Victorian terrace - anyone with kitchen in through reception and sitting room either at back of house or first floor front room?

[BeattieBow]

We've got a dilemma. We've recently bought a victorian terrace house which strangely has a kitchen in the front reception room.

We don't want to stay in the house forever (or we would do the side return), so don't want to spend much, but we do need to do some works as it hasn't been decorated for yonks and we'd like to sell it on in 3 or so years.

We've realised we quite like the kitchen in the through reception. its currently in the front room and has enough room for a dining table too. in the back reception we have a sofa and tv and this works for us. its lovely and light and spacious and we spend most of our time in these rooms. the back room is narrow but fits a sofa and tv and computer in. its a bit of a spare room but the children decamp in there to play on the computer.

we want to put a new kitchen in and the two plans so far are to put it in the narrow back room (galley kitchen but has room for table too) or keep it in the back reception room and create a big living space. this would work best for our needs for the next few years, but I'm worried that it will put potential buyers off. The previous people did use the first floor front bedroom as a reception room.

So I was wondering if anyone else has this set up?

The usual thing round here seems to be to do the side return and put a big kitchen in the back room, but we don't want to spend the money on that if we're not staying for very long.

We spend by far the most amount of time in our kitchen, so this really is the most important room for us. I'm not a keen cook though, and don't have massive dinner parties (or any dinner parties) although I do cook from scratch every day. So the kitchen doesn't have to be massive or state of the art. Its just that it's the place that we all gather.

it's currently in the front room, which I like but I don't think does much for re-sale (there hasn't been one person that has walked in and not thought it odd!), so yes, I am thinking about putting it in the back half of the through reception.
The back reception is quite dark though, so I would need to think about lightening it up (light is v important to me, I think I suffer from SAD if it's too dark!).

I could have it in the back back room as this will be big enough for a table, but not quite sure how to open up the back reception into the kitchen without extending. We could put a door in and/or knock through to the passage.

most people seem not to use their middle rooms if the kitchen is at the back. Even people who've done the side return make this room slightly redundant or just use it as access between the kitchen

I will def come up and have a look if you want I notice loads of people waste that space too and I really like it as a kitchen as it makes the whole d/s work

Instead of extending out in the entire side return you could do a glass box/conservatory style extension eg: 6-8 ft deep which would connect the relocated kitchen with the back room?
Extra light, sunny spot for a comfy chair and a coffee and a connector into the other room?