Here's the 70s-era kitchen that we inherited when purchasing our house.
What would you do with it?
Jason
Remove the lot. Old house like that, the benchtop depth will be around 450mm, standard now is around 650mm. Most undercounter appliances like ovens or dishwashers won't fit if you look to modernise. May have problems with new sinks as well.
As someone else has pointed out, it needs to be opened up. Hard to tell from that photo but I would remove the wall between the kitchen and the living room and install an island bench there instead. That could still house your sink and remove the need to do massive plumbing changes. A large enough island could support some stools on one side to use as a breakfast bar and also have enough space to have a dishwasher.
Floor needs to be updated as well. Been seeing a lot of houses now with floorboards in the kitchen. Never understood that with water and items like knives being dropped and damaging the floor. Would stick with tiles.
I would still run cabinets on the wall above the counter top as you can never have enough storage.
We did go with the sledgehammer option. The old laundry was behind the kitchen so we trashed the lot to open it up. The laundry is now behind the bifold doors which you can see on the second photo below on the right.
@Jason
Your makeover looks absolutely stunning.
The doors with the horizontal handles, to the right of the oven, are they pull out drawers? I love the pull out drawers that are available now.
On a similar note, when we built in the mid-70s, walk-in pantries were the go, so we were chuffed at the time to able to include one in our build. Only thing is we soon found out that they aren't space efficient, having shallow shelves & an awkward corner space.
On my wish list is a full height pull out pantry, with both side access that are available now, but my full time Finance Approvals Officer has blocked every application that I've submitted. : (
Thanks @Andy_Mann.
We have two large pull out drawers next to the oven for pantry items, jars and food containers. They are very convenient - fantastic for maximising storage space and allowing easy access to a lot of items.The two cupboards above them are appliance cupboards - the higher one for a microwave, the lower one has a pull-out base and houses things like the kettle and toaster.
Good luck with your negotiations with the finance department.
@mikedoeslife, I'd swap those pendant lights for a kegerator in a heart beat, lesson 1 complete. 😉
@Andy_Mann don't you need at least two though so you can drink one while the other brews?
@Brad, spot on mate, you are the man. 😉
We were lucky with the lights @mikedoeslife. We bought them at a market before we had started the renovation and just hoped they would work - particularly the colour. They seemed like a bargain at the time, and we've since had people say they think they are French glass and valuable.
Thanks for joining in the discussion @Kingstons1000. And a big welcome to Workshop. It's great to have you as part of the community.
The old laundry was a decent sized room. My guess is something like 3 x 5m. The European-style laundry that we installed behind the bifolds has been more than sufficient. On the left hand side we have a washing machine with a dryer hanging above it. Then we have a benchtop with a sink that has a cupboard and a laundry hamper. There are open shelves above and a single drying rack. On the right we have a broom cupboard with more shelving above. You can see most of it in the picture below, except the broom cupboard which is behind the bifolds.
So we got to keep plenty of storage and open up the area - it was certainly the right choice for us. The biggest sacrifice was losing somewhere to store clothes horses for drying clothes (we do that in the study). You also ideally want a reasonably quiet washing machine. Ours is a little noisy on the final spin cycle!
Good luck with your project. It would be great to hear more about your plans.
Hi Jason,
Did you have to replace a load bearing wall with a beam for this reno?
If so, would you mind telling me how you went about it and the cost involved?
@bec1There is also a Diary Of A Bathroom RenovationForm you own opinion on what info is provided hence which projects they marketIf you would like help with your specific project, post separately include photos or leave a PM
Hi @bec1,
Thanks for your message and welcome to the Workshop community. It's lovely to have you join us. I hope you find plenty of information, advice and inspiration here from other community members.
We didn't have to replace a load bearing wall in the reno. The family room had been added to the existing house in the 1980s. We only knocked down an internal wall which was not load bearing.
But our engineer did recommend two timber beams to support the flat roof, which you can see divide the kitchen from the family room. I remember our builder thought it was overkill at the time but we were happy to be conservative. We did have the option of going with steel which would have been less obtrusive but obviously higher cost, but we liked the idea of separating the two rooms a little with the beams as it's a reasonably large space, particularly in relation to the rest of the house.
As Chris suggests, if you're interested in doing something similar it might be best to start a new discussion with as much detail as possible so that others can assist. You would probably get a better idea about costs from that as our project was a decade ago.
Thanks again for joining us, and for your interest.
Wow love the kitchen Reno and I wanna do mine but I just don’t know how to do it
Well, you've come to the right place for starters @Sainimili. The Workshop community will be happy to start you on your journey and give you plenty of inspiration and assistance along the way.
Perhaps you could start by hitting the Start a discussion button, sharing some photos of your current kitchen so that members can see what kind of a space you have to work with, and letting us know some of your requirements for the renovation, including budget.
Welcome to the community,
Put it perfectly @ProjectPete .
And @Jason absolute turn around. That's why even after 27 years in this industry I never get tired of seeing renovations.
Awesome job
Kind regards Rob Colbert 👍
Yes, this poor old kitchen has had its day but the redo is fabulous! I love it!
Hi, yes, very '70's, isn't it. Still, head and shoulders better than mine which look to me to be from the 50's! I'd change the cupboards to something modern. Just wondering what that room next to it is? Is that a hatch between the kitchen and a family room? Perhaps you could take that wall down and create a room which would be much more popular with families nowadays. The counter tops are very narrow (again, like mine) and the tiling at the back of the counter tops is VERY dated. Of course, that would come off. However, the room looks a decent size so if you combined the two rooms, you could have a really lovely kitchen.
Because we've only got one side of the kitchen, that's all I can think of at the moment.
Di
Yes, it was a family room @Di1, with a separate laundry behind the wall which house the cooktop. We opened it all up to one living space and it's the heart of the home where all the action always is!
