Back door AND french doors in kitchen? would you?

[Gentleness]

We're planning (ok, over-planning) a kitchen extension - simple extra box out the back of the kitchen on an Edwardian terrace. And I am driving myself mad with different options and need some sane input!

The extension will make the kitchen into a through room and house a sunny seating area with french doors into the garden. The original kitchen will have a pantry knocked into it (sad but necessary) and we are now trying to decide whether to keep the original back door (at the end nearest the rest of the house) or have the french doors at the far end as the only access to the garden.

I am torn. The layout without the back door is better I think. But having a back door really near the side access gate is so useful with a pram and with recycling and so on. And muddy children (ok, he's not even walking yet, but thinking ahead) would traipse right through the whole cooking area without that extra door. Then again, it is hardly going to be hardship to have to walk an extra 10m to put out the recycling and bins!

What would you do?

Well, we haven't knocked out the teeny futility room its in, but we are keeping the back door into the side passage...and putting double folding doors on to the garden. Same as you, basically a 3m extension across the back of the house to make a dining area (and somewhere to put my piano!).

There's no right/wrong answer, but personally I am v v happy to have a side door for bins, bicycles etc. That said, my dds don't tend to want to play outside that much when its muddy or wet (wussy girls ) so I imagine the French doors will be used most of the time from the garden.

How badly does your layout get affected if you keep it?

I have patio doors at my dining end and a back door at my kitchen end and love that layout.
If you can have both doors I would, does it help if you look at different positions for the doors?

bookmarking you now because I think we are planning the same. Chat later

Thanks for the replies. I've looked and looked at the layout till my brain is mush!

Where the door is now, we'd not get the sink AND hob on the dining side of the door on the external long wall, which is what works best. And we'd have a 60x150 little corner bank on the other side and I really hate corner units.

If we moved the door down a bit we could have 2x60 units on the back wall and then a long stretch including the sink & hob on the external wall, which works better, but I don't know how expensive it is to move a door.

Without the back door I can get a long stretch of units all along that back wall. Sigh.

Oh and the other problem is the light/windows. The extension can only have 25% of it's floor area as windows/doors - which only covers the french doors. But if we remove the door, we can use the equivalent size window on the side external wall to create more light in the seating area.

I will be so amazed if anyone understands all that!

Has anyone already got this situation? Do you miss the back door? Could you live without it?

We did the side return in our 1900 terraced house and we have bifold doors along the back, so we can open them all up - so that we can 'bring the garden into the home' as estate agents love to say - or we can just open one as a simple back door.

Pros - lots of light, room feels huge, it's lovely in the summer with the kids running in and out (we have a sofa in our kitchen so I can sit with the baby inside and pretend we're out!

Cons- they're not cheap (although depending in size of your French doors might not be much difference - our doors are about 3 metres across I think), I had to get blinds and curtains for winter as i felt I was in a fish tank with the lights on - sure our neighbours gave better things to do than watch us, but you know what I mean- and having read your post I've just realised that when DS comes in from the garden, the bit of the door that opens on it's own leads straight past the cooker and the sink.

But I never miss having a separate back door - I do however miss having a window to open- so I might be tempted to ditch the back door.

Has that helped at all? Think I just rambled

i would not have the back door then since the gains are so great.

yes, you will have to walk further to put the recycling out, but that's only once a week.

more of an issue is whether you'll cope without have the pram access that you talked of. how useful do you think that will be?

also, even though this stage of small kids feels like it's forever, it goes by in a flash and you won't have mucky toddlers for long. think of the long term. because even if you think to yourself you could add / take the door away in a few years, you just won't bother because it'll be too much effort.

I'd keep both doors, I think it'd be really handy. You don't want to be fannying about with out-of -the-way french doors when you're struggling in loaded down with shopping / muddy DC / rubbish.

I'd keep the original door where it is. Corner units are usually a PITA, I can't stand the ones with shelves. But, we have one with a two tier carousel in it (for pan storage) and it's fantastic, really very practical indeed. It was in the house when we bought it and I was pretty skeptical about it TBH. After living with it for 4 years I'll certainly be adding something very similar if we ever when we replace the kitchen.

Will the extension have a flat or pitched roof? I've no idea if it'd be allowed, but maybe you could add a skylight above the seating area for more light.

After far too much deliberation, we think we are ditching the back door. Seeing where the sun hits over this last week has made us determined to get as much window in the new bit as we can - and dh sorts the bins and doesn't mind the walk!

One last wonder - has anyone done this and later regretted it? Have found loads of people who have both and never use the back door but not the other way round.

You can get those full length windows with a proper door in the middle. That way you have everything you want.

hmmm..I think I would definitely go for the bifold doors, myself! They are so lush, with the views of the garden and all It just makes the kitchen feel so much BIGGER!!!
And like every house in England, space is always an issue, so the back door might end up being used as a wall at some point anyway? what do you think?

Do you know who you're buying from??

We foudn really cheap french doors online and they are beautiful! Tonnes of compliments on them

check out: www.doubleglazingontheweb.co.uk/doors/door-test.aspx

Hi - what did you do in the end and how has it been?

We had a 4mx4m extension built last year onto our kitchen.
Sorry if I have misunderstood you but we have a small double glazed lantern, 5 windows and French doors -all double glazed. I am sure they equal more than 25%.
The Architects drawings were submitted to the council, including thermal calculations, building inspected 3 times and when it was finished, signed off by building control.
So where are you getting only 25% of space can be windows? I know that some building regs were due to change this year - does this include the amount of windows? I googled but couldn’t find any mention of this.
Incidentally we kept our back door as our garden plot wraps around 3/4 of our home, and the doors open onto 2 different areas of the garden.

Heck … just noticed that this is a zombie thread.
Good grief 2010 is another world away.

Hi Fiiesta. It is a long time ago but some issues are eternal! I would love to know what happened….

We had the same dilemma and ended up going for two sets of French doors.

We kept the back door, but it does go into a small utility room - it's brilliant for when the dog/husband/me is super muddy .... so not traipsing through nice bit of kitchen.

It's a nice to have rather than a necessity though. Sometimes I think more counter space in the utility would have been better....

@Gentleness are you still a MNetter? What did you decide to do with this kitchen extension 13 years ago? What happened about the muddy feet worry? I actually am interested in what was decided.

I think I'm going with additional counter/cupboard space with a new window installed above that in place of the current back door, keeping the french windows at the end of the galley kitchen for outdoor access.