Would you install a prep kitchen?

[Ablababla]

we are looking at refurbishing our kitchen / dining room. One idea we had was to extend out and make a big kitchen diner space that connects better to the rest of the house and makes the most of the light. This would leave us with an awkward space where the existing kitchen is currently. I actually like the kitchen and was wondering if if I could integrate it into the new kitchen as a prep kitchen. It’s popular in the US but does anyone have one in the U.K? would it put you off buying a house?

house is quite upmarket (big Edwardian Villa with big garden) at a price point where prospective purchasers are very picky. I think the thing that lets it down is the small dark kitchen which was designed for Servants 100 years ago but now with modern family life is where we spend all of our time!

@Blossomtoes
If you are thinking about dividing this space into zones it’s not big. Some people do have bigger houses and maybe don’t comment if you cannot think of anything useful to say. It’s a space that isn’t much smaller than some London flats, but that’s not the conversation. It’s about what the best use of this space would be for the op.

Doesn’t the OP mean the 25 x 15 kitchen is the proposed prep kitchen not the main kitchen? I think that’s pretty spacious for a spare kitchen!

I do mean the proposed prep kitchen would be that size not the main kitchen, which will be as big as our budget would allow. Still trying to cost that out and scared by how
much stuff is going up! After reading all the advice I think a larder / bigger boot room is the way to go and I could squeeze in a drying cupboard at the end for all DH’s manky cycling gear. Thanks so
much for your thoughts!

Ignore me anyway on the size comment. For some reason I lost my ability to do maths. 25x15 foot is more like 7.5m x 3m which is indeed a fairly large space and enough to chunk up into different small rooms

Who elected you thread police @TizerorFizz? I’ll post to any thread I choose.

@Blossomtoes
? of course you can but you just sound envious. And now angry!

@Ciri In a big house, it isn’t. 25x15 ft is around 7.6 x 4.5m. If you have large, gracious, rooms in the rest of the house, you need to mirror this in the kitchen. You can make that space a real family kitchen and that maintains value. I don’t think many people really want a carved up kitchen space. Yes, you need a laundry room (I have a wine fridge and lots of storage in mine and recycling) but my kitchen is around the size of this one and I use all of it. It means you can add dining or seating areas and an island easily fits in. It’s just a better use for this space rather than smaller self contained rooms.

🙄

I don’t think you understand, the 25 x15 room is not the main kitchen that space is purely for the prep kitchen, I would imagine the posters main kitchen will be vast.

Our last two houses have had a separate utility (washer, dryer, airer) room, a separate scullery ( a colder room with a fridge, pantry type storage, large Belfast sink) lots of clear worktop space. Then the kitchen. I use the scullery for medium size appliances to keep the kitchen clear, so the microwave, the slow cooker, grinders, dehydrators etc and do all my baking in there. I prep veg in there as well. It’s darker and cooler so veg/eggs store without needing the fridge. I cook and plate up in the kitchen, which stays relatively tidy and clean. It all works well.

If that space has a door to the garden, which I’m guessing has a BBQ but maybe not a plumbed in/gas fired BBQ (?), I’d be turning it into a space where all my summer entertaining/BBQ stuff goes. Massive sinks to soak skewers and grills; two dishwashers for all the melamine tableware; easily accessible fridges to keep drinks cold and freezers for ice cream etc.

In the winter it would be where I’d put the slow cooker on overnight, soak casserole dishes, prove bread.

Full height wine fridge, hob (nothing fancy), basic oven with warming drawer, all would get used over Christmas and NY. As children grow, they can keep their sandwich makers and smoothie gadgets and George Foreman whatevers in there.

So, not exactly a prep kitchen. Just a realistic kitchen for messy stuff. The real one would look gorgeous and get used when it’s just basic family stuff (breakfast, lunch, normal dinners etc).

I'm American and I find full extra kitchens weird and off-putting (they're also sometimes called dirty kitchens). I feel like they duplicate something that doesn't need to be duplicated and relegate the real kitchen to some kind of showplace and they generally have a kind of sad, unused feel. The only one I've seen that makes sense to me belongs to some friends of ours, one of whom is a celebrity of sorts, who entertain a lot on a large scale with professional chefs/caterers cooking on site. But theirs is in a converted attached outbuilding that's essentially closed off from the main part of the house.

