One of the main areas that a developer will look at in a renovation project is the kitchen, as it is one of the areas which dates a house and can put off prospective buyers. Modern houses tend to satisfy modern lifestyle demands and many new houses provide open plan kitchen dining areas. Ideal for cooking the dinner and watching the kids do their homework on the kitchen table as you create your culinary masterpiece. The demand in the modern kitchen is space. Floor space, cupboard space or worktop space are all very much in demand. Washing machines are no longer welcome in the modern kitchen, so if another home can be found for that, possibly in a utility room or the garage, if there is no other space. This could make space for a dishwasher, an appliance which no modern kitchen should be without.

Giving a kitchen a facelift can be different things to different budgets. It could be a simple coat of paint on the cabinet doors, replace the old handles and fix some new tiles, or possibly replacing cabinet doors and maybe adding a new granite worktop. Maybe a complete kitchen refit to the existing area or perhaps even extending it, either by knocking down an internal wall to form a kitchen diner or building an extension to the rear or side of the house. All of these should make a positive difference to your kitchen, if done properly. With small jobs there is always a temptation to carry out the work yourself, very admirable if you are good at DIY. Sadly not all of us are and a poorly finished or amateurish appearance to any upgrade can not only detract from the effect you are trying to create but might also set a prospective buyer wondering what other badly finished work has been done in the house.

A complete kitchen re-design and re-fit requires a professional kitchen designer to maximise the effectiveness of the new kitchen. People who design and build kitchens, can offer possibilities to suit your needs, that most of us would simply not see or consider and would allow us to get the most out of our investment.

 Building an extension to enlarge the kitchen is also not a do-it-yourself project. It requires forward planning, involving an architect to design the project and prepare the drawing, then possibly apply for planning permission on your behalf. A contractor needs to be appointed to carry out the work and manage the various stages of the build, ensuring that you end up with an area which will add value to your property and deliver an area which will meet the needs of the family for the foreseeable future.

The amount of money you spend will depend on a number of things, but on a value add theme, should only ever be based on a percentage of the value of your property. Subject matter experts will vary between 4% and 8% on their estimates of how much you should spend on a new kitchen as a percentage of the value of your property. This would mean that by spending around £8.500 on a kitchen renovation on a property valued in the region of £250,000 you could add a possible £15,000 to that value – likewise a property valued around £400,000 could benefit by around £24,000 from a spend in the region of £13,500 These estimates will be dependent on the condition of the existing kitchen, ripping out a perfectly good kitchen to replace it with another, may not add much if any value at all. Bathrooms and kitchens are the two rooms in a house which are most likely to catch a prospective buyer’s eye and sway them towards a property. If refurbishing to encourage a sale, try to design in a wow factor, which will make the room stand out but try to keep the décor to what other people may like rather than something to suit your own tastes. Apart from the probable increase in property value, a well-presented kitchen and bathroom may make the property more attractive to most potential buyers. This may possibly give your property the edge over other contenders with potential buyers making it easier to sell.

You may not be upgrading your kitchen with an eye to selling your property or simply adding value, but rather be upgrading or extending your existing one to improve your lifestyle or give your family the benefit of better facilities in the home. In this case you may feel that a more generous spend would be acceptable as the main benificery of the upgrade would be your comfort and an uplift in lifestyle, which is always difficult to put a value on. Most kitchens tend to be at the rear or side of a house, so by undertaking a sizable extension to your kitchen, you could also design in a totally different outlook to your garden area. Incorporating large windows in the roof of the extension, you will allow you to introduce much more light into the area and by designing in large sliding or bifold doors you can open out a much improved view of the garden and possible alfresco dining.

It is always worth bearing in mind that, in the long term, by spending money on a new kitchen, whether it is a simple upgrade to modernise an existing kitchen or a major reconstruction project to extend your property to form an enlarged facility, that percentage increase in property value will still stand, regardless of timescales.