How to decide how much to invest in your house?

[CCL123]

if you’re not sure if it’s a stepping stone house or a long term house how do you decide how much you want to spend on a kitchen?

I thi k it would a) work better for you and b) sell better. It just looks really awkward with the current layout. A bespoke kitchen in the same layout would still feel clunky. Is a 50cm sink big enough in a kitchen? Seems quite small?

@RandomMess and @Seaside3 thanks both for your input.

I think this is where we’re a little weird. We really like being able to use the kitchen without walking through the lounge. Our last rental was like that. Now if one of us is hosting friends or working downstairs, the other can go to the kitchen without interrupting. We have a big table in the lounge diner and I didn’t like it. We put smaller table in the kitchen and only use that unless there’s more than 4 people eating. If we take the table out and block the inside door it would only be to make it easier to sell but not for how we live.

Actually I do completely understand that point having previously built in a small purpose built open plan house!

I would block up the back door and have 2 straight runs rather than the L shape.

What is under the stairs/low ceiling but has the yellow rectangle?

Under the stairs are the boxed meters so they’d have to be accessible. I put a yellow block there as we can have storage under the stairs but can’t put a unit in there.

would you not have a back access at all then? Or only the one through the living room? We looked at two straight runs with a door from the kitchen to the lounge diner but couldn’t get enough storage that way without losing seating in the kitchen

Yes I would do without the back door and just use the patio doors in the lounge.

I would then move the kitchen table to under the stairs, the meters would still be accessible for reading them.

That would give you 2 pretty good runs of unit.

You could also rehang the kitchen door to open against the wall or better still open into the hallway give you a bit more width for the kitchen table.

This looks a lot like our old house and sounds like the dilemma we had there, knowing it was a stepping stone but not knowing how much to invest (if any). In the end we never touched the kitchen and were there nine years. With hindsight we should have blocked up the kitchen door and knocked through from the kitchen to the lounge to open it up. This also gives the option to spread your kitchen out over the back of the house, and put some matching units in the opposite wall on the lounge if appropriate.

I get why you like to keep them separate (privacy and zoning is important - sometimes we just want to eat biscuits in peace) but I think you have to accept in a smaller house you have limited options and creating a sense of space and flooring/decor that flows etc will always be a plus to future buyers. Also if you do have kids you will not regret being able to keep an eye on them by having the open plan layout. Plus is this just me but why would you be creeping around when the other one has friends over?! You live there too! Open plan much more social.

Fair enough if you don't want to move kitchen door. I'm.a fan of being able to.see right through my house, so much so, I installed a massive floor to ceiling window at the end of my kitchen, having moved a door so we could have.a direct line of sight.
That said, it's differential a small space, so I would still consider it.

I would also still get rid of the back kitchen door, it seems silly to restrict your space so much when you have patio doors in the lounge, just a spit away. 2 straight runs definitely offers more useable space (can you tell that's what we did too?!) . We went floor to ceiling on some units, but no upper cabinets. I've installed some shelving in the dining space for posh glasses / vases and got rid of excess kitchen items so we don't need masses of cupboards.
Hope you find a solution.

We had a new kitchen about 15 months ago. I really wanted quartz worktops but at 2.5k for our teeny kitchen it just wasn't an option so we went with laminate for now and will save up for the quartz when we can. You can make budget cuts on somethings like that. I would go for the cabinets you want and do cheaper worktops, handles and accessories. You can even go cheaper appliances and upgrade them as you get further down the line. Get the basics right though as a new kitchen is so pricey.

Thanks everyone. The costs of the kitchens are 7k vs 3.3ish k. We’ve explored the kitchen design with the back door blocked, and a door put in, and taking out two walls and making a tiny lounge and it never seems to work for us, lots look like they might make it more appealing to buyers when we sell but we’d lose a lot of storage and hobby space and we’d still have a less good kitchen for us because we can’t fit wide pan drawers in.

blocking the rear door, we’d also have to knock a door to the lounge to be able to access the patio doors without walking all the way through the house, replace the patio doors because they don’t open from the outside, and move the kitchen plumbing and water meter. This becomes much bigger than 3k vs 7k

How much to you really use your back door?

We got rid of ours and it just became a new habit using the patio doors instead.

If you can't open them from the outside don't fully shut them whilst you're in the garden?

The problem is the other long yellow one where we have three different wall depths. which means standard wall units won’t match up.

we had this on BOTH sides of the kitchen I solved it in 2 diff ways.

hope the explanation makes sense

One run was only 6cm difference in the 2 walls so I plastered the wall so it was level with shallowest point we then had a straight run. Cool.

the other side had a 40cm difference 😑
we had narrow units x2 against the shallowest part then 4 x standard depth units (these all have a small void at the back). This gave us a straight run of 6 units with a gap at the back for 4 of them

we bought quartz worktops as a sheet which meant this could be custom cut so this covered over the gap at the back on the worktop level and then at the end of the run we used a breakfast bar end panel to seal the void section.

it works very well.

@GreatGateauxsby thanks. We considered boarding the wall to make them the same depth and then we could use standard sizes. Trying to decide if paying the extra few thousand for cabinets would be better because we’d have to pay for the boarding. I asked if we could just bring the top cupboards forward and leave the bottom part of the wall but none of the fitters we’ve asked are keen to do it.

@RandomMess we use the back door a lot. And we still don’t have a design that would work with a blocked back door

Look for a good joiner not a kitchen fitter. I’ve never had a kitchen fitted by a kitchen fitter always a joiner. Find the joiner first
A relative of mine reduced the depth of the units to go in a galley kitchen. Took ages but was worth it.

gower rapide are good quality and fairly cheap units. The usual options such as cream shaker doors
I like symphony kitchens. The basic range is excellent quality and you can get good discounts on it. This time I’m fitting the top range because I’m not moving for years and I wanted a certain door colour.

It doesn't sound like you can have anything that would improve the kitchen enough for you to love it.

I'd spend the minimum replace like with like and if you end up staying longer you can reuse the carcasses with different doors.

We have a wall cupboard as a base cupboard in part of our run to allow for differing wall depths.

I think the made to measure wouldn’t be something we love but would make our lives easier because it’s more functional. To get soemthing we love we’d have to move house and probably double the mortgage (which we wouldn’t love)

We’ve been trying to but struggling to get one who wants the job

Agree with @Autumn1990 you need to focus on finding a good fitter. It's easier said than done but maybe try dreaded Next door and local what's app group I found these were good places for this.

We saw about 5 and all of them did that irritating teeth sucking/ face pulling thing about the walls.
Last guy we saw (and used) was like "hmmm.... Interesting problem. Okay here are some ways we could make work".

This is what you want. We had numerous things come up in the renovation and I could work with him and have sensible conversations.

He would say yes you can do that but it will mean X is that okay? Or we can do it this way? Positives are this but downside is that.

This the problem, we can solve by doing A or B. What do you think?

By the way the boarding and plaster work cost me an extra few hundred. This was summer 22 in London. It was a last minute add on.

The other thought I had was that might be worth talking to a kitchen designer like Karen at one plan (Google it MN is semi obsessed) she focuses on your lifestyle and needs and may be able to help you get clarity on custom Vs standard

My final boring bit of standard kitchen advice is fit 2 more plug sockets than you think you need on the counter and install a usb plug in your "bits and bobs" kitchen cupboard so phones can be charged out of sight.