Please dissuade/reassure me about our new kitchen diner!

[notasize10yetbutoneday]

Ok,I am at the crazy lady, can't sleep for thinking about worktops and pan drawers so please bear with my sleep-addled brain as I try to explain!

DH and I moved into our 'forever' house 6 months ago. The kitchen is at the front of the house. Immediately behind is the dining room and behind that is a junk room study, which has huge windows over the garden.

Our plan is to knock down the dining room and study walls to make one large kitchen diner. This room will be 9m long by 2.8m wide- so quite long and narrow.

The plan is to make the front of the house, where the existing kitchen is now, a utility area and build an arch way between the utility area and the main kitchen area. there will then be a breakfast bar seperating the kitchen from the main dining area at the bottom overlooking the garden.

The rationale for having the utility at the front is that we do not want to waste the large window at the back by having it there. the rationale for having an arch way rather than a seperate door is that we don't want to lose the light from the front window. House is east-facing and the kitchen seems dark at present, but that may be due to there being wall units on both walls.

So my (one of many)question is, do you think its wierd to have a utility area at the front of the house? A couple of people i've discussed it with have been a bit . I should say though its not like you would walk into it, you would have to choose to go in there IYSWIM.

Anyway, my other question is (if anyone is still with me at this point!), the room as i've said is fairly long and narrow. All along we have been planning oak units with black quartz or granite worktops. But now I'm getting the heebie-jeebies because a) will black work tops make it too dark and b) I don';t know what flooring we would go for that doesn't look matchy-matchy with the units (see other thread) so c) would dark flooring and dark worktops be too much?

I am in a complete tizz over the whole thing TBH, I've never done anyhting like this before, its a huge amount of money (to us) and I'm so scared of getting it wrong.

Pannacotta- thank you so much for posting that, that really does look ideal and as Quint said, perhaps we can incorporate on the left hand side. Hmm. Just to clarify though, its not the front room which is light and sunny, this area is quite dark. its the back of the house (where dining table is in plans) which is sunny with lovely big windows which is why we want this to be the dinign area.

My cousin has glossy white units with speckly white corian tops and it looks fab. Lovely and light if you are worried about the room feeling dark. I agree with others that black granite looks dated.

Oh I thought when you said the house faced East that you meant the back.
Is it the front which faces East then?

Still I wouldn't use the whole of the front room, even though I do agree that you need some provision behind doors.

You could have a utility/family room if you put the appliances in a cupboard as per my link?

We are also planning major changes to our kitchen and trying to work in a utility room so this is very much on my mind at the mo!

If you have light issues I really think you should reconsider your unit choices. White gloss units would really brighten the place up.

I'd use white or grey worktops - glossy more light reflective but more difficult to keep. Same for floor - lighter wood or tile? You could put electric underfloor heating mats under tiles - relatively inexpensive and fab!

A separate utility room is great but the main benefit of it is as somewhere to do the laundry. Could you not just pinch a small area off the kitchen or the other room and make what is essentially a cupboard/ small boxroom? Doesn't need a window in it - just put an extractor in. Big enough for drier and washer side by side with a bit of worktop on top?

Sorry would need to see a plan to know if that's possible.

Gosh, sorry, notasize10, but I think that is a really dreadful design. You don't need much kitchen space providing you have worked out the storage well and the current arrangement is very poor ergonomically and visually. If I were you, I would get an independent kitchen designer in to talk you through your options - it would cost a couple of hundred quid but you would end up with such an improved design. Please lose the idea of using the front room as a utility - as countless others have said, it is a tragic waste of space. Someone on another thread mentioned that John Lewis designers will come out and help you with the design for #100 which is then deducted from anything you spend in store - but, for #100 that seems a real bargain, I'd just pay it.

Have looked at the design too and don't like it either. I really, really would consider dropping the utility room idea - I don't think it looks great on the plans and costs you a whole room. I can guarantee if you have children you will really appreciate a place to put them and their toys. I second the idea of talking to another designer as I am not sure that the one you have talked to so far as much eye for what works and what is practical.

Hi,
I have just had a new kitchen put in (thanks to my insurance co.!) and at the same time we knocked down the wall between the kitchen and dining room. In our case it was the kitchen side that was really dark. I have posted pics (of the plan) on my profile in case you want to look.
Our units are oak doors with grey marble top and we have travertine tiles on the floor.

Not sure I'd pay for a John Lewis person to design anything...in my experience most kitchen designers are not very creative - they know their way around a CAD system and can plan your kitchen for you if you tell them what you want.

My advice is to draw a scaled version of your room. Cut pieces of card to standard kitchen unit sizes, add some tables, chairs sofa etc and have a play. Show everyone you know - friends can come up with surprisingly lateral ideas.

Perhaps an indepedent designer who designs for a living, rather than is a salesperson, might be helpful?
He looks quite good:
cameronpyke-design.ukco.me/

Hi! I'm the one on the other thread about Utility Rooms! It does sound like we have a similar problem. Wish I had the answer for us both. Will be watching your progress with interest!

