If I post some pictures of my tiny kitchen that has THREE doors leading into it, will you tell me if there is anything I can do with it?

[dottytablecloth]

It's not a teeny tiny room, not huge either, but the workspace is rubbish as there are three doors leading into my kitchen (4 if you count French double doors) so any potential room for workspace is cut off.

I would like to fit a new kitchen but I want to know if there is anything we can do to maximise our room. Currently as you can see from the pictures I have no preparation room. There is no storage space worth talking about. Through the door to the right of the cooker is a utility room which again is very small.

Wondering if anyone has any ideas? I'm not very hopeful, I've thought and thought about what I could do, but I'm not great at visualising the end result of things being moved around.

Sorry for the mess of the kitchen, it's just me and baby today so tidying up hasn't happened!

vino totally agree there is FAR too much clutter and junk in the kitchen.

Tiled kitchen floor and wood or whatever you fancy in the rest.

The doors are only really closed when dh is watching football on sky!

Wouldn't you need the same floor throughout?

You can get tiles that look like wood (but are clearly tiles - it works!) and they an look really good in a dual use open plan

No need for the same floor throughout, no. We don't have and although most people I know have open plan homes I can't think of anyone who has the same flooring throughout. All combos of tiling and wood or laminate.

Am on the continent though, if that makes a difference.

On the continent I've seen a lot of tiled open plan but all with underfloor heating. That's France-Switzerland-Germany

I'd have the same flooring throughout. I think it makes the space look bigger.

I'd go for wooden flooring. We Have oak in our kitchen and the conservatory which is off the kitchen. It looks great.

mrslettice do you have any other rooms though?

All open plan totally?

Our house is a small terrace - the front door opens into the hall which leads to the (only) loo, the stairs, a big cupboard and 'the room'. Access to garden is through the 'kitchen door' (in the short part of the L). Does that make any sense?

I'd be chuffed with a utility but thankfully the washer and dryer are upstairs, as is the norm in these houses. And yes, a snug would be fab! I'd rather live as I do now than live squished up to have one though.

But, yeah, when you have one space serving as 3 rooms then (IME) the duel flooring and judicious use of rugs is good.

Upstairs - 3 bedrooms (2 decent sized one small single), bathroom and washing cupboard. DC (5 1/2 & 6) share the teeny room on bunks, the one of the large(r) bedrooms doubles as a playroom and snore escape guest room. Guest bed is one on those ones on stilts for space saving.

My rent is high and my house small - I refuse to allow a single square meter of unnecessary dead space

Block off the double doors and move the kitchen units down that end of the room where there is more wall space. You might fit a penninsula. Move the table down the end with the doors. Move the couch to the other room along the wall where the doors were blocked up. Consider replacing the current kitchen window with French doors opening out from your new dining area. You won't miss that bit of wall space and it will be lovely to over look the garden when you're sitting. As it is you're not short of space you're just short of wall space.

Is your kitchen wide enough to move the table closer to the oven end? Maybe get a smaller one or one that folds (How often is it used?)

If so, by adding units at 90 degrees where your free standing unit is, you could make your sink run into an L shape (think this is what fox meant) giving you a peninsula.

You could site your couch with its back to the peninsula, (so facing the wall it's on now) and you could pop your tv on the back wall where your pictures are

If your table isn't used much you could utilise your peninsula as an eating area

...or put in the peninsula/L shape and put your hob/oven in that and do something like the banquet seating in that corner (less invasive/extensive change)

capitola, are you there?

looking to create exactly the same kind of banquette using wall units. where/how did you get it upholstered?

sorry to hijack this thread OP

I upholstered it myself and it could not have been easier.

Kitchen fitter attached cupboards with extra fixings (so they could bear weight) he added a top surface made from a long cupboard side, ifyswim, so colour matched.

The seat is a base of ply with upholstery foam covered with wadding and then upholstery fabric over that. I just used a staple gun to attach it all to the ply base. Same applies to backrest which is screwed into mdf panels painted to match the units.

I am not particularly handy but it looks very good and I am constantly asked where I got it done!

Brilliant, thank you
Is your fabric cleanable? I'm thinking of two messy dc's hands!

Rather than open plan I would block up the french doors, if possible.

I wouldn't go open plan personally. Useful to have a separate room, especially as dc get older.

I think a banquette across the wall where the sofa is now would work really well, although I don't think there's space to take it round the corners.

You could rearrange the living room to make more lounging space. If you put the telly in the other corner, you could fit a big L-shaped sofa in there...

Have you got a budget OP?

Cheapest and easiest fix I can see at the moment is to purchase a sideboard unit for the small room and put it across where the glass doors are, blocking them off - so long as you can open its doors without bumping into the sofa. Use that for stuff that's currently in the kitchen cupboards but not used so often.

Use the freed up cupboard space for some of the stuff on the worktops. Keep the fruit bowl on the table etc. so the workspace you do have is clear.

Extra shelving in the utility room out of the way if you can and definitely wall mount the TV on a tilt and turn type bracket in the kitchen.
I think that unit with the wicker drawers is a bug bear because it doesn't fit in height and depth wise. Can you move them elsewhere in the house and replace with a moveable butcher's block that sits well against the existing units?

Not sure on sizing but would the sofa bit back against the glass doors and the table and chairs move down the far end of the room too? then you'd be able to move a butcher's block out into the room when you needed the useable space, pushing it back when you didn't.

Your house is lovely :)

I think you should consider space around the porch / utility area - see if that can be better used, perhaps by knocking out that wall.

Can you separate the room so you have a kitchen with units on 3 sides of a square - and then the table & sofa in the other half? That would give you more worktop and storage.

This roomplanner is useful for playing with furniture configurations to get the best placement without having to move it all IRL

Can you use the utility as storage and just have the very bare bones in the kitchen - wouldn't solve the workspace - though you could us the table for working.

Or - how about a section of 'drop down' worktop which went across the utility door - so you could use it as and when needed?