Which side is the front and where is the drive and garden?

Hi

Thanks for the reply! It’s an old house (1910) so everything is kind of the other way around! So we have our main entrance coming into the utility room, the kitchen overlooks the drive way with my car sitting outside the window (not great), the garden is in front of the family room / old entrance hall / living room. Garden is a good size (nearly an acre) so we wouldn’t lose so much space if we extended the kitchen out from family room? If we did this, what would existing kitchen turn into?

thank you!!

In my mind the side you are looking to build an extension is likely the most attractive architecture because it was built as the front and there is a danger the extension could ruin the character.

Presumably extending out from the family room is not your only option- you could presumably extend out from your dining room?

As far as what you use the former kitchen for..... I think houses where the entrance is confusing are difficult to sell. So personally I would be thinking about making the kitchen window into a grand front door and then people don’t have to enter past your washing machine.

am so glad you explained in the comments about the orientation and doors used! have you thought about knocking through the utility, study and family room to create one big eat-in kitchen and family space? like Jonathan suggested, make the window into current kitchen a new 'front' door and decent entranceway - keeping the fireplace in the entrance would be lovely! I'd make the current dining room into study or utility, whichever you need most (or maybe it can be both, if you include decent storage in the big new entrance hall). the original entrance hall could be opened up to the new entrance hall or added to the kitchen/family room. obviously no idea about load-bearing walls and whether any of this would work in practice as it might take away a lot of the character of an older property.

Thank you so much both for your amazing ideas!

We are going to look into this tonight! surprisingly we have never thought of this plan and it’s the best idea yet!

So glad I asked the question - thank you both so much again!

If you are going to be extending it might be worth looking at the upstairs layout too..... sometimes moving stairs can make a huge difference or it might be that placing a downstairs extension well gives opportunity for later upstairs extension.

This floorplan looks familiar. I've drawn a layout option for it in your other post. Did you not like that? Which is okay :-) But I'm wondering why you've started a new thread about your dilemma?

https://www.houzz.co.uk/discussions/6041330/help-unusual-floor-plan-kitchen-extension-advice-please

Hi Carolina I’m so sorry I didn’t see your reply to my original post - I actually didn’t think it had posted so I just created another post :( I really appreciate your help and it seems to echo the other replies I’ve received. I really love this layout and we are going to get a structural engineer over ASAP to tell us if it’s possible! so thank you so much again for your help!

This is really rough but we were thinking something like this? we still need a separate play room as kids have so much stuff! We thought original entrance could be a boot room / utility as it opens out onto our back garden so makes sense. then keeping the fireplace in the new entrance hall as a feature.

We’ve lost the dining room we would incorporate a dining table in the neW kitchen / family space?

And we didn’t ever use the study - so that’s ok for us to get rid of! :)

Perfect, love it. Can't wait to see the transformation. Fingers crossed the SE says it's ok! And yes, dining would have to be in kitchen/family room but there should be plenty of room for kitchen, dining table and some soft seating (maybe not a full sectional sofa, but you don't need that to be in the kitchen!). Am excited for you to plan your kitchen layout now!!

We’re so excited! Thank you for that idea as we were really stuck! Im praying he says it’s all possible! How long do you think the whole process would take? Are we looking at £1000’s or £10,000’s for the structural work do you think? We have a budget which I think will cover the structural work (excluding the kitchen cost obviously)

thank you again!

Difficult to tell without seeing upstairs floor plan. Definitely one big steel where the big wall is at the moment. short walk between utility and study might not be original and load bearing? am no expert on costs but I’d say thousands but less than £10k for structural, including SE fees. Time wise it could be done fairly quickly I’d have thought - 2 months??

I should have said at the beginning- it’s actually an extension, you’re right! The utility room and study and current family room is all an extension that was added circa 1998. Would that make a difference with structural work? That is a good budget - we can definitely cover £10k for structual work. We’re Hoping to start in April / May - so hoping it would all be done and complete by Christmas 2021 so hopefully that realistic :)

Shall I post upstairs floorplan? Let me find it!

Hopefully it’s not too blurry

So top floor extension is the master bedroom, dressing room and en suite over the utility / study and family room