How to make your kitchen more spacious than it is
Extension and no-extension solution to the small kitchen challenge.
These Pride Road Clients wanted to improve the house, but were budget conscious and didn’t want to overinvest. The house was originally bought for their daughter.
As with all work in 2020, the initial consultation and the Concept Design Workshop happened online! For homeowner and architect, it proves to be an amazingly simple process. Pride Road Architect Magda, who this couple reached out to, has a vast experience domestic properties in Manchester, having visited more than 600 houses in her career she can confidently say ‘Been there ..seen that!’
The clients had pre-measured the house so we could work on existing dimensions. The workshop was over 2 hours, coming up with 3 different options. There are, of course, many more possible options but we discussed the options that best fit the family needs and desires.
Pride Road Architects always try to analyse the situation and put themselves in the shoes of the users. There were two ideas on how the house could be used: it will be the house of a young professional, or a shared accommodation for 1-3 professionals, with no children, or possibly a house for themselves once they decide to downsize.
The current situation with the kitchen was that is was extremely small, traditional original 1930s semi with no extension. This 6m2 small kitchen was just way too small. The house had a generous side drive, but not too big a garden. The garden was sufficient as is, and a rear extension would make it way too cramped.
These clients came to Magda with 10 options already drawn out – we almost felt they didn’t need us until we took a closer look!
Through discussion and brainstorming, we offered variations on their ideas and started to talk about the one that was the least structure intrusive and which used the most of the unusable space on their plot – the side drive.
Their main priorities were:
- a bigger kitchen
- a WC
- a separate utility
Option 1
A slightly modified version of their idea that explored the WC under the stairs, L-shaped kitchen, and a small table by the wall with utility accessed from the kitchen.
It was larger, but still a small kitchen, easy on the hallway, almost no changes there, but very small space for the table. At this moment they had mentioned that the daughter might want to share the house with friends, so a larger table and kitchen would be the next step.
Option 2
Wall removal and taking over some hallway space, opening the house up. Would create an amazingly large living/dining space, with very small effort. Larger U-shaped kitchen, a larger extension with utility and WC accessed from under the staircase.
Option 3
Open plan kitchen/dining/living, and allows for a kitchen island. Cheap fix for the new big kitchen, side extension almost independent to the whole house and can be done at the later stage and it is not a necessary thing you cannot live without.
