Help with kitchen layout with possible garage conversion

[Sleepdeprived42long]

I’m terrible at visualising/imagining how things will look so hoping for some thoughts/advice on kitchen layout as we’re looking to get a new one next year and possibly extend the floor space with a garage conversion.

I’ve attached a very rough plan of the current one. At the moment there’s not enough space for both 1) a seating area and 2) the extra cupboard space, freezer and bigger fridge we need. Ideally I’d like more worktop space and possibly an island or breakfast bar. We could extend into the back of the garage-either partly or all the way to the front. It is quite long and narrow though and I’m just not sure how it would look. There are two doors and a window which does kind of limit where we can put extra units/appliances/seating. If this was your kitchen, what would you do?

Bump x

Can you give the whole downstairs floorplan?

It would be usual to have the kitchen on the interior walls, change the window for doors and put the table by the window.

Here’s the floor plan.

Part of the issue is that the interior walls with a garage conversion will give quite a long narrow, and pretty dark, kitchen. I feel like I might be missing an obvious solution!

Can you get rid of the utility room? Knock that adjoining wall through to make the kitchen bigger and much lighter. You could put the utility room in the garage space if you want to still have one.

Thanks for your reply. Knocking through to the utility room is possible but would be a big job as the dividing wall is load bearing. The utility room is quite small and also has the back door and access door to the outer side garage which would need to stay.

I'd take about 2m off the garage & make that part of the kitchen. then put all the units in a big U-shape in the 'garage' bit, to give plenty of storage & freezer space etc.

I'd put a nice table & 4 chairs under the window, and a big dresser against the wall that backs onto the utility room. that would give lots of storage for china & glasses, plus a worksurface for 'breakfast things' (toaster, kettle etc) and free up space for the cook in the main kitchen.

on the wall opposite the dresser (backing onto WC) I'd have a mini desk or bookshelves for cookbooks and all the other non-cooking clutter that inevitably accumulates in my kitchen - phone chargers, laptop etc. again, making space for this keeps the proper kitchen space free for the cook.

Do you need the back door on the side? You could block it up and turn one of the windows into French doors. But all pricey, I suppose. Otherwise, if you turn your garage space into an extended kitchen, you could put a window in where the garage doors are, so the kitchen would have a window at both ends.

I think the loo needs to shift into the utility and the back room needs opening up across the house.

Thanks for all the replies! Quite a few options to think about. I like your idea Chewbacca. Just need to weigh up cost as if it would more than £30k we’d probably be cheaper moving!

By cheaper, I mean we could buy somewhere similar nearby that has that layout for less than value of our house + cost of kitchen renovation.

OP I recently discovered free floor planning software that allows you to design a layout and then you can switch it to 3d view etc. I've found it really helpful for putting together extension ideas for our house, you can add furniture etc and get a feel for how useful the space will actually be. floorplanner.com/

Thanks @KitKatBunny I’ll definitely give that a try :-)

Would something like this work. Open up before the stairs into the kitchen, big window where garage door is now, cabinets in garage and current kitchen as a dining area would be nice with patio doors. Depending how big the space is maybe block kitchen door up to allow for seats around table

Thanks @Chillychili yes that could work. The only thing is that it would mean quite a long narrow kitchen. I think I need to try out a few of these ideas using the floor planning software so I can get a better idea of how it would actually look.

What is your budget ? 30k?
Consider the whole downstairs as one space with no walls and then design it

We’ve just done this and our lay out is not dissimilar to yours. We took half the garage (around 2.5m) and made it part of the kitchen. We used it to house a huge corner larder cupboard (Wickes supplied the kitchen ) , full height fridge and various other storage cupboards . We had worktops as well but to avoid it making the garage space feel small they were a narrower depth in the garage end, we have a peninsular that comfortably seats 5 of us. It cost us circa £25k which included all building work , a steel , plastering etc and the kitchen , fitting , etc etc .
My main worry was the new party would feel dark , it doesn’t at all , we have good lighting and chose light cabinets. Best house decision we’ve made ! Still have a good size storage space left in front of garage too.

We converted our garage and did as @chillychili said, she have a U shaped kitchen where the garage used to be, a window put in where the door was, the other end is the dining space with patio doors, it works well but it is also open plan into the lounge area so does make it feel more spacious.

@billysboy ideally half that amount but could save up a bit more if it was for the right thing.

Good to hear that you’ve both moved your kitchen into the garage space @Cupcakegirl13 and @Rattysparklebum and it works. Did either of you have to move water and gas connections? The hassle (and cost) of that concerns me a bit!

No major issues to extend the gas and water to where needed and the new kitchen was easy to fit as we had newly plastered straight walls to fit everything against.

@Sleepdeprived42long I kept the sink and hob where it was to try and keep that cost / faff to a minimum. So we just had electric in the new bit.

@Rattysparklebum wow that looks amazing! Thanks so much for sharing. Glad to hear it want too tricky to move.

@Cupcakegirl13 will definitely bear in mind that we could do electric hob if gas not an option.