What is the best kitchen location in a house? Is it better to have it at the front or back of the house? Our kitchen is currently at the front of the house and having decided to create a kitchen dining room, we are now in disagreement on where to put the kitchen – I want it at the back over looking the garden and my husband wants it at the front as it provides more practical use of space.
Here is a video walk around the kitchen, pointing out the fun features such as fire doors and emergency lighting and discusses the walls that will come down when we start work, and there is also an appearance by the snake.
Kitchen location options
Once we’ve finished knocking down walls and have combined three rooms we’ll have a dual aspect kitchen, front to back of the house. The new room will be be L-shaped including space for the kitchen, breakfast area and dining room, with double doors to the lounge.
To help us decide the kitchen location, I’ve been trying out different arrangements using RoomSketcher website. I’ve used the website before when I was visualising what the hallway will be like when we remove the lift and add internal windows, but this was much much harder, and I’ve asking lots of people’s opinion. Unlike the hallway the kitchen has lots of decisions about furniture; what do we want and where do we want to put it? We really haven’t got that far in our thinking yet so I’ve created the layouts with fairly random pieces of furniture to get an impression of how we may use the space rather than a detailed expectation of the room; I can do that later when we’ve made more decisions.
Kitchen at the back with island
My preferred option is to have the kitchen and breakfast room at the back of the house. One of my husband’s concerns about this arrangement is the shortage of kitchen storage so it was great to discover we can fit an island in, as well as the units around the wall. I would love an island. However, another discovery is I think the dining room area looks boring.
Kitchen at the back with u-shaped work surface
A variation is to have U-shaped works surface instead of the island. This defines the kitchen area, but I wonder if it will be annoying to have to walk around the work surface.
Kitchen at the front
This is my husband’s preferred option because it includes the most storage and as the breakfast and dining areas are next to each other we could put the tables together if we ever host a really large dinner. Apart from not having such a good view of the garden another concern of mine is the kitchen being in the darkest section of the room, although this may not be such an issue when the walls are knocked down. You can also see a 360 view of this layout (with the sofa being used as a divider).
Your opinion and thoughts
- Which layout do you prefer? Which do you think is the best kitchen location? Do you have any other thoughts?
- Do you think we should have French doors to the outside or is there an advantage to bi-fold doors?
- Now we’ve considered the other side of the hall wall, does it change your opinion on the internal windows?
- From trying the layouts, a new concern for me is how to differentiate between different areas. What are your thoughts or do you think it should all be one room?
- What is your opinion on dishwasher detergent, how do you choose? I haven’t thought much about them and buy what is the cheapest when we shop. We’ve been give a bag of Fairy Platinum to try which is something we wouldn’t have bought because of the dissolvable plastic coating as we’ve had bad poor experiences with clothes washing sachets when we’ve ended up with ‘snot’ on our clothes. Recently we’ve noticed our glasses have been coming out of dishwasher looking cloudy and although using the Fairy Platinum has resulted in cleaner glasses I’m not sure it will change our buying behaviour without further tests.
- I’m thinking of continuing with these layouts for the rest of the house, but I’m not sure which room to do next. Are you curious about any areas? I could go left of the kitchen to the area that will include the utility room and study or right of the hallway for the lounge and playroom or upstairs to the new circular landing.
I started this process thinking we are at the start of our kitchen story, but I’ve realised that we’re not that far yet and I think instead we are at the outline stage and I hope we’ll start the story later this year.
This post is an entry for the “My Kitchen Story” Linky Challenge, sponsored by Fairy Platinum.
Disclaimer: I’ve been given a free VIP account to try RoomSketcher although most of the 3D images in this post can be created with their free accounts; the exceptions are the first 3D image and the 360 view.
Looks like a lot of work but I am sure it will be worth it and you will make happy memories in that new space. Commenting for myself and on behalf of BritMums and thanking you for taking part
Thank you Kate. Yes it is a lot of work but we’re ready for the challenge because we know it will be worth it, no matter how long it takes.
Really looking forward to seeing the progress on your project.
We recently did a big home renovation but it did not involve the kitchen and that was hard enough and disruptive too.
I will be watching your progress because a kitchen renovation is next on our list of things to do with our house!
Thank you for your comment Bev. When we start doing our renovation we will be removing the staircase so I know it is going to be disruptive, but I don’t have a concept of how much. Do please come back and visit to see how we are doing, although I have to admit we don’t have a start date yet.
Wow big ideas, have you managed to finish this yet? please update the post so that we can see your new living space
Hello James, thank you for the comment. I’m afraid to say that we haven’t started yet. Before we can start on the kitchen we need to sort the hall which means removing the lift which involves many steel beams to support the loft, not something we’re rushing in to!
Put a U shaped kitchen behind the stairs (move doors), make the area you show as a rear kitchen the dining room then PUT A LIVING ROOM (lounge) in the front ! WHY do you need TWO dining areas with no living/sitting/lounge room ?!?!?
Thank you for your thoughts, it is an interesting idea to put the kitchen behind the stairs and one we haven’t thought of.
I was focusing on the kitchen in this post so didn’t discuss the lounge. That is staying where it is on the otherside of the staircase. There is a floor plan showing where the lounge is in this post Kitchen dining room or lounge dining room