Small square kitchen ideas

[RenovationSematary]

Over-excited first time buyer here!

I'm looking for ideas of how to do a small square kitchen. I have lots of ideas but worry it would look too busy in a small space, plus the layout is a bit weird! One wall is missing and leads straight into the dining room, so I was thinking of building a sort of small island to help separate the space and also have a breakfast bar. I want to avoid looking too plain/generic/"rental" - after renting beige, magnolia, white and grey boxes for 15 years I want dinner charm, character and life in my house.

I've tried Pinterest but I keep getting American results, and their idea of "small" is not quite in line with my 1920s 3mx3m terraced house!

Any ideas, advice and resources would be VERY much appreciated!

Have you looked on Houzz ? There's a dilemma section on there . It's where I found the lady who designed our for us ( so we could shop around with our own plans ) pm me if you want her details

Maybe you could do an island on wheels so you can move it about if needed.

Do you need to separate the two? We recently refurbed our kitchen knocking through a wall to create a kitchen/diner. We have tall units one side and then worktops and open units on the other side. It opens up so it's great for entertaining and the space is a lot more flexible. Our actual kitchen is similar dimensions

Sorry they are already opened up, but there are large supporting columns where the original external wall used to be.

Latest idea is to do a galley kitchen and move the door from the corridor and entering the side of the kitchen to the front room, but that would disturb my living room plans and leave the kitchen pretty crammed. Unless I did shallow units on one side, but then the appliances would end up crammed on one side?

Can you post a floorplan - crop out anything identifying?

This is the current floorplan.

That wall doesn't slant as dramatically as it does in the image. The appliances aren't where they are shown either, I think it's a very old floor plan?

The exact measurements for the kitchen area will be 2.7x2.32 I measured last night and it's actually smaller than I thought!

Which end of the room on the floorplan is the square of the kitchen please?

The bottom bit is where we want to contain the kitchen and use the top bit as a dining room. Currently the kitchen runs the whole length of that right wall and is a PITA to use.

@666onmyhead if you wouldn’t mind PMing me the details of the person who you found on Houzz, I’ve got a tricky space and could do with some alternate ideas, TIA.

Sorry for highjacking OP!

It's fine, I'm thinking more and more that my best bet is a galley kitchen, I just worry about getting claustrophobic!

@RenovationSematary
And
@ThirdAidKit
It's karen at OnePlan

www.houzz.com/pro/oneplan/oneplan

Oh ? Though that would pm - sorry !

No worries - although to be honest I don't really have the spare cash to pay for a design, which is why I'm looking for free resources like Pinterest etc. The house is so small that I don't want to waste too much money and resources on it, it'll be bad enough paying for labour and appliances!

Yeah I can see that, but it does enable you to haggle as you aren't needing the full retail treatment, so you can save much more than the design cost and you are also getting something that's designed to work for you, not just a bunch of cabinets. Worth it if you will be living there a good few years ( not worth it if you are only living there for a couple of years maybe )

I've got some ideas - do you have a photo from the listing when you bought it? You've said the appliances are in the wrong place on the floorplan so I'm wondering what the actual layout is and what the slanting wall is actually like. How high is the ceiling?

I would definitely pay to get a beam put in rather than put up with columns that will compromise any design.

wowfudge

It's all basically along one wall! Very impractical as I have to walk up and down between the fridge and hob and the sink is an odd little monstrosity without a draining board...

Sorry to ask lots of questions, but is the dining table in the second photo in the area you want to use for the kitchen? I just want to understand everything!

wowfudge

Yes, that's right, sorry if that wasn't clear. Their table was a folding one attached to the wall.

Me again - is the window by the dining table on an outside wall? It's not on the floorplan.

Anyway, I would go for a u shaped kitchen with one tail of the u shorter leaving enough space to walk through to the new dining area - kind of the peninsula idea you mentioned. For this to work you might need to move the kitchen doorway - it looks as though it's off a hall though on the floorplan. Maybe replace the door with a sliding barn door fixed to the hall side? Then you don't have to worry about the door opening into the kitchen space. Where the plumbing is will have a bearing on where you put things, or if you move it, the cost of doing the work. Where you can, have floor to ceiling units.

In the new dining area you could add some shallow full height or 3/4 height units to the sloping wall for additional storage.

I think moving the door is the key to getting something other than a galley kitchen to work in the space.