Minimum size for kitchen diner? Wwyd?

[Aethelfleda]

We have a modern house (16 years old) and it has a kitchen that is 16 years old ie getting to the end of its practical life.

My plan for this year is to redo the kitchen.
We're planning to spend on nice new appliances (range cooker!) and then get Ikea/B&Q entry level fittings around them: I need reliable function rather than top end style, I cook loads so a good cooker and dishwasher and fridge freezer would be priority rather than high end gloss and marble worktops.

The biggest issue for me is that our kitchen is 11 foot 2 by 10 foot 11 (so it's a medium size square) and we are a family of 5. There's an entry door in the inner front corner of the square and the back exit door is in the opposite outside corner with a boiler by the back door (don't want to move it!)
Our old house (sob) was far smaller overall but had had a glorious 13x18 foot kitchen diner that I miss like crazy.

We don't feel as if we have the extra cash or more importantly the garden space to do an extension (smallish garden which I value every inch of, only side access would be blocked off if we extended...)

Is it mad to consider redoing the kitchen as it is? 11 foot square should be ok for a kitchen, surely..,, but is it overoptimistic to plan a table to fit in there too? We currently have a folding table but we often end up squeezing around it, and I don't want to regret fitting it out at current size... Argh!

How big do you think a kitchen needs to be to be a kitchen-diner? Views gratefully received.

Have you not realised though that if the washing machine is next to the tumble dryer (in the garage) having to trek out there isn't such a chore!!!

I had my washing machine & tumble drier in the old brick coal house in the garden and it really wasn't an issue and no more noisy kitchen

Random, I'm very grateful for your comments, but I don't want to have to leave the house to put the washing on. The garage back door is a 10m walk around the side of the house, and it's definitely a chore to have to go out there twice for each washing load to wash and then to dry it (three kids, loads of washing!) especially when it's dark/raining.

Actually it's not that noisy, we have a Bosch washer and as it's a seperate kitchen I can close the door!

Can you design the kitchen so that you can later add a small extension to the outside wall for a bigger dining area without needing to refit the kitchen itself?

Ooh, crumpet, that's a great idea. It's entirely possible we'll have more cash in a few years and could do that later.

I think I'll try plotting out the cooking-and-prep-on-right and storage-and-fridge-on-left design, and then if we did do an extension later we could have dining table, washer and dryer in the extension bit. And a frosted window or ceiling light windows so that the extension didn't look over our neighbours house (I have a big thing about not overlooking people, daft seeing as we live in a town!)

I'm hoping to pick up a round cafe-style table later to try out, and have been playing with the whole "work triangle" thing on pieces of paper. Our butterfly table is only small when folded but because it has two gatefold flaps, we usualy just leave it up, and this is where the size limitation becomes more apparent.
We have a lovely big seats 6/seats 8 dining table in the dining room, so I don't need an enormous table in the kitchen, just want to be practical so the kids can all eat breakfast together or we can grab a quick sandwich without trippin over each other.

Hmm, this is an interesting thread for me as we are having a very similar dilemma. About to post for advice...

Well I think if you're going to have the money in a few years to do something bigger I'd make do with what you have but get a round table that sits 4 - how often is there 5 plus sitting down to eat at the same time which would mean moving to the dining room - once per day tops???

I struggle without a foorplan it would be good if you could post one, even a sketch. Then think long and hard what would best for the house - it could be completely relocating the kitchen... the one advantage of that is that you still have a working kitchen whilst the new one is built

Glad you started this thread, as we are also trying to make this decision. Our kitchen is just very slightly smaller than yours (11x10 foot) and a more awkward layout with doors on three sides and an understairs larder cupboard in the corner.

We also have a dining room with a good size table, but I am really tired of not being able to eat in the kitchen! Just for breakfast or when I need to quickly feed the children, or to sit down with a drink while things are cooking. So trying to work out how to incorporate a usable eating space for a family of four.

We have similar issues with the garage being too separate from the house for it to be convenient for laundry etc. (in our case it's not joined to the house at all), and are also resisting suggestions to knock the kitchen through to the adjacent dining room, because the living and dining rooms are only separated by doors, so it would make the whole downstairs a bit too open-plan for my liking.

Anyhow, after much measuring and dragging in of furniture, I think we have come to the conclusion that it would be too cramped to fit a table and chairs into the space. So we are looking at having the worktop in an L shape so that we can fit stools around the sticking out bit. I'll try to find a pic, but if you google 'G shaped kitchen' you may get an idea.

This is kind of very approximately what I mean. But with space for two stools on the long edge, one at the end, and one on the short edge.

It has the advantage for us that it also gives us a useful bit of worktop for cooking, as we are struggling for worktop space with so many doors going into the kitchen.

This is my suggestion. Have a built in bench with built in storage underneath for seating on one side of the table. Google banquettes for some ideas. A good carpenter could rustle something up and much cheaper than moving walls or services.

For a table, consider something like the Ikea Bjusta series of extendable tables that come in square, round or rectangle size www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/categories/series/10232/ You could add castors so the table would be easy to move around and could double as a food prep area.

I was thinking of something similar to FrogFairy's suggestion of a bench or banquette, but built into a corner if possible. Not sure from your description if you have a free corner, but benches would certainly give you more seating while taking up less room than separate chairs.

In our current kitchen we use Ikea wall units as base units which makes a big space saving. Our next kitchen will be MUCH smaller (12' x 8' instead of 19' x 14') and I'm trying to persuade BiL to build me cabinets like the ones they had in their last home - normal units down one side of the room, but the ones on the other side had the same doors but were only just over one can deep - it was fabulous for storage because you could see at a glance exactly what was there without sacrificing floor space. They used one side for tins and jars and things like sauce bottles. The other side was for herbs and spices and so on.

Well, we have an 80cm diameter round glass table coming shortly! Will see if it accommodates breakfasting people better than the butterfly table does....

Once we've tried that out I'll post a floor plan but I'm sure there will be some clever solution out there.... Glad to know we're not alone (kind of! ...)

We've had 9 people squeezed round our 100x70cm table, including 2 sides of built-in L-shaped seating. Some of them were pretty small at the time though! The space underneath holds all sorts too, which is helpful when you don't have as many cupboards as you like. We have all the bulky cat food & litter, craft stuff, kitchen rolls, big dust sheets, camping gear.

Well, the new smaller table is here... And it's been good so far, sits four without problem, though I think we'll need some stacking chairs. Next step is to do a floor plan and show you my possible set up .....