Kitchen renovation

[FromWalesAndBackAgain]

We bought our first house a few years ago, planned to stay here a few year and move - but with interest rates and the market - plus the community I’ve built here - I think we will be staying a long while.

I hate our kitchen though, it’s narrow and done not at all to my taste. Now we are planning to stay here a good while I really want to invest in renovating it to something we love. This is our first house and will be our first renovation project - where do I even start?! We don’t have a budget in mind as I wouldn’t know where to even start with creating one, and I don’t want to be restricted by a budget when we have flexibility in terms of how we would fund it (plus we don’t need to do it immediately, so if we have to save for a little while longer I’m fine with that). I want to understand our options in regards to if we stuck with the current room structure and if we were to extend or change walls internally etc.

most kitchen design services only look at the space you currently have and hiring an architect seems quite expensive (I can’t get a clear understanding - as they seem to work on percentage but seems to be £5-7k which seems a lot if I were to decide to not make any structural changes).

Any advice is welcome in terms of where I start, complete novice here. Thanks so much!

I'd start with sharing a floor plan on here.

We don’t have a floor plan, the sellers didn’t have one drawn up

Well you're going to need a floor plan for anything you may do so I would start by finding an architectural technician to come and measure up and produce one for you. Much cheaper than an architect and usually better technically too. They can also if you wanted be able to give you ideas about what you can do/change etc for a fee. You'll probably get the plans for around £500 and then another £1500 for some options.

Start by going on to diy kitchens and using their planner. You put in the room measurements and can add doors and windows then add all the units and appliances you want. They have different options so you'll be able to decide whether you want a shaker kitchen, or handle less etc.

Then at least you'll have a it of an idea of what you definitely don't like or do want in terms of kitchen. Then go and visit some kitchen places and see what they think.

Moving plumbing and gas makes everything more complicated and more expensive. Don't forget flooring cost if you're changing it.

I think the main thing is to think about what's important to you vs. what's expensive. And what you can live with.

For example just picking on one sentence in your OP:

done not at all to my taste - potentially cheap to medium cost to fix - changing units, or refurbing existing units. Flooring, paint and/or tiles. The plumbing and electrics could very well stay the same or be changed minimally.

it’s narrow - could be frighteningly expensive to fix, as presumably you'd then be looking at employing builders, knocking down walls and putting up new ones, etc. as well as moving services.

most kitchen design services only look at the space you currently have - precisely - because that's what most people have/can afford to work with! Changing spaces and employing architects etc. is orders of magnitude more expensive and complicated.

I think you need to work out if you would be happy enough to modernise your current kitchen in its existing footprint. If yes, then you could do it up with minimal disruption with new cupboards, built in bin, integrated appliances, tiles and flooring etc.

If not, then you are into the big money stakes I think. As a pp said, knocking down walls, moving plumbing, new electrics, plastering, and so on.

I can guarantee you having done the latter, that once you start a project, you (or your builder) will find lots of things that "need" fixing around the place and before long thousands are added to the budget.

I didn't mind, as it was part of an overall refurb on the ground floor and had budgeted for this, but if you are thinking of the kitchen only, you have to decide how far you are willing or able to go.

It's fairly easy to measure your room and draw it to scale. It doesn't need to be technical. You might want to include adjoining rooms if you're thinking about extending/moving it.
And photos can help.

I was in a similar position last year with no idea where to start. Do you have an IKEA or something like that near you? They do free kitchen plans, no obligation, which will give you some idea of possibilities even if you don't actually go with them in the end.

I extended to the side and back. I knew my kitchen was too small for what I wanted and I had no utility room in the house. I spent time on room planner drawing out various configurations to get a good idea of what I wanted.

the first consultation with my architect was free. Total cost was about £2k (I didn’t need planning permission).

your first big decision is extend or not.

if you decide to extend her a rough idea of the additional space you want for your dream room then bring in the architect.

my total cost was over £100k against an original budget of £60k!!!

thank you everyone for your replies - really helpful.

we have a bit of a weird layout in that a previous owner has already done some extension work to it. It’s hard to explain and I do wish I had a plan - I’ve tried sketching out a rough plan - I apologise for the state of it!

The extension at the end has been added on at some point by a previous owner and is single story with sky lights, where the dotted line is would be where the house originally ended.

my dream is to have a kitchen island - though I know sometimes dreams don’t come true and you have to just work with what you have. I want someone to give me ideas of whether this would be possible - for example removing where the kitchen cupboard and gap where the fridge (the bit that juts out right in the middle) is to open up that space more - but I don’t know anything about weight baring walls etc - and would love to be able to add a pantry cupboard somewhere - so not massively concerned about moving plumbing and gas etc but just want to get some different ideas! But I don’t know who that someone is to contact and commission!