Kitchen
renovation
in Kentish Town, NW5
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In a flat-fronted Kentish Town terrace the kitchen lives in the back rooms, so most of a new one is planned around the garden rather than the street.
Camden's appraisal describes the usual Kentish Town house as a terraced one, flat fronted with no bay and finished with a parapet.
We draw the kitchen, the structure and the services together, so the cabinet maker, the engineer and the plumber all work from one set of plans.
Source: Camden: Kentish Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)
Where the kitchen sits in a narrow house
In the two-storey Inkerman cottages of Raglan Street and Alma Street the houses are small in scale and width, so the kitchen usually shares the back room with the dining table.
On the three-storey terraces of Countess Road or Dunolie Road, a canted bay at the front leaves the back room and the back addition for cooking.
In both, the choice is between a galley along the party wall and an L that turns into the back addition; we test each against the window positions before settling.
Sources: Camden: Inkerman Conservation Area Statement (March 2003), Camden: Kentish Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)
Openings, beams and chimney breasts
Widening an opening in an external wall means carrying the brickwork over it, normally on a pair of beams, and any steel has to be protected against fire.
The Planning Portal treats an internal chimney breast as a building regulations matter in every case, though not a planning one.
The engineer's calculations come before the quotation, so padstones, propping and steel sizes are counted rather than guessed.
Sources: Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Structural Opening, Planning Portal Interactive House: Do I need permission to remove chimney breasts?
Extraction and the outside wall
The Planning Portal expects every new kitchen to have extract ventilation, so steam and cooking smells are taken outside.
New ducts and pipes belong on the side or back of the house, Camden's guidance says, bunched together where they are least seen.
In the Inkerman streets, the statement asks that original brickwork is not painted or rendered and that repointing matches the original mix.
Where the duct has to cross a stock brick wall, we core a single neat hole and fit a cast grille that suits the brick.
Sources: Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Ventilation, Camden Council: Home Improvements, Camden Planning Guidance (January 2021), Camden: Inkerman Conservation Area Statement (March 2003)
Kitchens in divided houses
On the Bartholomew Estate, Camden's statement records, conversion into flats and maisonettes peaked between the 1960s and the 1970s, so many kitchens there serve a single floor.
For a leaseholder the landlord's say-so can be needed on top of every public approval, depending on the lease, according to LEASE.
A carpet-only clause in the lease would stand in the way of a hard kitchen floor.
Moving a sink across a converted flat means new waste falls through a shared floor, so we open a board to check the void before the layout is fixed.
Sources: Camden: Bartholomew Estate Conservation Area Statement (adopted 2000), LEASE: alterations and home improvements
Cabinets made for the room
On Leverton Street, Camden notes a single house design with matching joinery repeated along the terrace.
A kitchen in one of these houses can follow that lead: painted panelled doors, a dresser in the alcove beside the chimney breast, and wall cupboards stopped below the cornice. Our joinery workshop makes them to the room's own measurements.
Tall units go on the wall with no window, and the sink goes under the window that looks onto the garden.
Source: Camden: Kentish Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)
When the kitchen moves into an extension
If the kitchen moves into a new extension, Camden's guidance expects the addition to read as secondary to the house and a decent garden to survive it.
A kitchen that opens onto the garden usually needs a step down and a level threshold at the doors. We draw both in section, so the worktop runs through and the doors line up with the garden.
The extension page covers what each Camden document allows behind a Kentish Town terrace.
Source: Camden Planning Guidance: Home Improvements (January 2021)
Deliveries, skips and the order of work
For a skip on the road, Camden takes licence applications only from skip firms, at least five working days ahead; a bay suspension for a delivery lorry is booked online at least 17 days ahead.
Camden's limits on noisy work, 8am to 6pm through the week and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays, decide when the cutting and drilling happen.
The order never changes: structure and first-fix pipes and cables, then plaster and floor, then cabinets, with the worktop measured only after the base units are fixed level.
Sources: Camden Council: skip licence, Camden Council: parking bay suspensions, Camden Council: noisy building works
A kitchen in a two-storey cottage
In the smallest Kentish Town houses the ground floor is two rooms and a back addition. Opening the two rooms into one gives a living room at the front and a kitchen-diner at the back, with the back addition kept for a utility and a cloakroom.
Where the stair rises between the rooms, we keep it enclosed and set the kitchen along the opposite wall, so the cooking stays out of the stairwell.
Narrow houses suit shallow cabinets: wall units of reduced depth over the worktop, and a run of full-height cupboards where the old larder stood.
Floors, drains and heating under the kitchen
Ground floors in Victorian terraces are often suspended timber over a shallow void. A tiled kitchen floor needs that void ventilated and the joists stiffened, or the grout cracks.
Where the sink moves away from the back wall, the new waste needs a steady fall to the drain; we lift the floor to check the route before the island is promised.
Underfloor heating suits a kitchen opened to the garden, laid in a screed over insulation, with the pipe manifold placed in a cupboard that can be reached later.
Light at the back of a terrace
A kitchen at the back of a terrace often faces the next house's back addition. Pale worktops, a light-coloured floor and glazed upper doors help, and so does a rooflight over the table if there is an extension.
Over a single-storey extension, Camden's guidance asks for any rooflight to sit back from the main wall or be obscured, so flats above in a divided house are not lit up at night.
Lighting comes in three parts: strips under the wall cupboards for the worktop, one or two pendants over the table, and recessed downlights set between the joists.
Source: Camden Planning Guidance: Home Improvements (January 2021)
Questions about kitchen renovation in Kentish Town
Can the two back rooms become one kitchen?
Generally, once the wall above the new opening sits on beams and the steel has fire protection.
Is permission needed to take out a chimney breast?
Building regulations approval is, every time; planning permission is not, for one inside the house.
Can the extractor duct go through the front wall?
Camden prefers new ducts and pipes on the side or back, grouped out of sight.
Does my lease affect a kitchen refit?
It may: some leases need the landlord's consent for alterations, and some forbid hard floors.
Who applies for a skip licence?
The skip company, not you, and at least five working days before the skip arrives.
What does a kitchen renovation in Kentish Town cost?
Pricing: quoted after a feasibility visit.
Sources: Planning Portal: Extensions, Building Regulations: Structural Opening, Planning Portal Interactive House: Do I need permission to remove chimney breasts?, Camden Council: Home Improvements, Camden Planning Guidance (January 2021), LEASE: alterations and home improvements, Camden Council: skip licence
Related pages
Sources
- Camden: Kentish Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)
- Camden: Inkerman Conservation Area Statement (March 2003)
- 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 Council: Home Improvements, Camden Planning Guidance (January 2021)
- Camden: Bartholomew Estate Conservation Area Statement (adopted 2000)
- LEASE: alterations and home improvements
- Camden Council: skip licence
- Camden Council: parking bay suspensions
- Camden Council: noisy building works
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