1930's semi needs new kitchen, plumbing and layout help please!

3 years ago

last modified: 3 years ago

hello, we have a 1930's semi that really needs a new kitchen/diner (at the back of our house). Here is a drawing of our current kitchen/diner, with measurements in CMs. We would like to knock down the walls (marked with ***) and make it one space - would need to put steels in. At the moment you have to zigzag around the walls to get into the kitchen, we'd like to bring the door back into the hallway so you can walk straight in.

But not sure which way round to have the kitchen/dining areas. Our kitchen is tiny at the mo, but it only needs to be a bit bigger, have a few more cupboards as there are only 2 of us. We'd like a nice space to dine in and entertain friends.

We have a slightly odd arrangement in that all of our drains go into next-door's gardens (front and back), and our back garden is much lower than theirs...

I assume this would mean if we wanted to move the sink under the window on the right in first pic, that the waste pipe would then need to go past the doorway in order to drain properly. -Not possible?

A plumber has suggested that we should put our own drain in the front garden and re-route all waste water from the back of the house to the new drain. We have a small crawl space under our house so this might not be so hard... no idea what it would cost though.

Also, if we wanted to put double doors where the window is, we would have to build a new set of steps/ platform to get down from. Our neighbours on the other side are about 8ft lower than us (v hilly area!) so this may mean they were now overlooked.

What would you do if this was your space? Should we leave the kitchen area mostly where it is to save money or should we have our own drains in case we fall out with our neighbours or something? We don't have loads of money but could spend about £15k??

Here are some pics of our kitchen/diner as it is - please excuse the mess!

Any help welcome, this is the last area of our house that needs improving, feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all! Thanks in advance.

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Comments (3)

PRO
i-architect
3 years ago
Hi Rosey,

Hope these answers help:

There are plenty of different ways you could redesign the space so it would be good to get really clear on what you want to base designs on.

For the drains this is not that unusual, and is likely to mean that it is a shared drain, so it's owned by your water utility company. This might be worth checking.

Yes any raised external platform / patio would need planning permission and may be refused on the grounds of overlooking and reducing the neighbours privacy.

I am running my Free 5 Day Get Ready to Redesign Challenge in a few weeks. You will find this useful because I created it to help people in the situation that you are in - feeling overwhelmed and not sure where to start. So if you'd like to join in that you can do that here: https://www.i-architect.co.uk/readytoredesign.html

I hope this helps!

Jane, i-architect.co.uk
User
Original Author
3 years ago
Thanks for replying Jane. As a graphic designer myself, I can see you're right about needing a clear vision of what we want to get from the space. Your free workshop sounds great, I'll talk to my partner and hopefully see you there. 🤗
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1930's semi needs new kitchen, plumbing and layout help please!

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1930's semi needs new kitchen, plumbing and layout help please!

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