Dining Kitchen Design Ideas

[android-fan]

Hi All

Looking to add an extension to a standard terrace house (son's first house). See plan for current layout.

Link to plan: https://ibb.co/btmOjQ

The rear yard is 8.8m long.

We are looking at an extension in the region of 4m, which will be full width, with a sloped roof with velux windows for light.

The idea is to extend the dining room into the extension by about 1m, and the kitchen starts thereafter, so kitchen will be about 3m long x 4.4m wide.

Anyone with any other suggestions ? I'd like some sort of seperation between the dining and kitchen areas, any ideas in this regard will be appreciated!

Thanks

 

[a1ex2001]

Don't separate the two areas it will make both feel smaller, aim to make it feel like one continuous cooking, dinning, living space which will make both feel bigger than they are!

 

[android-fan]

Thanks.

I suppose there are 3 main concerns with a continuous area;

1 - Kitchens can get messy, that will all be visible from the living area
2 - Having decent extraction in the kitchen to stop food smells filling the living area
3 - Ensuring the whole area is kept warm, which I assume will cost more ?

 

[a1ex2001]

Thanks.

I suppose there are 3 main concerns with a continuous area;

1 - Kitchens can get messy, that will all be visible from the living area
2 - Having decent extraction in the kitchen to stop food smells filling the living area
3 - Ensuring the whole area is kept warm, which I assume will cost more ?

the best thing about an open plan kitchen dinner is it forces you to keep your kitchen tidy which while initially a pain actually just means you keep the house tidy!

Open plan or not decent extraction is essential and should be part of your design

Heating shouldn't be any different as the cubic meters will be the same if anything it will be warmer as the heat from cooking will warm the whole space.

 

[tom_nieto]

the best thing about an open plan kitchen dinner is it forces you to keep your kitchen tidy which while initially a pain actually just means you keep the house tidy!

Open plan or not decent extraction is essential and should be part of your design

Heating shouldn't be any different as the cubic meters will be the same if anything it will be warmer as the heat from cooking will warm the whole space.

Agreed on all points! It would be totally backwards to separate the two rooms, especially if you're looking at future values - a separate kitchen and dining room is very out dated and potential future buyers might be put off.

We have opened up our entire downstairs (http://www.thegeneralarchitecturecompany.co.uk/open-plan-kitchen-diner.html) and it forces us to keep everything tidy. I wasn't at all tidy or particularly house proud before, but having such a great space makes me much better! You'll notice that we very deliberately went against the architect's idea of having the sink on the peninsula. This makes mess much easier to deal with!

Food smells dissipate very quickly, but you will need a good extraction system regardless - building regs will require this.

As for heating, consider underfloor heating - we have one large radiator and the new part of our extension as underfloor heating and it's pretty cosy in the winter. Having lots of people in there, cooking and activity also help to keep it warm.

We were really pleased to have an architect on board as we wouldn't have thought of loads of things in the design. If it's a tiny space I suppose you might not need one, but it's definitely worth thinking about.

Good luck!

 

[a1ex2001]

Agreed on all points! It would be totally backwards to separate the two rooms, especially if you're looking at future values - a separate kitchen and dining room is very out dated and potential future buyers might be put off.

We have opened up our entire downstairs (http://www.thegeneralarchitecturecompany.co.uk/open-plan-kitchen-diner.html) and it forces us to keep everything tidy. I wasn't at all tidy or particularly house proud before, but having such a great space makes me much better! You'll notice that we very deliberately went against the architect's idea of having the sink on the peninsula. This makes mess much easier to deal with!

Food smells dissipate very quickly, but you will need a good extraction system regardless - building regs will require this.

As for heating, consider underfloor heating - we have one large radiator and the new part of our extension as underfloor heating and it's pretty cosy in the winter. Having lots of people in there, cooking and activity also help to keep it warm.

We were really pleased to have an architect on board as we wouldn't have thought of loads of things in the design. If it's a tiny space I suppose you might not need one, but it's definitely worth thinking about.

Good luck!

We've just finished something pretty similar (not quite the same scale!) and couldn't be happier with the end result we spend so much more time together as a family now one person isn't shut away in the kitchen cooking. We have an island rather than a peninsular but avoided having the sink in it for similar reasons to you and we are glad we did.

 

[Buffman]

Agreed on all points! It would be totally backwards to separate the two rooms, especially if you're looking at future values - a separate kitchen and dining room is very out dated and potential future buyers might be put off.

We have opened up our entire downstairs (http://www.thegeneralarchitecturecompany.co.uk/open-plan-kitchen-diner.html) and it forces us to keep everything tidy. I wasn't at all tidy or particularly house proud before, but having such a great space makes me much better! You'll notice that we very deliberately went against the architect's idea of having the sink on the peninsula. This makes mess much easier to deal with!

Food smells dissipate very quickly, but you will need a good extraction system regardless - building regs will require this.

As for heating, consider underfloor heating - we have one large radiator and the new part of our extension as underfloor heating and it's pretty cosy in the winter. Having lots of people in there, cooking and activity also help to keep it warm.

We were really pleased to have an architect on board as we wouldn't have thought of loads of things in the design. If it's a tiny space I suppose you might not need one, but it's definitely worth thinking about.

Good luck!

That's a good house/refurb sir!

How big an extractor you get? I'm trying to get a good kitchen island one and I've seen cheaper ones at £450 but also even £200 odd with similar flow rates...

 

[a1ex2001]

That's a good house/refurb sir!

