Kitchen relocation idea

[DrDvorak]

My house is classed as 3 rooms, having 2 bedrooms and a study. It's semi-detached and valued at £125,000 around 2008.

The kitchen is dilapidated and needs replacing - whether that's to make a nice house to live in, or to get the house ready to sell.

At 1.76 metres, the kitchen is rather narrow. A family member has suggested to me that, rather than renew the existing kitchen space, I consider knocking through the study/dining room wall, and relocating to that new space as a kitchen diner (see attached pictures). The rationale behind the suggestion is that the existing narrow kitchen may put some buyers off, whereas a successful kitchen relocation could add to the value of the house.

The proposed relocation would increase the kitchen space from 8.536 square metres to 13.58 square metres - but dining space would then need to be found within there.

What do readers think of the suggestion?

Does anyone have even ball-park suggestions as to cost (assuming all work was done by professionals); and what difference it would make to the value of the house?

I do not know whether the wall between the dining room and study is a load-bearing wall.

For various reasons, extending the existing kitchen space outwards is not a route I want to go down, so I would like any replies to focus on the relocation idea.

 

[DrDvorak]

I should have explained that what is currently left of the study is an under-stair cupboard which, it is felt, would make a good pantry. It's easily big enough to stand in. The very top left part is a lower cupboard, and the blue part is wall.

 

[DrDvorak]

Also, width of dining room, study, and proposed kitchen diner should all be 2800mm on the diagrams.

 

[Seafarer1966]

If you are selling up I wouldn't bother. What bangs the value of houses up are extra bedrooms. An acquaintance of mine had a four bedroomed house but it had a tiny bathroom. His wife badgered him into knocking the bathroom into one of the bedrooms to make this huge bathroom with his and hers side by showers, great big kidney shaped bath etc.....loads of money on this super posh bathroom. Did it put the value of house up? Quite the reverse. The estate agents just saw it as a three bedroomed house and marketed it as such. He lost thousands.
If you definitely are selling up I'd convert your 'study' to a bedroom. It increases the value if you market it the house as 'three bedrooms' rather than 'two bedrooms'.

If you are planning to live in the house it may be worth doing the kitchen project. Obviously you are going to have to work around where your water is and drain etc. If you are planning on moving these then that will escalate your bills rather rapidly.

B and Q do standard size cupboard doors so you can buy doors to fit your existing units. They also do some nice worktops at about 65 quid for a 3 m length. New sink and taps won't break the bank either. If you're not DIY minded get someone in to have a chat about a minor renovation along the aforementioned lines. You could buy the stuff and you could just pay him for the labour. Cupboard doors, worktops, sink, taps and perhaps some tiling should come in at below 500 quid for the materials if you're sensible about what you're buying.

 

[Seafarer1966]

I've just re-read your first post. Not sure if you have a two-bedroomed house with a study upstairs.....or is the study downstairs?

 

[Hl.house]

Sorry, I have a different view. Where I live 2 up 2 down houses, with kitchen and first floor rear extension, are configured as:
1) 2 bedrooms with first floor bathroom
2) 3 bedrooms on first floor and bathroom behind kitchen on ground floor
3) 4 bedrooms: 3 bedrooms like option2 and additionally front reception converted into a bedroom.
Option 3 is mostly HMO BTL type houses. No of bedrooms are attractive for BTL landlords. But all of them are valued at same/similar prices.

If I understood your drawings correct and they are of ground floor you may want to:
1) Open up all the internal walls to make one big room
2) Create 3 zones to house study, kitchen and dining table. Rough sizes below.
3) Zone 1: 1/2 of the room kitchen. Place a big floor to ceiling storage/larder wall opposite to the garden side. A small/big island in the front to mount the hob, sink and appliances underneath. This way you will have all your plumbing and kitchen electrics in one place under the island.
4) Zone 2: 1/4th of the room, garden side, study area. If you do not have to have a study I would put a couch there.
5) Zone 3: 1/4th of the room, garden side, dining area.

Nowadays, kitchen is a place to socialise so having space and free movement around it is very desired. Kitchen island is very useful especially for working families as the parent can help the kids with homework, entertain friends while cooking.

And yes, don't forget to add some sockets under the island or pop up sockets for mobile phone, laptop and other gadgets charging. Some hooks under the island to hang tea towels, keys and tools.

Of course I don't have all dimension so the above may not work at all.

 

[Seafarer1966]

Well Dvorak my owd you'd better ring up your account manager in Zurich and ask him to release the last of the family fortune to pay for the other suggestion.

All the best with it anyway and don't let it spoil a good Christmas.

 

[Hl.house]

Well Dvorak my owd you'd better ring up your account manager in Zurich and ask him to release the last of the family fortune to pay for the other suggestion.

All the best with it anyway and don't let it spoil a good Christmas.

Apart from knocking off and additional internal wall my suggestion is not different from the OPs original plan. I have just put it systematically. Op's proposed layout has one wall knocked off already.If the other wall is structural then it may get bit expensive. If it is a partition wall then not much! But the OP will have a very desirable house.
Creating zones just needs a flooring/carpet colour change.

 

[DrDvorak]

Thanks for the replies. I have uploaded some less lazy pictures that include the dimensions of the affected area, and have also included the lounge.

The upstairs consists of 2 bedrooms and the bathroom.

I checked my home insurance certificate, and it classes the house as 3 bedrooms. So the 'study' gets counted as a bedroom. This means the proposed kitchen relocation changes the house from '3-bedroomed' to '2-bedroomed'. Thus my immediate thoughts would be there could be a risk of losing money from the kitchen relocation, rather than adding to the value, as per the earlier story about the large bathroom...?!

 

[John D v2.0]

Yes it's funny how houses are sold by the bedroom here rather than by the square metre. This is why we have tiny houses with loads of bedrooms. When we were buying often we had to download the epc online to find out the actual floor area. 3 beds varied from 70m2 to 95m2 on the whole, but one was about 130 but still 3 bed!

 

[tomfe]

Open up the wall between the original dining room and kitchen, keep all the services in the same place?

Look at what houses are available in your area and for what price.
Don't loose the 3rd bedroom, that only works if you are aiming at certain buyers normally in London.

 

[Ian H]

Would it not be odd to go through the kitchen to a bedroom?

The room to the right looks very long and thin, I would split that in 2, give the study bedroom an onsuite and make the dining room a bigger kitchen/diner.

Then do a loft conversion.

 

[DrDvorak]

I should perhaps have mentioned that the current kitchen is an extension done by a previous owner. That means any knocking through the walls of the current kitchen to the current dining room is knocking through an original outer structural wall of the house - not sure whether that is prohibitive or do-able.