AIBU to add serving hatches between kitchen, utility and dining room?

[OrangeCrushes]

It's a floorplan question!

I want to turn my current kitchen into a utility room and the current second reception into a kitchen. The problem is the dining room would be far from the kitchen and we will often need to take things from the new utility to go into the kitchen.

AIBU to add one or more serving hatches to the floorplan - between kitchen and utility and utility and dining room, respectively?

Marked up floorplan attached as well as a serving hatch idea

What would you do differently? I have struggled with this question for ages 😭

I like the trolley idea.

Separate dining rooms are much more restful, too. Idk why people eat in the kitchen unless they have to.

I would either turn the current kitchen into a utility and the current utility into a toilet/bathroom (if you really need a downstairs bathroom).

Then knock through from the current living room into the downstairs bathroom to make a larger kitchen/diner.

I think the hatches will be annoying and inconvenient and possibly reduce the house's value.

Omg I just had a flashback moment - my mum had a tea trolley when I was a kid! I had totally forgotten. We would prepare “a sandwich tea” in the kitchen, load up the trolley and trundle it to the living room so we could watch the Antiques Road Show. It was our only TV dinner of the week!

Basically it was my mum’s night off cooking and she always made a plate of various sandwiches, and we drank tea in proper cups and saucers, served from the teapot on the trolley. When not in use, it folded up and slid beside the free-standing cooker.

I loved those tea times.

I don’t think a double hatch is a great plan OP. The trolley however was a wonderful thing.

Wow what a blast from the past.

So glad that this has sparked a nice memory 😊

Do you need a utility in the middle? Just open all that out as a big kitchen diner and keep the small utility for washing machine or whatever.

Good layout and ease of living is more important than a separate big utility? If you need indoor drying space get one of those racks that hangs from the ceiling.

I wouldn't be cluttering the space up with a trolley.

What purpose do you see the hatches fufilling? A human chain passing dishes through?

I don't really understand how you see the hatches working in practice. Will there be three people involved?

The reason for this is that i want to maximise storage and utility space and to maximise costs (explained further in other posts)

Maybe it's a stupid idea - hence the question!

It’s seems a lot of faff for 5 to 10 meals a year

How so? The proposal you have there is absolutely no useable space. 3 rooms with no storage at all and random hatches in the windows for transporting food between rooms awkwardly even though the dining room will ultimately never be used and will be a dumping ground instead.

An alternative is no hatches. Then there is floor to ceiling storage (plus counters) through the entire utility. And I can put all my random kitchen appliances in there behind a closed door!

The kitchen won't have that much storage once you account for American fridge freezer, large range, sink, and dishwasher. The utility would be like a pantry and storage overflow with a washer dryer at the end.

Could you replace/refurb the conservatory into a dining space and use the dining room as a snug? You getting keep the utility intact then.

My ILs got an excellent roof put on their which makes it looks just like a regular extension.

The conservatory is just a bit too small to be a useful dining space. Replacing it is ££££

You're planning on having the loo off your kitchen and hatches that will make you walk in and out of another room?

Why don't you design your layout properly instead?

Do you have any suggestions? Because I have been obsessing over this for a year.

Serving hatches very 1980s.

Not quite sure why they went out of fashion as they are quite practical.

Maybe open plan living did for them.

You don't need to go into the utility at all, just walk down the hallway from the dining room to the kitchen.

No hatches needed.

And you will still have a useless dining room?

I just can't fathom spending all that money and not getting the optimum flow.

I'm starting to think this is the way to go.

If it’s been a year surely you know that you survived Christmas without hatches

Ideally we may add a dining room extension where the conservatory is someday. So in some ways, this may be an interim plan.

I VERY highly value storage and counter space.

Well, currently I just walk from the kitchen to the dining room. So it's not really comparable.

The serving hatch in our current house was boarded up before we moved in. I'm itching to uncover it.

Have you had an architect look at it? Ours was genius and found ways to use the space that we never would have thought of ourselves.