How big an extractor you get? I'm trying to get a good kitchen island one and I've seen cheaper ones at £450 but also even £200 odd with similar flow rates...

We have two extractors in our kitchen one above the hob that vents up a lined chimney in which there wasn't space to get a really powerful model, the second is wall mounted externally and has enough power to suck a golf ball through a garden hose so much so that we had to install a fan controller to moderate it. We use the one above the hob for general cooking and put the other one on when things get a bit too intense/smelly

 

[tom_nieto]

Cheers guys! We had a very painful journey, but the finished result is well worth it. We've just done the loft too, so we need to stop messing around now! The open plan living space is brilliant all year round and it's so much more social than our previous separate kitchen and dining room.

We got an in line extractor fan built into the chimney and venting to the exterior wall using flexible tubing and a custom metal extractor box. Nothing off the shelf would fit due to the placement of a lintel. It's not perfect and needs tweaking, but when working it's far more powerful than a regular domestic one (and could probably be upgraded if more power were required). To be honest if there's something seriously grilling we just open the doors!

 

[Mr.Stu]

Cheers guys! We had a very painful journey, but the finished result is well worth it. We've just done the loft too, so we need to stop messing around now! The open plan living space is brilliant all year round and it's so much more social than our previous separate kitchen and dining room.

We got an in line extractor fan built into the chimney and venting to the exterior wall using flexible tubing and a custom metal extractor box. Nothing off the shelf would fit due to the placement of a lintel. It's not perfect and needs tweaking, but when working it's far more powerful than a regular domestic one (and could probably be upgraded if more power were required). To be honest if there's something seriously grilling we just open the doors!

Open plan space looks really great! Can I ask a few cheeky questions? What sort of budget did you need? What table/chairs/bench is that? Thanks

 

[tom_nieto]

@Mr.Stu Ask away, but learn from our mistakes! Due to many factors we ended up spending £60k on it. It was a very painful process and if everything had been straightforward I think we would have been more like £42-45k. Could probably have got it even cheaper but we didn't want to scrimp on the kitchen worksurface, appliances, underfloor heating and engineered wood floor. Needing to dig down 3m to a sewer due to Severn Trent's regulations (which we only found out about after the build had started) was the icing on the cake and accounted for £5,000 extra expenditure. If we had known about it before starting we might not have gone ahead at all! Having to pay a different builder another £10,000 to finish it off and correct some pretty awful work wasn't great either (but at least we found a great builder to do our loft). A 16 week project took 16 months! We've learned an awful lot that's for sure! Patience is absolutely key.

The table and bench are from Next home and the chairs are from Made.com as are the sofas and the large lamp.

The end result is absolutely worth it and we've been very lucky to be able to live in such a great house. It hasn't put us off building work, but having the amazing kitchen fitted with no glazing on the rear of the house open to the elements and cooking Christmas dinner in our coats after over a year of building work was extremely unpleasant.

 

[the_r_sole]

the issue the op has, is that the stair is going to be in the middle of everything so you're always walking through the space and any smells will be going up the stair well... I'm not sure how I'd get around the issues with such a small plan, tom_nieto's has a bit more to play with and doesn't have the stair issue but you could go for something like that but flip the kitchen and dining around...

 

[Mr.Stu]

@Mr.Stu Ask away, but learn from our mistakes! Due to many factors we ended up spending £60k on it. It was a very painful process and if everything had been straightforward I think we would have been more like £42-45k. Could probably have got it even cheaper but we didn't want to scrimp on the kitchen worksurface, appliances, underfloor heating and engineered wood floor. Needing to dig down 3m to a sewer due to Severn Trent's regulations (which we only found out about after the build had started) was the icing on the cake and accounted for £5,000 extra expenditure. If we had known about it before starting we might not have gone ahead at all! Having to pay a different builder another £10,000 to finish it off and correct some pretty awful work wasn't great either (but at least we found a great builder to do our loft). A 16 week project took 16 months! We've learned an awful lot that's for sure! Patience is absolutely key.

The table and bench are from Next home and the chairs are from Made.com as are the sofas and the large lamp.

The end result is absolutely worth it and we've been very lucky to be able to live in such a great house. It hasn't put us off building work, but having the amazing kitchen fitted with no glazing on the rear of the house open to the elements and cooking Christmas dinner in our coats after over a year of building work was extremely unpleasant.

Cheers Tom, an interesting read! I'm glad you got there in the end, looks stunning, not sure I could do 16 months of building works with 2 little ones though! If we ever get around to doing works, I might shoot you a message to get the builders details as I'm just around the corner in Solihull!

 

[tom_nieto]

Cheers Tom, an interesting read! I'm glad you got there in the end, looks stunning, not sure I could do 16 months of building works with 2 little ones though! If we ever get around to doing works, I might shoot you a message to get the builders details as I'm just around the corner in Solihull!

Our fantastic builder is actually based in Solihull. Our loft was on budget, on time and a fantastic result. He also totally saved our ass with our extension and turned what could have been a rough looking disaster into what it is now. I'm not sure I'd want to do another 16 month project that's for sure... I've got a bit more of a detailed build disaster log which I might get round to posting one day! The build would have taken 16 weeks if all had gone to plan. Drop me a PM when you need his details. Our architects were also good if you need ideas, drawings and planning permission sorting out. Just don't rush into it!! If we'd dotted the i's and crossed the t's before we paid the first builder a deposit we'd have had a much smoother and cheaper ride. What are you thinking of doing?