Thank you all, Elk that was really kind of you to post your plans. I will try and draw a floor plan somehow to explain how the house is, I don't think I'm explaining it well at all!

I think Disparity is right- we have seen 3 kitchen designers now- 1 independent, Magnet and B&Q- and TBH they all seem flummoxed by the space and what to do with it and its limitations. I am sure that if we went to a high-end kitchen designer we would undoubtedly get something amazing but our budget is £15k tops, and thats to include appliances, flooring and lighting.

Post a floorplan and give a bottle of gin to best MN design

Have wondered whether you should leave your kitcehn where it is - have an eating area in the middle with a couple of comfy armchairs by the big window.

One idea is to go to the ikea website and download their kitchen planner, that is how I started mine. You can put in any shape of room with windows, radiators etc.

Sorry OP, but the design pictures you show make the utility room rather dominate the kitchen diner. Surely the point of a utility room is that you can shut the door on it, or that it should be otherwise unnoticed? From your pictures, the arch is so wide it hides nothing, and your washing machine would rather draw the eye from all the way down the dining room.

I can see why you don't want to lose the light from the east-facing window. Could I suggest :

Ditch the arch completely. One big room. Get rid of wall-cupboards, go for floor-cupboards only (makes the room look wider). Arrange your cupboards in a sort of "E" shape, with the spine of the "E" along the long wall, so that you have two breakfast bars, the one in the middle of the "E" being double-width. All utility-room stuff is in the "U" shape to the front of the house. All kitchen-stuff is in the "U" shape in the middle of the room.

The bar between utility and kitchen areas can be either single-depth with half-depth cupboards on either side (we did this, great for not losing things up the back) or double-depth with full-size cupboards, giving a huge amount of workspace.

You need not write off granite - we used black granite in our (basement) kitchen, I find it reflects light well and does not act as a light-sink, which was my worry before I went to see someone else's kitchen.

I sympathise with the "crazy lady, can't sleep for thinking about worktops and pan drawers" - sounds just like me a few years

Thank you everyone, you are all wonderful. Your comments are helping me so much, although DH was less impressed that all I wanted to do last night was talk about our kitchen .

Ok , the floor plan is on my profile now. I'm sorry its so small, it wouldn't let me enlarge it further.

Points to note are:

1. the 'study' at the back has a huge window and faces over the garden so for this reason we want it as a dining area, not as study/playroom
2. The lounge and dining room are separated by a squared off arch which (I promise) is a really nice feature everyone comments on. We are undecided as yet whether to keep this totally open plan or block it up with glass doors
3. The kitchen at present feels quite dark (i may have been wrong about it facing east . As it faces onto the road we have to have blinds semi closed and also at present it has all units on both sides in what is a narrow room.

Priorities for the new kitchen design are:

1. A long run of worktop which can double as casual seating area
2. As few wall units as possible 3 But at least one tall larder unit
3. washing machine and tumble dryer to be concealed somehow without going integrated- like Pannacotta's link up thread
4. Space for hoover, ironing board, mops/brushes as there is absolutely nowhere else to store them- understairs cupboard is only half height. However not bothered about having somewhere to dry undies, can do this upstairs.
5. Space for a large but not mahoosive fridge-freezer (not integrated)

I don't want much do I?!

Flowers and alcohol of choice WILL be sent to the winning designer!

OOH! Forgot to say that currently there is a doorway from the hall, into the kitchen (opposite the external kitchen door)- we are not averse to blocking up this internal door between hall and kitchen in order to get a long run of worktop.

Where youleftit(I love your name!) we are very much after MNers feedback leaning to the idea of one room now and ditching the arch. When you say the spine of the E on the long wall, do you mean the lefthand wall, as you look at the plan?

How big is the window at the side of the dining room? What sort of height is it at?

It is a low window- not high enough to get a sink under weas what the designers had said. it also has a radiator under it as present but that could be moved.Im at work at mo but I can post height from floor to window sillt onight.

OK, can you also post how far it is from the wall that divides the dining room from the kitchen.

lala its almost right up against that wall- its so close when we put the curtain pole up we couldn't get the filial(?) on the end of the curtain pole on that side.

I'm back! The window is 11cm from the dining room wall, the window sill is 85cm from the floor and the window is 115cm wide.

Can you say which way North is, that would help in terms of working out the best light/sun?
Also, to clarify you have 3 reception rooms on the left side of the hall, are you wanting to convert them into 1 kitchen/diner?

You do realise in the design that you have posted, there is no sink..?

Oh God, I have no idea which way North is.... The front of the house is sunniest at about 10am-11am in the morning- does that help?

Pannacotta Yes, on the lefthand side of the hall is the kitchen, the dining room and the study which we want to make one long room. We have a bigger study upstairs which we are happy to use for this, and the key to the whole thing is taking advantage of the very large window at the back of the house which is curretnly the study.

Lala The sink would have been in the utility room, above the washing machine, in front of the front window. I am not fixed on this as its location though.