Orangery / kitchen ideas - inspiration needed

[TallMark]

We are considering extending our kitchen out with an open plan orangery added to it. The rationale is:

- to make it more of a family room as the kids get older (watch them do their homework while wife cooks tea)
- we tend to sit around in the kitch with friends and want a better layout
- more storage (especially wall units out the reach of little ones) and better layout in the kitchen which isn't well designed at the moment
- better way out onto the patio for summer months

But we're really struggling to envision the whole thing very well, so I'm hoping the good people on here can help.

Here's our current layout:



And here's what we're thinking:



Some shots and renderings of the current layout now, and view from the garden.






We've already knocked an opening through between the dining room and kitchen, and that's made a bit of dead space which originally had a small kitchen table but is now redundant.

My ideas so far (happy to hear criticism and better ones!)
- sofas and TV in the orangery half
- big central island with breakfast bar, with sink unit built in. This unit could be L shaped with the hob further along it so you can cook and look out at the dining area/sofa areas easily while cooking
- er... that's about it

So, kitchen design gurus - how would you lay this out?

[TallMark]

singlecoil said:

Have you modelled it in CAD already? If so, do you want to share a .dxf or .dwg file?

I was using SweetHome3D, and got as far as drawing out the existing kitchen, dining room and utility. The intention was to model the new design but its a catch 22, it took me a fair while to draw what I already have, and don't have a strong idea how it should look. So I've gone back to pen and paper for now.

Will upload the existing files when I get back home.

[TallMark]

KTF said:

Do you still use the dining room? If not, why not take out all of that wall to open the whole space up then you wont have the 'kink' in the wall?

Yes, we try and eat most of our main meals there. I guess there's no reason not to square that room off a bit provided it doesn't push the price up a huge chunk for a relatively minor change.

[TallMark]

Mr Whippy said:

How the orangery roof will intersect with the old roof bit will be important to consider.

Agreed. Haven't quite got that far yet. Still trying to picture it in our heads to decide if its something we want to pursue.

Mr Whippy said:

Either you tamper with it, in which case I'd say square off that entire kitchen/dining area into a new big square, or don't tamper with it, in which case you'd run an extending wall from the old dining room/kitchen wall boundary and out into the garden area.

Personally I'd do the bigger better one and have a nice big kitchen/dining/family area as it's vogue these days.

I think the "massive square" approach might be a bit much. More likely to go the "extend from the old dining/kitchen boundary" route if we couldn't figure out a way to make the roofline work.

Mr Whippy said:

When you say envision, what do you mean exactly? Do you want the photos editing to 'add in' the new bits you are considering?

Maybe even a quick 3d sketch by hand showing the rough proportional changes?

Or do you really feel you need to make the thing in 3D to be able to visualise how it might look in the end?

Ultimately I want to get to a 3D model. My experience of reading numerous of these threads before is that many posters suggest things I'd never have thought about in a million years. So before I get too far bogged down in 3D modelling (even in a quick 'n' dirty package), I'd like to talk over a few 2d layouts first.

Mr Whippy said:

I'm happy to help with the easier approaches if you are really stuck just so you can get an idea of how it might look.

That's much appreciated. Here's a quick sketch showing kitchen units in red and sofas in cyan. It's complete crap but I need to start somewhere. Critique away!



I'm also torn between a breakfast bar area, or a separate table in the orangery part which would be brighter. Two pics I like the look of:

[TallMark]

To put it another way, I see plenty of fabulous kitchens and extensions on PH, and I've got the opportunity here to make a big spacious room but I can't see how I get from the empty canvas to something practical with a real wow factor

[TallMark]

NorthDave said:

Looking at the pictures of the back of the house, and assuming you have the garden to handle it, I would go straight across the back. Maybe three meters deep with glass roof running all the way along. This will give you enough space for a seating area, large kitchen and informal eating area. Glazed double doors from the living room and dining room would let loads of light in to those rooms whilst allowing you to separate off if required?

I'd draw it if I had the time and skill!

I think the Orangery across part of it will never look right.

I see what you're saying, but 2 problems with the "right across the back" approach:

1) Cost! We're on clay so need piles / deep foundations, so if we went across the back we'd be better off doing 2 storey. In either case the costs add up too quick.

2) We'd lose too much of the garden

I appreciate what you're saying though. We could do an "easy" extension (no issues with joining roofs) like this, but would it look terrible do you think?



PS Sorry I didn't have time to take measurements last night, really appreciate the offers of help so far

[TallMark]

Wow, thanks!

We're torn between 2 options, either the rectangular/pyramid style roof in the centre of an otherwise flat roof (not covering the whole roof, just a central section). OR, just have a gently sloping roof with skylights. Not sure if the latter is possible or if we'd need to keep the same slope as the main roof (which is very steep)

[TallMark]

NorthDave said:

If you glazed the roof rather than tiling you can get away with a much lower pitch and the glass roof will pour light in to the space. Pricing wise it neednt cost a huge amount more than tile roof and velux.

Looking at the sketch from Mr Whippy (and very impressed with the 3d view superimposed onto the picture ), I think the options are:

1) Do the flat roof as I originally imagined, but this would look very awkward
2) Extend only about 1m, by bringing the existing groundfoor "jut out" across the kitchen. A lot of cost for a tiny footprint gain, but would look completely original.
3) Glass roof as suggested above. I don't think my OH would be too keen on a fully glazed roof though, she absolutely hates conservatories.
4) 2 storey extension out the back of the kitchen, with a roofline of the same pitch but at right angles to the current roof. I think this would tie in nicely but would obviously be more expensive and there wouldn't be any rooflight into the kitchen.



5) Bring the same pitch around the extension (but with a skylight on top):




I showed my wife this thread last night and she was very impressed how helpful you all are

[TallMark]

We have another project underway (1st floor extension to create a new bedroom), and the council planning guy is coming round on tuesday. I'm going to chat to him then about what might be possible under permitted developments and see what he says. This idea is a bit rushed but the idea was to get it done at the same time as the other work and avoid 2 lots of disruption.

At the moment I'm favouring this approach, ie taking the existing pitched roof around the new orangery.

Crappy drawing to illustrate: