Help reconfigure kitchen/diner!

[CathyWuthering]

Hi all!

Just bought a house I love but the current kitchen/diner set up simply doesn’t work for my needs. Currently I have a generous dining room whilst the kitchen is hemmed in and lacks storage because of where my utility is placed.

Budget doesn’t allow for any extensions and ideally I’d like to keep my separate utility room even though it makes things a bit difficult in terms of reconfiguration. My current thought is to move the kitchen into the current ‘diner’ space and create a ‘diner’ space in the awkward kitchen space.

I’ve attached a floor plan and would love to see what you could come up with before I go to my design appointments!

What are the dimensions and what does the rest of the house look like? In my opinion, based on the layout, you don’t really have space for the utlity room.

@Ozanj I have been thinking that knocking into the current utility would solve the issues but I’m trying my best to explore other possible solutions as I do enjoy having a separate utility and I don’t want getting rid of it to be seen as a negative if I ever did come to sell.

The current dimensions are:

Kitchen - 12’5 x 6’11
Dining Room - 10’11 x 9’9
Utility Room - 6’8 x 5’1

The house is a fairly modern new build. The kitchen is at the end of the entrance hallway where there is also access to the living room and downstairs WC.

Thanks for the response!

we once had a tiny room our dining room with bench seating around 3 sides and a pedestal table in the middle. you could fit 8 around the table at a pinch & it worked well.

@parietal That does sound fab & like it would work well in smaller spaces. I’m guessing it was a bit like a booth style seating area?

Would you consider a utility cupboard? There are some clever solutions if you look on Pinterest/ Instagram. You could then knock through the utility and brick up where the door to the outside is currently and thus get more space to place units. You could then place tall units all along the bottom end, low units plus wall cupboards along the side, a sink and low units facing the window and have a small peninsula facing the dining area.
We have that layout and it works very well.

Something to consider is that it can be really expensive to move a kitchen as you have to move all the pipe work etc. As you said I don’t think you can afford the luxury of a utility room, space-wise, and would be better off knocking through to create a more open plan kitchen diner.

Also it looks like the current dining room isn’t actually any bigger than the kitchen but just a different shape. Once you have allowed the space for the double doors I don’t see that you would actually fit any more units in the kitchen if you moved it to the utility and I’m struggling to see what the advantages would be. Perhaps can you post a drawing of the kitchen plans in both locations? Moving the kitchen seems like an easy way to spend a whole load of money for not a lot of benefit IMO.

I think that with two very similar sized rooms you wouldn’t benefit much from switching them around. It costs an enormous amount to move things like water and drainage- you have to dig the floor up to change it. I would save the money and pay for decent bespoke booth seating in the dining room and possibly cabinets in the kitchen right up to the ceiling to make best use of the space. I know when you have a space that you feel doesn’t work well then temptation is to move everything around but in this case I simply can’t see the point, it looks to me like you have the best layout possible without extending so I’d just make the most of what you’ve got.

Could you move the utility upstairs (in a cupboard, end of bathroom, landing etc) or under the stairs (with loo etc if necessary). Or even into the shed or garage? That’s what’s compromising the kitchen layout. I think it would cost quite a bit just to swap the rooms and not sure it would be much better. If you really can’t have the utility somewhere else or make a utility room you might be better saving up for an extension.