Kitchen or dining room at the back?

[OttilieKnackered]

Hi all,

We’re just in the process of buying a terraced house. Currently the kitchen is at the back looking onto the garden and the dining room is open to the living room, the walls having been removed. Walls can be reinstated quite easily to create hall and/or separate living and dining.

Many of the others nearby instead have the kitchen in the middle. Will add some pictures of all three to show what I mean.

Just wondering which people feel is preferable both for day to day use and resale value.

Personally I enjoy being in the kitchen and being able to see into the garden, so for me I'd prefer it at the back.

Thanks @HappyHappyHermit!

Kitchen at the back. I prefer the lounge/diner with no hallway, but it depends on whether you need 2 reception rooms.

I have had it each way via various places I have lived. Definitely kitchen at the back. My last house has it at the front. I was hit by any kitchen smells as soon as I walked in the front door, if one of my family had cooked/eaten and not cleaned up, that was first thing I saw coming in. Same for guests.

of note, it is also safer for kitchens to be further away from stairs to give you a bit extra time to get out in case of a fire.

Ok pretty unanimous so far. The ones with dining at the back all have lovely French doors to the garden which I think it what I like. I suppose I could do the same in a kitchen, and block up the current door for more wall space.

If the dining room was in the middle as a closed off box then I'd never go in it, waste of a room as I'd then spend my time in the kitchen.

I prefer a closed off sitting room at the front, then an open kitchen diner with the dining area right at the back by doors into the garden. The kitchen/dining room shouldn't be open to the hall though.

My kitchen is at the back and leads onto the garden with big French doors. Now the warmer weather is here I have moved the sofa in front of the doors and I sit there eating my breakfast or reading my book. It’s lovely.

I wouldn’t ever move my kitchen the middle of the house.

Thanks. That’s not really possible in these types of terraces. At least not without a side return extension which I don’t think is worth the money.

I was thinking of the dining being open to the hall just to make it less poky really.

I'd leave it as it is.
It depends on the dimensions whether it would work with a hallway and a dining room.

Do you have children who might want to leave bikes in the hallway, or want a room for piano practice or similar?

Not yet! Probably best to leave as is until we know how we use it.

Ours is a terrace with kitchen at the back, I wouldn't have it anywhere else, ours has French windows which are open all the time in summer, we eat on the patio unless it's raining, it's so easy to pop in and out to put washing on the line, pick herbs for cooking, do other little jobs in the garden plus the kitchen is nice and light and airy with a lovely outlook.

Kitchen at the back of standard configuration for good reason, eg you can supervise children in the garden, more natural light etc. I've viewed houses where estate agents have apologised for the fact that the kitchen was not at the back & talked about possibilities for fixing that.

I think that kitchen at the back works well for that layout. You'll arguably spend more time in the kitchen than in the dining room, unless you use it as a work space, so it's nice to have more light and a view of the garden. Also, much easier to throw open the doors and let fresh air in if the kitchen gets hot or someone likes cooking particularly smelly food!

Is the dining room larger than the kitchen? If so, that would count as another reason for me to switch rooms.

@FuglyHouse no dining area is quite small. You’re right more time is spent making and cleaning up food than actually eating it!

What is the light like in the middle?

We moved our kitchen back to the middle (wasn't open to front room though). We did it this way because we have a lovely garden but I never felt I could see it other than washing up and standing on my tip toes as window was quite high. Was also useless for seeing kids as back door was cut off by awful utility corridor which we took out to make one decent space.

Kitchens are easier to light if the space is darker

But ours is semi open (gap of original window). If it is going to be opened up then I think it's nicer to sit looking out (we have a sofa there and it gets lovely evening sun).

The other consideration is room size. Have a play with graph paper and rough kitchen layout. Our back room although slightly bigger didn't work as well for kitchen units once took doors and windows into account. It wasn't quite big enough for island or table in middle so would have just meant an overly large gap in the centre. A u shaped kitchen wrapped nicely round the middle room.

You may find a bit of rough planning makes decisions more obvious

I like a kitchen at the back x

As someone said above, the ideal configuration is a kitchen-diner together and then a separate lounge/snug. And that is hard in the standard terraced house.

an unusual option would be to move the kitchen to the front room. you would get a good view out of the front windows, and then have the dining room in the middle. The back room could then be the lounge with lovely doors to the garden etc.

You might need to keep a wall + door between the hall and kitchen so that it is possible to go downstairs and out of the front door without going into the kitchen, just to comply with fire regs. but that shouldn't be hard.

I quite like option 2 ie hallway and kitchen at back, but with french doors out from the dining room for light

if you had a bit more money I suppose you could relocate the toilet to under stairs and take the wall out between the kitchen and dining room - light would flood into dining room. You would need to move entrance into dining space from side to ahead of you when you walk through front door - so that you would have rather a large kitchen diner other than the width of the side return

Always kitchen at back though. Can’t imagine any other way.

Kitchen at the very back. If side return/kitchen diner isn't an option (which I get, isn't always worth it or possible), then I'd need to do something more purposeful than a closed off dining room in the back as we just wouldn't use it daily.

In which case I'd open it up to the living room (and add patio doors to the yard in place of the window) and just make a larger living space overall.

You’re probably going to spend a heck of a lot more time in the kitchen than the dining room, so I’d have it with the view. We do. We have a small breakfast table in the kitchen, and a dining room at the front of the house.

Thank you all so much, some really interesting ideas.

Re: living room at the back. I know this is probably the most modern way to do it but for some reason it just doesn’t sit right to me. I like nosing at passers by as I watch TV 😂. @BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz re: your suggestion, I’m not sure patio doors would fit although I do like the idea of them! In that case, would you reinstate the hall or keep it completely open?

Yes I'd put a hall wall back up - but I'd do that regardless as I'd hate the idea of noise travelling through the house from the main living space especially on an evening.

That is a bit of a concern, though it would make a pretty narrow dining room.

Think we might have to hang some sheets up to see how it feels.

Another idea I had was to wall off the living area but leave the dining either open or with a wide arch so it feels less enclosed. Or would that look/feel ludicrous?

Could you relocate the loo to under the stairs and then connect kitchen to dining room like this? Not sure where exactly you would put hallway door in that scenario but, as someone that used to have a separate dining room which hardly ever got used (apart from hanging laundry to dry), I'd always prefer a kitchen diner and it would be much lighter too.