

And yes Carolina, there is 600mm of worktop either side of the hob and either side of the sink, although worktop to the right of the hob and left of the sink is shared. It should be enough to keep pan handles out of the way. Another reason we really don’t want a hob on the island.

Do please keep the ideas coming.

I think I might need to see a picture of that. I can't quite visualize an island unit with two oven sticking up out of it.

One possibility that we did think of would be to mount the ovens in mid-height units. I would be comfortable taking things from the oven and putting it on top but it may not suit everyone.

Thanks for the reassurance. We already have telescopic rails and if we really needed to put a pan down then the open door is rated to take 25kg which is a very large turkey! Not that that should be needed with the rails.

Ok so you already have a nice generous hallway with a downstairs wc, and it looks like there should be coat space there too (understairs?)

I would go with Jonathan’s design but put the spine wall back in. If you are worried this will create a narrow corridor to get to the kitchen, you could create glass panels in the utility room wall (you might want to use ribbed or frosted glass to hide mess) to let light through and give a more spacious feel. Or you could create glass panels in the dining room spine wall but that’s harder if it’s load bearing.

I’d also swap the dining and sitting areas compared with Jonathan’s plan as I like to eat near the garden/in the light and watch tv in the darker central area. But that’s a personal decision.

Are you planning any skylights? I think you need one where the extension joins the dining room, else the dining room may be dark.

And what about adding the small dining table to the island?

Clontarf | Modern Kitchen · More Info

In this way you'll have more space in the family room for the sofa and relax area.

I would align the oven wall with the other wall (as in Jonathan's last plan) and will try to put the fridge by the ovens (one oven on top of the other and then the fridge). In this way you'll have more countertop and the kitchen wall can be nicer to look at.

I would design the corridor with all the cupboards at the same level and without countertop and without coffee machine on sight. And yes, you'll have a long corridor. But one with a lean design that it is easier to transform into something interesting with decoration (painting, mirrors, frosted glass doors, ...) and lighting

The existing lounge / dining room is 24’ x 14’. It is a large room and we like it. It is used for formal entertaining, watching films on a big(ish) screen and family dinners.

The kitchen is 27’ x 17’ and as well as the kitchen area we want a table like we have now in the kitchen and a small sofa. The initial plan had a table as part of the island but we decided we would rather have a separate one. Might still have a couple of bar stools on the island though. It will be used for breakfast, light lunches and simple evening meals. Doing art. Somewhere to sit and drink coffee with friends or a G+T in the evening while talking to whoever is cooking.

Both rooms can be opened into one for parties etc. This is an arrangement that suits us. Likewise the main kitchen is the best arrangement that we can find. We initially thought that the fridge would fit next to the ovens but found that they would not if we wanted a reasonable width to the entrance. Two ovens at worktop height was considered more important than keeping the fridge out of the main run of units, especially as it current position is convenient when just wanting to grab milk when boiling the kettle.

The old kitchen as you come into the extension is a good place to put coats since there is not storage under the stairs, additional storage and a worktop for what we term ‘static electrical equipment’, things like food mixer and coffee machine that we do not want to take out of a cupboard every time we use them. This seems to be a good place since it hides them from the seating area.

The dilemma that I have is that I worry that the entrance to the kitchen through the old kitchen is going to feel to much like a corridor. The arrangement of units that I have suits the functionality that we need but the question that I was seeking help on was whether there might be a better arrangement that would minimise the feeling of having to walk down a corridor to get to the extension.

I have been very impressed by the responses and the keenness of Houzers to help.

Janet,

Thank you for your suggestions. Is this the kind of thing that you were thinking of?

I have had to put the ovens at the other end of the run because there is a soil pipe on the left – which is why the tray cupboard is only 450mm deep. They would also obscure views of the window, which, although not obvious from the drawing, is full height.

The other window will need to move but that won’t be a problem but I think the hob may need to move as well because there will be and extractor above it. Although the 300-900-900-900 arrangement is nice it will probably have to be 300-600-900-1200 or even leave the hob where it was in plan 1 and have 300-300-900-600-900. If that makes sense.

I did try putting the sink in the middle of the island but it didn’t seem to leave enough space on either side for preparation so moved it slightly to the left. That gives more prep area to the right.

