Extension dream shattered - what do I do with this kitchen now?

[Fooferella]

I've had a few threads on here asking for help finding a builder for a small yet tricky extension I have been dreaming about for the last 5 years and this week a couple of builders finally put me out of my misery and gave me quotes ranging from £45,000 to £55,000. This is far and away out of our budget so I'm back to square one.

We still need a new kitchen so we're getting one in the original footprint but I'm totally deflated and uninspired now that my bubble has been so rudely popped. The kitchen is awkwardly shaped and small but I'd like to try and improve it for my own sanity. You can't fit 2 people down the narrow corridor in front of the stove and we have to bring our bikes in from the back door through there too. The oven door has 2 cm clearance between it and the wall when it is open. We hardly ever use the table and chairs, they are normally piled up with crap and we're forever moving them out of the way to get at the washer.

I've included pictures of how it is now. How would you organise it? The two things I insist on are an upright fridge/freezer and a dishwasher. Any ideas? Recommendations for kitchen designers good with rubbish spaces? HELP!

Aside from that, if you're determined to spend on building works could you knock the hall out completely so you walk into the living room then extend the kitchen backwards?

I'd do this.

Knock the walls down between the hall/ front room and the kitchen/living room.
Have everything open.
Then the kitchen can extend slightly into the living area, with an island or table chairs.

You gain some living space back with the hallway being added to the living room.

What is your budget? Could you afford to extend at all, or save for a couple more years? It's just so tiny that even going out by 1m or 1.5m would make a big difference.

Your current kayout is similar to my mums previous layout. She moved the wall between the kitchen and living back (to approx where you chimney is but her chimney in different position). This gave a bigger kitchen area and put in glass doors to the living room so they no longer needed door from hall to living room. She has room for kitchen with a table and still has seperate living area.
Don't know if it helps but just an idea how someone else worked around it.

Just what reefedsail showed while I was writing!

@reefedsail yes this is exactly what I had clunkily suggested!

Have a word with an architect. They can see space and its potential so much better than builders, in my experience.

How many quotes did you have?

That sounds like a lot for a single story extension!

I’m like a wiry terrier with a bone, I’d keep getting quotes (yes I know that hard too!)
But your layout/size really does need help if the building/extending variety!

In an ideal world, you'd make the kitchen larger via an extension or do similar to the drawing @reefedsail did. However if this isn't possible, I'd leave the layout (largely) unchanged and just use less deep cupboards/worktops, with the oven in the shaded corner like on my crap drawing, and put the table further back towards the stairs.

Yup, for me, either completely open plan or move the wall up to the fireplace, although that may well look odd and you might need to take the chimney breast out in the sitting room completely.

Could you have a look on Rightmove and see what others on your street have done?

That's quite a nice looking kitchen

I'd take the wall right back to halfway across the living room (is it a room that was once two, and knocked through?) and make the kitchen a big kitchen /diner family room.

And then make the bit of kitchen in the corner, at the end of the hall, a Utility area.

I agree that if the living room is big enough, get the wall moved so your kitchen is fully rectangular.

If a full extension is out of budget, consider a solid roofed conservatory so you at least have space for a decent table, without tripping over iit all the time.

Fit slim French doors where your back door is. It will make it easy to get your bikes in and out. It will also make the kitchen appear bigger.

What others have said. Just knock through to the living room, and have an open plan living/kitchen/dining area, maybe with a large island with chairs instead of a dining table? It's actually not that expensive to knock through and put up a steel beam.

Can you swap the window with the sink and the door over, meaning you have a galley kitchen that nobody needs to walk through, and then you an go straight from hall through kitchen to back door and store bikes in the garden shed
The sink could then go along the lefthand wall.

Can you get other quotes? I live in a expensive part of the uk and paid 65k for a 6*25 metre two level extension with pitched roof and 2.5 metre foundations ( before tax)

I would take down the living room wall and have it open plan

I agree with @reefedsail but if you can't lose that much space from the living room, can you lose the built in cupboard in the living room to give more space in the kitchen?

What kind of hanging or flat-ish wall storage can you find, e.g. to hand utensils on to then get rid of cupboards. I'd also suggest ruthlessly going through the kitchen and chucking out everything you don't need or use, get rid of any junk drawers etc to try and minimise the number of cupboards and drawers in the kitchen.

I have a narrow kitchen and managed, partially by doing the above, to get rid of over the counter/ high cupboards on most walls - this immediately made it look bigger even though it wasn't.

Look on Pinterest for kitchen storage ideas - some of them are ingenious and would then cut down on cupboard usage, creating more space. Something I have successfully copied from there is having upright dowel dividers in a cupboard and it's much easier to store loads of chopping boards and baking trays neatly.

Do you really need the table and stools in there?

I’m a fan of going to maximum height in places and having open walls in others, this gives an illusion of more space than the standard set of wall units all round. So, an integrated fridge freezer with cupboard on top, oven with microwave and cupboard on top etc.

I'm really shit at visualising space but I visited a house recently where frustrated with a tiny back kitchen and no dining space they had turned their hall way into a galley kitchen and the kitchen into a dining space. They'd removed all doors creating a flowing open plan space. Would this be doable?

I also like Bertiedrappers idea of knocking through wherever you can to open things up.