Kitchen
renovation
in Camden Town, NW1
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In a Camden Town house the kitchen often sits on a raised lower ground floor or in a back room off the stair, so the plan starts with levels, light and duct routes.
The appraisal's typical Camden Town house is three storeys on a basement, raised up and set back from the pavement to leave room for an area in front or, on more generous streets, a garden.
We survey the lower ground and ground floors together, because in these houses the right kitchen position depends on where the daylight reaches and how the stair joins the two.
Source: Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007)
Kitchens on the lower ground floor
Camden Square's original houses have semi-basements, with a steep flight of steps climbing from a small front garden to the front door.
Along the main streets there, each house has three principal floors over its raised basement.
A lower-ground kitchen usually goes at the garden end, where the floor is nearest garden level, leaving the front room under the street for dining or a snug.
Where the rear floor is below the garden, we draw the steps and the door threshold in section before choosing any cabinet.
Source: Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)
Gardens that rise and fall
Across the Camden Square area the ground falls from York Way down to Rochester Place, and the streets take up the slope in their gardens, steps and roofs.
So two houses in the same square can meet their gardens at different heights; we level the back of each one before deciding whether the kitchen opens straight onto the garden or up a few steps.
Retaining the garden behind a lowered floor needs drainage at the foot of the wall, which we design with the kitchen.
Source: Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)
Narrower houses on Arlington Road and Bayham Street
On the western side of Arlington Road the terraced houses are smaller than in the neighbouring streets, three floors on a basement.
Bayham Street's humble terraces, left from Lord Camden's development between Pratt Street and Plender Street, are two or three storeys plus basements.
In a narrow house a galley along one party wall with a table at the window usually works better than an island, and full height cupboards can stand where the old dresser or larder was.
Source: Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007)
Openings, steel and chimney breasts
When an outside wall is opened up or an opening widened, the masonry above needs new support, usually a pair of beams with at least 150mm bearing at each end, and the steel is normally boxed in plasterboard against fire.
Taking out a chimney breast inside the house is not a planning matter, the Planning Portal says, but it always falls under the building regulations as part of the structure, with an engineer's drawings and calculations behind the application.
The engineer's calculations come before the price, so beams, padstones and temporary props are counted, not guessed.
Sources: Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Structural Opening, Planning Portal Interactive House: Do I need permission to remove chimney breasts?
Extract routes and the front of the house
Under the building regulations a new kitchen must have a way of extracting air, to cut condensation and clear cooking smells.
Camden Square's strategy keeps flues, soil and vent pipes and new chimneys off the smart public front of a house, on the side or rear wall instead.
In the Camden Town Conservation Area, Camden weighs where air-handling equipment goes, especially in sensitive spots and close to homes.
By the Regent's Canal, the strategy makes any external ventilation duct or air handling plant a matter for planning permission, paying attention to how it appears from the water.
Sources: Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Ventilation, Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011), Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007), Camden: Regent's Canal Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 September 2008)
Kitchens in divided houses and above shops
The Camden Square appraisal tells how houses were subdivided for multi-occupancy, and how from the 1960s many were turned back into self-contained flats or maisonettes, so a kitchen there often serves a single floor.
On Pratt Street and Plender Street most buildings have shops on the ground floor, so the homes above sit over a business.
Check the lease before ordering units: LEASE points out that, depending on its wording, a leaseholder can need the landlord's go-ahead for alterations even once planning and building control are settled, and a clause insisting on carpet would stop a stone or timber floor.
Moving a sink in a flat means a new waste falling through a shared floor, so we lift a board to check the void before the plan is fixed.
Sources: Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011), Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007), LEASE: alterations and home improvements
Cabinets for tall, narrow rooms
Where a ceiling is tall, wall cupboards can stop below the cornice and leave the plasterwork clear, with a dresser filling the alcove beside the chimney breast.
Painted panelled doors suit stock brick terraces; our bespoke joinery service makes cabinets to the room's own measurements.
Where shutters survive in the window reveals, we set the worktop height so they still fold back.
Moving the kitchen into an extension
Taking the kitchen out into a new addition brings Camden's guidance into play: the extension should read as subordinate to the house and a reasonable garden should be left.
The Camden Town extension page sets out how each local document treats rear walls and gardens.
Source: Camden Planning Guidance: Home Improvements (January 2021)
Deliveries, skips and noisy work
For the delivery day we book a bay suspension through Camden's online account at least 17 days out; any skip comes under a licence the skip hire firm applies for, never the householder, five working days or more beforehand.
Cutting worktops and drilling for the duct fit inside Camden's noisy-work hours, which open at eight on weekday and Saturday mornings and close at six on weekdays and one on Saturdays.
Base units go in after the floor is finished, and the worktop template is taken only once they are fixed and level.
Sources: Camden Council: skip licence, Camden Council: parking bay suspensions, Camden Council: noisy building works
Kitchens in listed houses
In the appraisal's appendix of listed buildings, Albert Street has some of the longest entries, Nos 45 to 97 and Nos 99 to 139 among them.
Camden's guidance on listed buildings is that protection reaches every part, interiors and later alterations as much as the front, and that consent for changes is a separate permission from planning.
In a listed house we fix cabinets to new grounds rather than old plaster, so they can be removed later without damage.
Sources: Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007), Camden Council: Listed buildings
Kitchen renovation questions for Camden Town
Do I need permission to take out a chimney breast?
Removing an internal one needs no planning permission, yet building regulations approval applies every time.
Where should the kitchen extract duct go?
On a side or back wall: the Camden Square strategy keeps flues and vent pipes off the front of the house.
Does a duct on a canal-side building need planning permission?
Yes. Next to the Regent's Canal, external ducts and air-handling plant all require it.
Does my lease affect a new kitchen?
Quite possibly: the landlord's consent may be needed, and a carpet-only clause would rule out a hard floor.
Who applies for a skip licence in Camden?
The company supplying the skip, five working days or more before it is needed; Camden will not take the application from a resident.
Is my Albert Street house listed?
There is a fair chance: the appraisal's list covers long runs such as Nos 45 to 97 and 99 to 139, so look up your number.
Sources: Planning Portal Interactive House: Do I need permission to remove chimney breasts?, Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011), Camden: Regent's Canal Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 September 2008), LEASE: alterations and home improvements, Camden Council: skip licence, Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007)
Sources
- Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007)
- Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)
- Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Structural Opening
- Planning Portal Interactive House: Do I need permission to remove chimney breasts?
- Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Ventilation
- Camden: Regent's Canal Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 September 2008)
- LEASE: alterations and home improvements
- Camden Planning Guidance: Home Improvements (January 2021)
- Camden Council: skip licence
- Camden Council: parking bay suspensions
- Camden Council: noisy building works
- Camden Council: Listed buildings
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