Turn beautiful second reception room into mediocre kitchen / diner?

[OrangeCrushes]

We have a great house, but the current kitchen and dining space is really lacking. We are considering converting our beautiful but little-used second reception into a kitchen / diner and making the current kitchen into a kitchen mess overflow/utility (we already have a laundry room).

The issue is that the space is very narrow and we don't want to go through the expense or hassle of an extension or much structural work. The best we could do would probably be a large room with units on two walls and the dining table in the opposite corner.

Really welcome any opinions or advice!!

Diagrams / examples forthcoming!

@TeenLifeMum do you mean like this?

Like this…

Yes that's what I meant, do an infill extension. But £100k is crazy! Not that long ago you were looking at maybe 40k

@TeenLifeMum this is what my mum has suggested...but I think then we would have even less storage /space for appliances in the kitchen. If we did this and added an island, we would lose all existing wall storage on the wall parallel to the hall, and just totally lose the wall which currently separates the kitchen and reception.

The benefit I guess would be getting an open plan space? But I don't even really like open plan.

I think it's this price because of the destruction that would also be required. We would also be hoisting up two sides of the house with steel.

If you moved the door in could you get cupboards down both sides? And rather than an island, how about a bit jutting out from one side? (Not sure what that’s called but you’d get a deep corner cupboard and normal cupboard then could have deeper worktop to either have cupboards on the other side or stools with leg space.

Or know dining room and kitchen together and use the back room as a dining room by putting a direct door in.

you can have floor cupboards without a wall (eg a peninsular or island) but you could also look at things like using a round table so that you could have cupboards down both sides of half of the kitchen and the table fitting neatly at the bay window end, or replace the conservatory and have that as a lovely kitchen with additional storage in what would be a massive dining room, you could put a door through from the existing reception 2 to the garden easily.

You can also block up existing internal windows, move windows, move doors very easily - we've done all of that, and even moved stairs to make space more workable, its less money and upheaval than you may think and far less than an extension.

It feels like you're saying a lot of things can't be done, but they probably can, in all honesty. If you don't want to move the loo or a door then thats obviously fine, but it will always limit what you can do with the space, so then yes, you will have either a very small or a long narrow kitchen diner or a large kitchen with a dining room down the hall.

@AuntieDen My priorities are a kitchen with lots of cupboards and work surfaces and a large dining area with minimal expenditure. I am rejecting options that involve more structural work, won't yield the result I want, and/or will mess up parts of the house that do work and would have to be totally re-done, such that it will end up costing more than it first appears 😊

Your suggestion of just putting a round table in is basically what I originally suggested!

I agree that this sort of plan would be much better than extending a long way back. If I were you I’d take the dimensions of this room to a kitchen designer and get them to mock up a few plans with proper design and images. You’d also end up with a nicer room IMO.

I would knock the current WC down (move to current utility). Knock the awful conservatory down. Make current kitchen a fantastic pantry (you have a laundry room?) with direct access from the 2nd reception. Turn the second reception into a quirky but gorgeous kitchen with direct access to the garden. It would be a nice, well proportioned layout and no structural work needed

oh and finally I would spend money on a designer for the kitchen to make best use of the space and reduce the corridor effect of long narrow rooms

We turned the second reception, which has much the same period features as yours - same bay, door, windows, cornice, picture rail - into a kitchen diner and kept old kitchen as a pantry/utility.

The way we maximised space was to take out the chimney breast to just above high head height and put the cooker in the chimney breast. It meant there wasn't a straight run along that wall which felt a bit less boxed in. The sink was in the recess on the left side of the chimney breast "recess" so the worktop was l shaped back wall AVE side wall. On right hand side of chimney recess/cooker was shallow dresser unit with open shelves at top so windows didn't get obstructed

Banquette seating can give you extra room for a table in a narrow room - ours was slightly wider than yours maybe an extra 1m so we could just fit another 120 x 60 cabinet on the far side from chimney for more workspace storage but if you don't have room banquette seating could be extra storage with narrow bookshelves either side perhaps.

We love our kitchen/diner opening out into garden. We kept the original doors etc although we did as I say lose the fireplace sadly..

Next door they kept the fireplace but has to have a peninsula unit to get enough worktop and table ran horizontally to the windows whereas ours has room to run vertically be longer!

Yes this is exactly what I was imagining and I 💯 think this is what OP should do too!

We did no structural work except chimney breast and new lintel above the recess . We redid electrics gas radiator and plumbing in that room though!

The loo has to be moved though if you want to make a kitchen there. That door from the existing reception could be a door into a pantry or utility instead of existing bathroom but it cuts into your run of units unless you put them on the other side - not sure how that would work ...

You could keep the bathroom but block up that reception door to it...but then you need to reconfigure the access from the utility/ main house, steps up and down etc.

@Nettleskeins interesting ! Do you happen to have photos?

Thanks, but the current utility (as marked in the floorplan) CANNOT be a bathroom for reasons already detailed, as well as others. (E.g. I'm not bricking up that window, which is the only thing saving the current dining room from being like a dark cave.)

The loo is now the laundry room. So yes, we do have one and it would be lost if we knocked down the loo.

Honestly I would rather do away with the two crap side extensions, but then there's nowhere for the laundry and downstairs loo to go.

This sort of banquette seating could look very pretty!

You’d be crazy to keep the door to the loo where it is. It will ruin your kitchen!

the dining room must be very dark anyway? What do you use it for?

We use it for dining 😅

Here is an idea

You can change the glass to opaque/non see through so you keep the window and the light but you can't see into the loo.

Please believe me when I say it's literally impossible to put a toilet in this space. I'm not actually going to say it again. There is nowhere to put a toilet. You have to walk diagonally through the space to get to an exterior door. There is nowhere to secrete the toilet so it's anything but a toilet in the middle of a weird anteroom.

Edit: and I think it's best to retain an exterior door here for fire safety and convenience

I hope this wasn't too passionate! It's just that a toilet really, really will never fit there, no matter how much you or I might wish for it!

This whole project has really gone to my head now 😅