Would most people want a kitchen extension?

[lugo40]

Hi, we don't have a proper kitchen in our house. We moved in a year ago and put a kitchen in a bedroom as a temporary measure while we thought about how to do the kitchen. We know we won't stay here long so in effect it's a renovate to sell job. The house is 1890s so had the traditional small kitchen off a morning room. We're playing with many ideas but feel an extension to create the loved kitchen family room is too expensive as we're not staying here. So we thought about just knocking through into the current outside toilet which will give us a kitchen of 5.5 m wide by 3.2 m depth. With utility which is the room below the kitchen on the plan. The cupboard next to the toilet houses the fuse board and water and gas meters which can't be moved but it's a handy cupboard for ironing board and mop etc. do you think this plan and size is acceptable? We don't want to remove character really so don't want to take walls down between rooms as that involves removing original fireplaces which are beautiful.
On the note if we let the outside loo we could instead do a simple extension on back of House which could go right across so we would have the main kitchen area as 3.8m by 3.2 but there would be an extension on the back for table and sofa giving feel of more space.

What would you do?

Here is a photo of our proposed kitchen without extension and a plan of the current layout.

I would do the extension.

I know you say you aren't going to stay there long but if I was house hunting I would come and look at a house with a floor plan with your proposed extension. I wouldn't come and look at a house where you'd knocked through into that loo.

Yes it will cost money but you will add value to your house. We're just adding a downstairs loo to our house and ive read it will add 5% of value to the house. So I'm guessing if you lose your downstairs loo it will take off 5% of value.

For me I think the dining room not been beside the kitchen would be an issue. Could you swap the sitting room and kitchen around?

We do have a downstairs loo which will stay, it's only the outside loo which will go.

We were thinking we may swap
The dining room and living room over to be honest. The front room is the prettiest so we want to spend more time there

I'd be picturing doing the extension you describe as I looked at the house. (Was in this one.) Should imagine you'd get a premium price for having done it. (Though I would get an ea's advice first.)

As another option....

We could make the utility accessible from the hallway - be like a laundry room then. And the downstairs cupboard accessible from the hallway for costs and shoes. We can then not knock into the outside loo but instead do a simple rear extension and create a kitchen diner that would look like this one - almost exactly the same.

How much garden do you lose? I hate extensions that mean house and garden are out of proportion if you aren't staying I think get ea in ask them and ask all your neighbours what they have done have a nosy.

thanks. We are fortunate to have a very large garden. So the amount lost to any extension would not have any impact at all.

Both neighbours with side of us have knocked the wall down between living and kitchen and then placed an extesion on the back of the living room to create a huge l shaped open plan space.... this isnt really something we want to do as we like having two separate receptions in addition to the kitchen... hmmmm.

we have a builder coming over today to give us ideas of costs.
problem we have found with estate agents is they have all told us to just put the house on the market the way it is ie a kitchen in the bedroom... i can't help but think thats just so they can get it on the books!

The thing is, you need to decide if there's any point doing anything and sell it to renovate instead.

If you reconfigure in a way which doesn't appeal to many then you risk making it harder to resell.

So I would extend properly and sell or do nothing and sell.

It looks like the kind of property that will attract buyers looking for a big family house and I think many families will find that having to carry a dinner set up to another room is impractical. It would be an essential for me that the kitchen was big enough to use as a family room with a decent size dining table. If you are going to extend I think you should make the kitchen even bigger to create enough space.

Do you have to live in the house during the building works?

Estate agents are now very cautious about advising people that they should add value to their homes by doing improvements. It's too easy to be blamed when things don't go as planned!

A kitchen diner is a much more attractive option to most people than two separate reception rooms. If you're doing it up to sell soon then you need to consider that more than what you prefer.

We had a kitchen/diner/family room extension last year and it has totally transformed our Victorian semi. We spent about £75k and the estate agents reckon it has added at least £100k to the value of the house. We are not planning to sell though.

I'd extend too. I don't think you will lose money (without knowing the market) - it will make it a much more practical house.

As for estate agents - I don't hold them in very high regard, but of course they say don't do the work! You're asking "shall I list my house with you and give you the opportunity to earn thousands of pounds, or shall I do some work to it, maybe change my mind about moving in the interim / find another estate agent and you don't get to earn thousands of pounds"? Guess what the estate agent is going to say?!!

I agree that the estate agents can sell your house now regardless of what you do, they can market it as a fixer upper or a beautiful modernised turnkey house. They will go with the grab you now rather than risk losing you later answer.

So our original approved plans are these. Would this be attractive to you?

I think the back configuration but I would be concerned about the practicalities of the kitchen - utility room configuration. It looks really unworkable to me. I think most people would prefer to have an access way from the kitchen to the utility room (so you can throw a load of washing in whilst you're cooking, or for the utility room to store some of the things that you sometimes need in the kitchen but don't store in the kitchen). Is there any way you can work an access between the 2 rooms? I can see that you currently have units all the way along that wall but I'd be tempted to have what looks like a window (the shaded bit of the wall) turned into a door and the units to the right of that door as you look at the plan like a built in wall of units, and then refigure the washing machine etc so that it is where the door into the utility is currently.