You could use 60 cm on the right (near windows) for the two ovens. That would mean putting the ovens one on top of the other. And on the left (near the larder) you could use 60 cm for the fridge/ freezer. In this way you'll get a symmetrical design, you'll free your window and keep a good work triangle. Something as:

Take into account that you get less space inside an integrated/ paneled fridge and freezer than with non paneled ones. One solution is to install in the kitchen a paneled device (fridge and freezer or only fridge) and have another device inside the utility room (an additional small fridge or a freezer or ...)

Sorry. My solution is not possible because it will force you to change the 30 cm you've kept for trays and turn it into a tall cupboard and so the the hob will get in the middle of the window.... . That's the problem of writing without a previous design ....

You may try to work on the solution posted by Jonathan: the island with a small sink for preparation purposes, the wall with big sink, hob and dishwasher and without tall elements (no oven or fridge) and the tall elements in the wall of the utilitty (2 ovens in 60 cm and fridge) and the corridor (larder). That can look nice, you can have lots of countertop for preparation and the work triangle can work fine

Reading all of this, and in particular redrawing the plans, I am beginning to feel maybe I am guilty of misleading with respect to what goes where. Probably by labeling with the names given by the kitchen supplier. It didn’t seem to matter when I was concerned about rows of units creating a corridor.

On my original plan the island unit was shown with six pan drawers, three of them will probably be used for food storage; for things like rice, the three types of flour, the four types of sugar and the pasta that we use regularly. Also things like tinned foods and probably breakfast cereal, tea and coffee.

The larder on the other hand will likely be used for storing things like multi-packs of tins and the large packets of rice that get decanted to a container as needed instead of going out to by another small bag.

So, looking at all this perhaps my original design does cover all the bases as far as the working triangle / functional areas goes. What does anyone think? Still wondering about that corridor though.

@MATD – the architect did suggest leaving everything open plan to the hall but we rejected it because we didn’t want kitchen smells permeated the whole house (maybe not an issue) and while probably complying with fire regulations I feel more comfortable having everything closed off from the hall/landing at night.

We have also considered a Crittall style glass panel/door. I think that could look stunning but I have seen comments that put the cost at around £9k! Also, while being able to see right through from the front door would be an amazing feature it may be less so if the visitor is unexpected and the kitchen is in a mess|. The jury is still out on that one.

@janet – Thank-you. I have only just discovered the Houzz forums and love the ideas that people come up with. It is a breath of fresh air compared to so many forums which have descended into personal abuse and arguments over Brexit.

A single internal crittal door roughly from £600, double doors from £1200 and a whole wall for around £2.5--3K - External doors are more expensive. You haven't got room for doubles as the width is only 1350mm . You could have a panel and a door. or possibly two small panels and a door. Hear what your saying about smells and mess though!

That sounds like a more reasonable price. I was thinking of cutting the right hand wall back to 400mm - since there are only 300mm deep units behind it. That would leave a 1600mm wide opening, say four panes wide 300 | 500 | 500 | 300 with the middle 2 x 500 being the door. Full height screen being five panes. Of that, maybe the door maybe just four.

I guess that price is not from Crittall themselves. Do you have supplier in mind or would any local metal fabricator do it?

You could go up to 1600. I think you'd be better off with a door and two panels though. having to open two five hundred doors just to go through would eventually get on your nerves I feel and one door is better. I've put in here, two 375 panels and an 850 door.

I noticed when i was doing the plan that the window in the Utility won't fit, the depth of cupboards will over shoot it, they are deep cupboards as one is covering a boiler. Therefore, i removed it.

Just as a personal preference I think the unit that juts out might get hit a lot and i'd consider having the same depth units all along the long wall, it makes for bigger storage and aids the look of walking through to a kitchen instead of it being part of the kitchen. You would however need to change the crittal door to one panel and one door.

I wasn't so much thinking of two 500mm doors but rather a single 1000m wide door with two 500mm panes across its width. The door could be a normal height of even full height. Excuse the poor quality drawing but something like this:

The combination of 300mm and 600mm deep units was chosen to try to minimise the feeling of this section being a corridor and because I had seen this kitchen and really liked the style. I don't know if we would go for wood-grain but it was the two interlocking L shapes that appealed.

I have to say, that is very stylish. I think you're right actually, the set back units help create a feeling of space, and I really like the crittal door. Can't wait to see the finished project.