New kitchen help - is this a good design (with pic)

[Kitchensanta]

DH and I bought a house with a long covered terrace which looks out onto a walled patio garden which gets great morning and afternoon sun. The current kitchen is small, and badly located in the house so we are trying to work out if we should knock out the exterior wall between the house and the terrace, and turn the terrace into a kitchen or not. The room we would be knocking through from is actually our dining room so to us it kind of made sense.

It's narrow, about 2.9m .. but long .. 8.50m ... and has great high ceilings 2.8m. There are 3 evenly spaced arches (structural) 2 of which we thought we would put doors into so we can have that indoors/outdoors feeling, and 1, at the farthest end where we would put in a window.

In this design, because we want to keep the feature of the old stone wall (it is an old village house and we don't want to hide the true character of the building) we tried the idea of just having a long, fairly wide island (about 6m x 1.2m) rather than a more traditional design of cupboards along the back wall.

The window/door side of the island would have an underset (space for legs) so bar stool seating can go on one side, and on the side near the wall it would have the dishwasher, small fridge, and storage for pots, pans, plates etc. We have a separate area of about 2.2m x 3m which would sit just off on the left hand side of the picture (just before you would walk into the main kitchen area) which would hold main fridge, freezer and serve as a walk in pantry too. On the far end of the island we would have an inset sink, and on the nearer end a ceramic hob with extractor overhead. The far wall will all be more storage and also house 2 ovens (we cook a lot and entertain), and have the microwave and coffee machine.

It is pretty different to anything I've had before and I am really attracted to a minimalist style.

Do any MNs out there have any experience with a space like this? Or any suggestions / drawbacks you can see. This is a big project for us and I really don't want to screw it up! I put this design together using an online app, but can't seem to get it to do a rendered picture from any other angle .. so apologies for that.

Please help me judge if this is a good design or not TVMIA

Shocking design .

Well that has told me ... guess it is back to the drawing board then. Thanks for commenting though

How wide is that island? If the room is only 2.9m wide you don't really have enough room for an island. You need at least 1m either side and I think with this kind of setup (being that you will spend most of your time in the space between the island and the wall) you'd want more than that. Additionally, anyone sitting at the stools is facing a brick wall. I love minimalism but I think this would be hard to live with.

Hi mobear, thanks for your comments and I get what you are saying. My DH suggested the island as he said he would hate us to be cooking and looking at the stone wall instead of out into the patio which is why I tried to do this design. But you make a great point about anyone sitting doing just that. It has about 90cm clearance on the window side and 1m on the wall side so I do think you are right that it might feel a bit tight.

Agree that it's not wide enough for an island. Even a 3' island would mean 3' either side. As soon as someone pushes a chair out, you're tripping over it.

For a room that size, have all the kitchen at one end - either u shape or L plus a small peninsula. Looking into the distance while you're trying not to slice your fingers off is overrated, anyhow. The hob placement in your pic is impractical and dangerous

Thanks PickAChew, I appreciate your points too. I really am not a kitchen designer am I But thought if we at least had some idea of what we might like it would be a start point for when we actually go to a kitchen design company. But I do like your idea of doing an L shape at one end. Am going to show DH your comment and we can play around with that idea. Thank you

I would suggest having a run of cabinets along the back wall - perhaps building out that plinth so it lines up with the cabinets. You'll then have around 2.3m in front of it. I assume this will provide a lot more counter space than you need - one neat solution might be to use some of that space to add a built in bench with a slimline table which faces the garden (I think a floating oak bench would look lovely if you're going for a minimalist look). It wouldn't allow you to cook looking out at the garden but I think it might be as close as you can get to what you want and break up the very long run of cabinets you'll otherwise have. I attach a photo of the kind of thing I mean but you may not have room for chairs on the opposite side (which wouldn't necessarily be a loss, in my view).

Hi OP

I think your hob placement is something to change. Also where will all your cooking “stuff” be - i mean like the stuff you use daily - olive oil, salt, wooden spoons etc.

Finally any reason why ceramic hob and not induction?

Best of luck with it all.

Thanks mobear, I like that idea of having the seating floating, and you are right, it would then give a place to sit and look out on the patio garden. You are right about such a long run of units, that was what I was worried about, so having that break would be really nice and practical too.

