Knocking through to make bigger kitchen

[PastaBeeandCheese]

Has anyone done this and would you mind telling me what you spent?

Viewing a house at the weekend with an old, poky kitchen that sides onto a family room. We would only want to proceed if we could afford to knock through and put in a new, large breakfast kitchen.

Would really love a very rough idea of the sorts of costs involved. .

Hi, we are up north and have just completed (almost) knocking through from our dining room into the kitchen and extending and opening up an existing garden room onto the back of the dining room creating a lovely big open space. The house is 8 years old and the dining room wall was not load bearing so DH knocked this through himself. The extension was about 3mx3m and opened to existing rooms and cost £9500. We have also just put in a new kitchen and utility room from DIY kitchens. Lovely kitchen, our joiner, who fits loads of kitchens says it was better quality than Howdens and only cost £3800 delivered (excluding worktop) We are really please with everything, changed the whole room, and added new wood flooring (46SqM) all in all around £17k. DH has done some things himself though. Hope this helps. Could try to post some pics if you are interested

We did last year. I think we spent around 14k.

This included 2k ish on floor and 2k on Rangemaster induction hob plus solid oak worktops and Howdens kitchen which we love.

I'm really surprised. I have been thinking about doing this and budgeted £40k+ Mine is a load bearing wall though.

Thanks for the replies. We don't think the wall will be load baring but that is the first thing to check!

I was hoping it would be a case of whatever you want to spend on a kitchen, appliances, tiles and flooring plus fairly minimal cost of knocking down wall and making good the walls if we keep plumbing and oven where it is currently.

What is your split between kitchen and building work awesomemrsfox on £40k if you don't mind me asking?

christmaschocs would love to see your pics if you have time to upload.

hi, Pasta, i have uploaded a few pics. Its not quite finished yet, so no worktops, skirting etc

forgot to say, some of that total budget was for a wood burning stove too (around 3K)

Wow christmaschocs that looks gorgeous. If we liked the house ours would be a kitchen-diner leading into a conservatory which we would plaster and heat properly to make a playroom for DD so a similar layout to yours.

There is a dining room on the other side of the house but I think it's nice to be able to sit in kitchen too.

As in conservatory would be on side making an 'L' shape.

we did this but kept costs low by doing as much as possible ourselves. Putting in a universal beam cost around £500 including cost of beam, building regs, skip hire, payment to builder plus materials. kitchen including appliances and worktops was 3.5k. £100 to move gas, £100 for electrical work. £750 on floor, plaster (plastered ourselves), paint, wall tiles. So somewhere around 5k altogether

Photo on profile from towards the end of the kitchen going in

Another lovely kitchen! Really like your units.

We fitted the kitchen in our current property so we have the skill but we have a 17mo and are TTC #2 so I think we will pay for the work to be done this time. We will rip out the current kitchen and possibly tile and put floor down depending on quotes.

I was hoping under £15k as that would stack up financially so good to hear that isn't unrealistic.

We will be starting the same process in June. Knocking out a structural wall and one non-structural one; blocking up two doorways; new Howdens kitchen (but keeping existing appliances), adding a big extractor fan plumbed to outside; moving sink, washing machine and dishwasher around; moving electrical switches, moving radiator, new ceilings in kitchen and diner. It is a good spec Howdens kitchen with pull out pantry and under-unit lighting, softclose this and that, and granite worktops. New tiled flooring in kitchen/diner/conserve. Whole lot is £20K excluding VAT but including the beams and a skip and licences, council inspections, and all equipment and labour.

As a comparison, some friends did a very similar Howdens + granite kitchen spec without moving plumbing & electrics, with no structural elements at all, and with flooring excluded; theirs was much less, £12K, about three years ago. So would be more like £13K now. Sorry I can't show before & after pics yet for ours, but the changes to layout/traffic flow, appearance and functionality will be dramatic so it's worth the expense. Going to take three weeks and make tons of mess, ugh. Have to keep focussing on how good it will be afterwards!

We knocked down a load bearing wall between our kitchen and dining room last year. All in (ikea kitchen with granite work surface, engineered wood floor, rewiring, new appliances etc etc...) came in at about £13.5k.

Load bearing walls really don't cost as much as you'd think to remove, you just have to get a structural engineer in, building regs approval and a universal beam.

That's really interesting to read grandpoohbah.

DH isn't sure about house on basis one half of the double garage has been converted (don't know why as already had 3 receptions plus conservatory ) and he'd want to convert that back.

He's concerned about cost of reversing the conversion but more concerned that we will be paying a premium because of the extra reception room when we'd prefer the double garage and more normal looking, balanced house that would come with it having the double garage doors put back in.

we did something similar;

if i remember correctly, it was £1600 to take down wall and put in a stud wall (removed solid wall between kitchen and diner and built stud wall between diner and lounge) would have been extra £400 if needed rsj/building control. around £3k on howdens units, £3k on appliances (neff oven, neff built in micro/combi, american fridge freezer)£3k for fitting (included removing all plaster, replastering, new ceiling and lighting ) and probably about £500 for extra bits and bobs( light fittings, nice sockets etc)

get lots of quotes.

re garage re reception rooms, does it matter? are you really paying extra for the reception room now?

Greenfolder that's helpful. I think this labour business is cheaper than I thought. Having always done all my own work (DH is a very skilled DIYer to be fair and I'm ok) I always imagine paying someone will instantly double the cost of the project!

We would definitely prefer a double garage to a single and an extra room plus the house looks like it should have a double garage. We will have to look into costing but also think hard about the asking price and whether we think it is reasonable. It's been on the market a while so i think they may be open to an offer.