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!

I do get this and clearly it’s your decision, but rebuilding them better quality (insulated, proper roof with sensibly situated windows and doors) shouldn’t be as expensive as your previous quote. As I understand it what you asked for before involved steels being put in to support load- bearing walls whereas the plan I’ve suggested above tries to leave the load-bearing walls alone (apart from maybe one more doorway, which I doubt would need a massive steel) so it might be worth revisiting the quote.

I was half wondering if you could knock down what is there and put one of those modular buildings in the space! No idea obviously but it could look quite cool against an old house. Plus base and plumbing already there. Would make a cool lootility! Or even do the project in 2 phases. Kitchen dining space first. Then save for a really stunning utility extension later. IMHO a gorgeous utility is worth every penny! Plus if you have side access it would be a boot room too

let us know what you decide I’m invested now! And also what the architect recommends 😂

I see where you are coming from!

Talking all of this through is making me understand where I really stand with this.

That is: I don't like the current footprint at all, so I would not want to sink money into making the side bits nicer. They are too narrow and poky as separate rooms, but equally are really too wide for the garden.

What I would like to do is reduce these extensions by half, and then make the kitchen/diner itself into a bigger room.

As I cannot do this, the current goal is to do the cheapest and easiest kitchen renovation that I can realistically imagine enjoying, even if it still won't be my dream kitchen!

Thank you!!!

So this is the dream.

It's too much money to justify, so I am planning to put in something that's merely good enough...

Sorry for the extra message. Slightly modified dream project.

A friend who has a similar floorplan has the front reception as her family room/dining room open plan to the kitchen which is in what was originally the dining room on your plan. The old "kitchen" is a scullery with washing machine accessed from long hall. Her back reception remains the main reception. It all works well. Yes kitchen pretty streamlined but she even has a narrow kitchen table as well as the main dining table.

If you knocked down the utility and moved kitchen into dining room zone you would t have to change very much at all and at least you could keep the period features, and the existing loo!

But the existing utility is blocking light so that would be where I would reinstate an external sash window.

Maybe this has been suggested already but it really works well in my friends house. We don't have a downstairs loo and I feel it is frustrating for you to have to rejig what is a convenient thing...a bathroom off a main room which of course could double as a bedroom if necessary.

Also if your house faces East west or North/ South is also a consideration... North at the front means you are losing south light with the utility where it is.

Tbh if you just get rid of that utility you could redo the existing small kitchen and there would be light to both rooms, existing dining room and small kitchen.

Could the washing machine go upstairs?

It all depends on the light. Our original little kitchen faced north so it was really dark. If it had faced west or south or even East I might have put up with it, as it was I was desperate for the kitchen diner to open onto sunshine (which our back reception has)

Your garden reception room is really beautiful. I would live in the house for a bit before changing anything except I would definitely knock down that Utility room!!! The lack of a view would drive me insane.
Our house is really identical to yours and we lived with the kitchen in the existing kitchen for ten years, with table in dining room before we changed things round and it was alright apart from, as I say, facing north. It was a very cosy room the original kitchen diner ! New room is a big improvement but the old layout did have charm and flexibility, and with two receptions our house felt enormous ...we had one reception as a family room and one smarter. We gained a big kitchen and a snug but lost a reception really when we moved it round.

Your reduced in width extension on the left looks about half the size of the extg
That’s basically a corridor / door width
Whats if for?

Those are supposed to be units in a wider kitchen diner

Edit: I realise this is confusing as I haven't explained how you access the larder 😅

Oh
are those kitchen worktops ?
How do you get to the larder? Down the corridor past the WC

if that’s the thought I’d change that. I wouldn’t return the kitchen units at the corner. I’d break that into two straight runs of units ( the smaller run can all be full height if you like with integral ovens etc ). Then put a door in the corner to access the larder so you don’t have to keep walking out of the kitchen and down the corridor

Yes, that's what I would do and I fully realise this is not a great drawing! I had come up with better plans at some point that had it laid out like that. I don't really like corner units anyway.

But this dream layout is unreasonably expensive, so I'm not going to do it anyway!

You’re knocking out a lot of structural wall and the chimney Brest which is expensive, but I’m sure you know that already

If you go for it I’d recommend roof lights over your worktops on the left hand side. That would look lovely and add so much light there

Of course - which is why this is the dream rather what I will actually do. The house really isn't worth that investment, unfortunately.

Honestly, I would feel guilty about removing this beautiful room's charming period features anyway.

Wouldnt hurt to get at least three quotes though

you can reduce quotes by rendering blocks for the external walls
Theres lots of tricks a builder would recommend

Relocating to kitchen as per the earlier designs will still be lovely. It’s a good sized room

@DrPrunesqualer you can reduce quotes by rendering blocks for the external walls

Not sure what this means - is this construction talk? I would love to reduce the quotes!!!

Facing brickwork is more expensive than blocks ( I’m talking external finish )
so yes
Then of course you can just leave it as blocks to save money in the time being and render when you have some more funds later

If you tell the builder that’s the plan he’ll make sure to allow for the render width when fitting fascia’s etc

of course you can too at a later date go for timber panelling aswell. But having seen some of your internal existing pics it looks like a render finish would fit in better with the original design

Do many people still do the side returns in London anymore? I suppose it depends on your area but a lot must cost so much more than the value added these days? They can look beautiful but I don’t think I would be able to justify the expense either

@Gymbunny2025

We are going to bring an estate agent round before we commit to any project, but I suspect that with other improvements, we may have already reached the ceiling for what any buyer will pay for a property in our particular area and road. It's a sort of nicest-house-on-the-street type of situation.

The EA came around. I also have done further research (i.e. obsessive Zoopla searches of similar properties) and have come to the view that this is the best option!

Floorplan

Here is an example of a similar house where they have turned the same room into a kitchen