Extend Your Cooking Experience with a Kitchen Extension   by TheExten

in Home / Remodeling    (submitted 2010-12-03)

Extending is the new moving. More home owners than ever are choosing to have an extension built rather than move: opting to save all the money they would have had to pay on stamp duty, conveyancing and so on (as well as a bigger mortgage, of course) - and stay in the neighbourhood they are used to with the surroundings their family loves. Kitchen extensions are particularly popular: probably because the kitchen is the focal point of most modern living. With a bigger kitchen, you're not just paying for the increase in cooking space - you're buying yourself a larger living area. And it's one that you designed yourself.

We've all dreamed of that perfect kitchen. The cooking island; the modern sink; the granite work tops; and one of those funky retro loft-conversion style things you hang all your utensils from to make the place look like Gordon Ramsay's house. Or maybe you are after a bubbly 50s modern feel, with bright coloured appliances and funky glasswork? Having a kitchen extension means we can turn all those dreams into reality. We can have the kitchen that allows us to express who we are and how we cook. We can have the kitchen that has enough space to get the kids off to school in the morning, to set the breakfast table up to work from home during the day, to feed the family in the evenings. We can have the kitchen that makes us feel more like who we are.

There's a reason why we all have a dream kitchen. The kitchen is the place where life happens. It's where food is created; it's where parties get started; it's where you have those all important 3 a.m. talks that seem to set the next 10 years of your life in motion. We're naturally drawn to the kitchen when we enter a house. We increasingly eat most of our meals in there: from an informal Sunday brunch to a private dinner party. A kitchen extension means that we can create those atmospheres to a plan, rather than having to work with the space that was left behind by the last home owner.

Think of your extended kitchen in two ways: the blank slate, and the blank cheque. On the slate side, you get to disregard everything that went before and to build the kitchen you have always wanted. Don't like where the appliances are, or the cupboards or work units in your current kitchen? Take 'em all out and start from scratch. Wish you had more natural light to cook by? Think about having a kitchen extension running off the back of your house, where you can put in as many windows as you like. You could even think about extending your cooking experience through a wraparound extension, with an open plan cooking space on the long part of the "L" and a dining area on its short side. Your imagination, and your budget, are the only things that need limit you. Let yourself go: remember, this is your house and your new lifestyle room, the extension that is better than moving.

Talking of moving: your extended kitchen will pay for itself because you didn't sell your house. That's why you can think of it as a blank cheque as well as a clean slate. The money you'll save by not moving is almost guaranteed to be a larger figure than the cost of your new kitchen. And by adding a kitchen extension to a small or medium sized property you can put as much as 18% onto the resale value of your home: which means, when you do choose to move on, that your bespoke cooking experience has probably paid for an extra rung on the property ladder.
Just think of it. A proper kitchen, with a place for every pot and a unit for every occasion. A kitchen in which you know where everything is at all times. A place where you can knock up a slapdash meal or create a nine course masterpiece. Where you can relax with your closest friends or party with the whole street. Sounds good, doesn't it? With a kitchen extension you can enjoy the lifestyle you've always wanted in the home you've already got.

Don't forget that by extending the footprint of your house you can do a two storey extension while you're at it, adding an extra bedroom or office upstairs. Under Permitted Development, you should be able to do this without needing planning permission, making your whole project as easy and quick as it is cost effective. You'll turn your dream kitchen idea into a genuine move up the property ladder without ever setting foot in an estate agency. Extending really is the new moving: and extending your kitchen is the first best step into moving into the perfect home.

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Premier Building Contractors covering all building works in and around London.