Floorplan suggestions - creating a kitchen-diner in an extended 1930's house

[confusednw]

We are soon to be moving into a 1930's detached house with a single-story extension to the rear.

We would like to create an open kitchen-diner space and are looking for advice on what might be feasible without further extension.

We believe that the wall between the dining room and kitchen could be quite easily removed (creating a partial opening). However, the wall between the sitting room and kitchen is thicker and likely load-bearing (see the section highlighted in the purple box).

Would it be feasible to open up the sitting room, dining room and kitchen into a large kitchen-diner space? Could anyone give a very rough estimate for this type of work?

Any layout suggestions would be welcomed - thanks!

Based on my knowledge of a standard 1930s house plan, that highlighted purple bit will be the original external wall. I know nothing about building costs, but would imagine it will be much more expensive to take that out! You'll need proper professional advice.

I'd just not bother personally, but I much prefer an entirely separate kitchen, so that doesn't really help!

I live in a house with similar floorplan although ours is extended by about 8ft to the other side of the front door the full width of the house (and on two storeys), which gives a cloakroom/utility and larger L-shaped separate kitchen on the ground floor and an office/small single bedroom and extended small front bedroom on the first floor. We actually swapped the ground floor rooms around in our house so that what is marked as lounge on your plan we use as a dining room (also has sideboard/piano etc in) and we use the whole of what is on your plan as sitting room/extended dining room as our lounge/family room (we have 3DC, now teens). I am with the pp that I prefer kitchen separate. In these houses the distance to a separate dining room is minimal anyway and it's never been a hassle carrying dishes etc. DC doing homework at dining table are in earshot/voice range of the kitchen too.

I might be tempted to turn the existing kitchen into a utility and use the sitting room and dining room as a big kitchen diner.

You could section off the new utility where the original outside wall is and have that part included in the new room to maximise light and views over the garden.

You can take that bit in the purple box out but you'll need a steel beam to go across the whole width. It would also be quite deep with a downstand across unless you want to take out some of the wall above to get it in higher. I'd get some advice from a Structural engineer, probably cost less than £1000 for survey and design for it.

We've basically got your house, with a side extension too taking the side wall out 2.5m on the other side of the hall. We have removed all internal walls from the purple box to the back, and made a big open room which has space for kitchen, dining and sitting looking out at the garden zones.

It was eye-wateringly expensive, particularly because material and labour costs shot up 18 mo ago when we started, partly because in a 1930s house you uncover problem after problem as you go along. We do have a couple of massive beams and a complicated ceiling-scape!

Get a quote, but you're likely to be in the 80-100k zone including flooring etc

Hi
Does anyone have any recommendations for a free ap for room design planning. Has anyone tried any that are pretty straight forward?
I’d like a new kitchen layout and I’d like to visualise different options on a plan before starting the process with kitchen suppliers.
thanks in advance

I know you don't want an extension but if it were me I would consider a teeeeeeny extension to square off the kitchen with the dining room (green line), remove the walls in red and put in bi folds to the garden (blue).

The narrow bit of the kitchen can be a utility area which you could separate with a wall/door from the kitchen/diner if you wanted or leave open.

Uncannily, this is exactly what I want to do with our very similar 1930s semi. Even down to @MadMadamMimz 's idea of putting a utility at the hall end of the kitchen! Although I want to enlarge the kitchen further so we gain back the kitchen space we would lose to the utility. Maybe you could incorporate the loo space in with the utility, if possible?

I'd expect it to cost a fortune but I've noticed that houses which have had this kind of work done are selling fast when others which haven't are sitting on the market, which does indicate that at the moment at least, this style of living is desirable (and I can see why, my own is just annoying because it could just be so much better, more usable).

(I actually created a floor plan with the thought of asking MN for suggestions as usually there are so many great ones that I wouldn't have thought of...)

@razia100 try kitchenplanner.net Alternatively DIY Kitchens have an online planner as well.

Something along these lines? It depends how open plan you want. The dining could be shifted to the "empty" sitting room or the sitting room could be play room/work area/family space (separate to the more "snug" atmosphere of the lounge).

The pillar could stay or go but there will be a lintel in there holding up the back of the house so you'd need to consider the cost of a large steel if you removed it. Leaving it can provide a useful wall to help "zone" the space or to place furniture against or a nook for a desk...

Or this, although the kitchen could be too dark.

I think I'd put the kitchen in the sitting room and dining stay where it is. Old kitchen becomes utility.

I like what SoupDragon drew but agree that the kitchen could be dark. If the extension roof was altered to have a lantern window then you'd get some more light.

We hadn't considered the extension with utility room option, but like the idea.

@MadMadamMimz - would you have a rough idea of the cost of a small extension like this?

We were initially thinking it would be cheaper to take down the wall than extend.

Really like this idea - the snug has a wood burning stove, which we would like to try and keep.

Trying to figure out if the kitchen would give enough space with this layout (we could always brick up the door and make the utility slightly smaller).

I’d do this.

Yes I thought exactly the same.

We have the same layout and put a big T beam in to carry the structural weight of the corner. I split my rear dining space into a utility and pantry / bootroom and extended out to the back so we have a big open plan kitchen living dining space.
we were lucky that my partner has done a huge amount of the work and we just paid builders for brickwork and steels but we are at least 50-60k in and still not finished.
in your situation I would consider doing this -
red for kitchen with island (around pillar - can look super effective), green for sofa, purple for large patio doors, blue for dining.
saw a similar design on Houzz and really resonated with me as would’ve been a fab space for us!

And actually where I closed off the kitchen door and left the dining room door, thinking about it I’d do the opposite so you have more private sofa space and get sight lines from the front door through to the garden.

Here’s what we did, but we extended out 7m to the rear.
middle room divided into utility and pantry, old kitchen has become a bootroom space and we have e a large kitchen living diner with massive sliders looking on to our garden at the end.
we absolutely love the space and live in it, but it has less character than what I drew previously.

Thinking about this further, we really like the idea below. The small utility room could be the 2nd entrance to the property, with a stacked washer/dryer in that space (hopefully not a big issue for plumbing as it backs onto the downstairs WC?). Potentially, a pocket door would lead through to the kitchen.

Do you think the kitchen would have enough worktop space for food prep, etc? We also need to consider where a fridge/freezer could go.

What does the room in the middle become?
Also, it feels (on paper) like the kitchen could be small compared to other rooms?

We'd like to keep that room in the middle as a snug (and daytime office space).

I don't think there is enough kitchen space in that plan, plus the middle room becomes a large corridor/ pointless space.

@puffylovett1 that 1st design is amazing.