Hi DoltAfraid. Thanks for commenting. The cooking stuff would be underneath in cupboards and drawers. DH says he is sick of having so much stuff on countertops making things feel cluttered and I do have to kind of agree with him. At the moment there is so much stuff we have to move around in order to clean the work surfaces I could see his point. It is his dream to have completely clear surfaces also he suggested ceramic as he has had one before and loved it. I only ever had gas, and at the moment we have gas too. Thanks for the good luck wish ... we probably will need it haha!

Just wanted to add thanks again for all the feedback ... am definitely going back to the drawing board and going to try all these various suggestions and will see what DH thinks

With this layout I'd have a dining room there, not the kitchen. It's too narrow for both, kitchen-diner, or even that island. This is either a dining room, a playroom or a sun room to me. Alternatively a utility room/pantry.

If you have to have a kitchen there, don't make it a kitchen diner and have and L-shaped kitchen alongside both walls.

The current design is completely impractical. Why don't you start with the basics:

• does this room have to be a kitchen
• if so, how much storage space and worktop space do you need
• is there room for a separate diner
• what access do you need to the back door(s) and what views do you want/need when doing what in this kitchen

It needs to be practical and enjoyable space, otherwise you won't be happy with it and you'll struggle to sell too.

Having grown up in a stone cottage, I would caution against the exposed wall in the kitchen, yes it looks beautiful but it always seems a bit dusty, my dps have many exposed walls but the kitchen is the only room that doesn’t for this reason.

That island there would drive you mad after a while it would be very tight. We did our kitchen last year and went from gas to induction, best decision created so much space.

We had this put in down one of our walls, your wall does seem long would some form of this adapted down the back wall work, maybe half bench and half work top with a small dining area near the door.

And agree with pps, hob shouldn't be positioned there and I'd definitely choose induction over ceramic, your DH's idea is odd.

Also you say you'd have all your cooking stuff hidden away. You wouldn't. You don't have enough space for this based on this design and even worse, all the cooking (and dirty) stuff would be out right in front of people trying to have their Weetabix whilst facing a brick wall and they'll be breathing in whatever you're cooking right next to them

@PurplePansy05 and @Billybagpuss thank you both for your points and suggestions, it is really helpful to us. I see what you mean about maybe not using it as a kitchen, and using it as something else. DH is right now sketching on paper how we could possibly reshuffle the ground floor entirely so kitchen goes somewhere else and we use that space as a dining room ... you have sparked something with him there. A bit worried a big reshuffle will be too big a project but will explore it more. So excited now

Also thanks for idea about induction hob ... I had no experience of either but you have made him rethink that too.

Don't really see much workspace or storage down the end and you'd be stuck getting on top of each other.

Get your design safety checked by a credible professional like Karen at OnePlan, she will do this FOC for mumsnetters. (saw it mentioned on a previous thread) she doesn't sell kitchens but has been designing them for years.

Thanks for your comment @iminthegarden all feedback is eagerly being taken on board.

I am laughing so hard here right now because DH has now officially discounted having an island even though I expressed some fears/doubts previously it has been the unanimous views of MNs have utterly convinced him to ditch it.

Back to the drawing board and with a lot of helpful and interesting ideas to explore. Thank you all

I'd do a u shape at the far (blue) end. 2.9 wide, allow 90cm walk through on the window side (doorways are 80cm, so it's workable), then you can have a 2m bench with plenty of space for seating as a breakfast bar.

The U could be 4m long, that's a nice size. That would leave you another 2.9 x 4m that could have a dining table or breakfast nook or casual sitting area.

I'd try to do a cross between a u and galley kitchen style. Something like this would work well in the space, but with a U bench.

Thanks for your suggestion to contact that lady @121hugsneeded but not sure she would do that service for us as we are not in the UK?

Agree induction hobs are brilliant!

We relocated our kitchen into what was the dining room of our house last year. One of things which really helped was getting three kitchen designers to do plans for us. They know the minimum clearances you need, where stuff is best located etc. I would take photos and detailed measurements of the room and see what they come up with. Howdens will do you a plan, it doesn’t have to be high end.

Karen at oneplan isn’t on MN anymore and so I suspect she isn’t doing free plan checks for MNers anymore. She’s extremely busy atm.

Ohh @k1233 ... just showed your comment and pic to DH and we both think that is a lovely idea to explore. Thank you. Wow so much great advice and ideas from you all.

Sorry, have just seen you aren’t in the Uk! Maybe local kitchen companies then, or an independent designer you pay a fee to like Karen above. I don’t see why she wouldn’t do a plan for you, you’d just have to be particular about your measuring!

@HasaDigaEebowai thanks for that info. I was doubtful she could help us anyway as we are not in the UK.