I much prefer a pantry or larder that has room for kitchen overflow. We opted for a large pantry with a double glass wine fridge, an extra fridge and freezer, extra dishwasher and oven, a big butler's sink and the washer and tumble dryer. We also keep the microwave and coffee machine in there. I've certainly been known to chuck a dirty roasting pan in there and close the door when guests are coming, but I can't imagine actually wanting to cook in there so that my kitchen would look pristine.

Personally I would love a walk on pantry. Lots of open shelving for food (we grow our own so realise not everyone needs this space) room to store once a year type items like Christmas cake decoration and some worktop space for drying veg off on/doing some prep. Then the other half as a boot room

Some friends have a huge open plan kitchen, dining lounge area with a prep kitchen. It works. They do smellier messier jobs in the prep kitchen (eg gutting fish, so you don’t have that in the open plan). I was at a party and really saw how it works. There’s was more galley style so your space sounds more than ample.

Are you using an architect? I think it’s a small investment relative to the work you are doing and good design done well tends to keep or exceed it’s value.

That said you don’t seem that into the idea!

*Their’s

I don’t know what has happened to my maths…

but yes the 7 x 5 m space is nothing to do with the main kitchen according to the op.

my boot room is 5x3. It’s a decent size but still full with two adults, two older teens, cats and dog. It has a large sink and it’s the muddy space in the house.

my laundry room is the clean space. It’s 4m x 3.5m

pantry is almost 4m x 2.5m. It’s a great space. If however you want fridges and freezers in a pantry you need to have a big space and adequate ventilation because a pantry needs to be cool and freezers generate a lot of heat.

but depending on your floor plan you could actually get a boot room, a pantry and a butters pantry into a 7m x 5m space. The butlers pantry would serve the purpose of somewhere to sling dirty dishes etc when entertaining.

its all dependent on the floor plan though

If your current utility is awkward I would consider making r into a better utlity room with dishwasher (or 2?) and washing machine / tumble dryer closed off from entertaining. Could still use it to dump dirty plates etc.

could the current utility be a boot room?

if you share a downstairs floor plan it might be easier to give advice.

So my parents have a house which is definitely not big enough for an entire spare kitchen, but I think their utility room sort of fulfils the idea that article talks about.

It's got the usual accoutrements of a utility room - washing machine, tumble drier etc. Then it's also got all the random things one doesn't use that often - accessories for Magimix/Kenwood, other useful but ugly appliances like the bread maker, a myriad of biscuit cutter, an extra fridge and freezer, another sink.

It doesn't have a full spare oven or anything like that. I think you're idea about splitting a boot room off it sounds very sensible, but TBH the idea of a 10ft by 15ft larder (assuming you take 15 ft square for a boot room) sounds mad to me, and I'd definitely want there to be at least some worksurface etc for hiding appliances etc.

My entire main living area is only 24' by 12' though and my kitchen is 5'*10' so I am working on waaay smaller footprints than you're talking about here.

Surely you can open a tin of Baked Beans in the 'main' kitchen and it doesn't need a separate area unless you are extremely messy or if you have the same sodding tin opener as we have.

I think having a separate kitchen would be a real faff. All your ingredients and implements would end up being in the other space — unless you had two of everything. Two bins, two food wastes, etc. I’d go for the big pantry/butler’s pantry/scullery combo.

How much did your house cost OP? I’m nosy but this is anonymous so…

Be aware that a second kitchen can be a nightmare for prospective buyers as banks don't like to lend on houses with 2 kitchens! (We found this out to our detriment) Usually computer will say no immediately and will have to go to underwriter, who often says no, too. The reason is that with a second kitchen, you could easily annex off part of the house and let that, and then it becomes harder for banks to evict everyone and sell the house if someone defaults on their mortgage. So I would turn it into a scullery/pantry/bootroom kind of place where you can still do your prep as in chopping, washing up. But no second oven and hob, what will turn it into a kitchen from a mortgage point of view.

Our house is quite large and at a high price point. We have a very large kitchen, a big laundry room, a housekeepers cupboard (walk in storage for cleaning stuff) a large separate walk in pantry, a cloakroom by the front door (just for guest coats etc and separate from the downstairs loo) and a large boot room at the back of the house which is now full of our old kitchen cabinetry.

I could not be more jealous right now!
😀 My house might actually be tidy if I had that! I'd rather these over a prep kitchen.

That sounds rather like our East Wing. I've not bothered to go down there myself but the boot-boy tell me it's very nice.

I think the idea is good but you need a better name. Call it a scullery or a boot room or a flower room or something.

i can assure you it’s still a tip!