Builders thought I was crazy turning my kitchen into a bedroom but it is one of the best decisions we have made for our renovation

When my partner and I started drawing up potential new plans for the layout of our strange renovation project we had to contend with the bottom-heavy nature of the footprint. One half of the house is a 1700s cottage in a two up two down formation with no bathroom. The other half is a mid-century bungalow-style extension.

It became clear in the nine months we were living in the house before we started slow renovating that the kitchen in the cottage section just wasn’t going to work. Don’t get me wrong, it was a decent enough kitchen in its size and design, it was just dated and dark. However, it was awkwardly far from the front door and was the main access point to the staircase that leads to the bedrooms upstairs.

So, we made the decision to allocate some budget to a new kitchen, move it elsewhere on the ground floor and turn it's original location into a bedroom. And when I got the builders involved, it was evidently a surprisingly controversial choice.

Why the builders were again me turning a kitchen into a bedroom

To me, this decision made perfect sense. Not only did it meant that we'd still have a working kitchen while we constructed the new one in a more sensible location, but it would also mean that from the new kitchen we could install new patio doors to take us directly onto the courtyard patio.

But when we were explaining the plans to the tradespeople working on the house, they were a little taken aback. For what I would have thought was fairly routine in moving a kitchen, the prevailing attitude was that it was not conducive to renovating a kitchen on a budget, especially when installing new drainage, extraction and water supply was factored in. Kitchen plumbing can account for an additional 4-5% of the overall budget, especially in a new kitchen or kitchen in a new extension. We were doing the whole project on a shoestring budget, so I could really understand their concern.

Another layer of the controversy seemed to stem from the unspoken rule that all bedrooms should be upstairs in a house with more than a single storey. Sadly, having exclusively first-floor bedrooms was never going to be an option for this house, unless we did a major second storey extension, which we just didn’t have the money or need to do.

Why turning a kitchen into a bedroom was actually a good idea

We built the new kitchen in 2025 and have been using it for about a year and a half, but we only just finished the bedroom that took its original place. So far I've identified three key benefits from making this controversial change.

1. We have better flow and circulation space

One of my favourite pieces of advice for renovators comes for architect Laura Jane Clark’s book The Handbook of Home Design. Essentially, she advises to draw up the house floorplan as it currently exists. Then you draw with a coloured pen the most logically routes between the front door and kitchen, utility room and bedrooms, back door and where your muddy boots are stored. Basically all of the most common routes you use a house for. Using this, you can glean where the flow and circulation is failing and look for alternative plans to solve these issues.

We were shocked by how much traffic was having to go through our 'dining room' to get to the living spaces from the front door.

Prioritising the natural flow of the household and moving the kitchen so it is in line with the front door, rather than around two walls and down steps, makes everyday jobs like bringing home shopping or taking out the bins so much easier. The flow lines were much simpler and didn't have us traipsing through living spaces all of the time.

Flow and circulation are elements that make or break a successful house design, so I’m so glad we felt brave enough to make the changes that needed to be done in the long-run, rather than make quick savings.

2. The architecture better suits the room purpose

The new kitchen receives north and west-facing natural light, meaning it’s well-lit throughout the day. The single patio door has been opened into two to create a through-view to the courtyard garden that draws the eye as soon as you enter the house. Plus, the previously dark hallway opened into a large open plan space so knocking through to create a kitchen, dining living space made a lot of sense.

Where the kitchen was previously located has low ceilings and small windows that made the room feel cosy, but incredibly dark. Not ideal for a space where you are chopping food and dealing with cooking smells. Now it is a bedroom it is set away from the front door and more public-facing spaces so feels a little more private, rather than opening onto a living room.

3. We sidestepped issues with fire safety

UK Building Regulations actually have really strict rules about having staircases located in a kitchen. As a kitchen is one of the most likely places for a fire to start, habitable rooms must have a clear path to escape either via a window or a ‘protected stair’.

The windows upstairs are too small or awkward to be considered fire escapes so we would have had to reduce the size of the kitchen to put in a wall to enclose the stairs, or move them entirely. By moving the kitchen, we avoided this issue, keeping the room size as it was and the stairs in their position.

Despite the controversial nature of our plans, now that the work is complete, I am certain it was the best decision for our home. It definitely helped that we lived in the property for the best part of a year before we made any changes. This meant that we could clearly identify where the pain points were, and take our time considering the best solutions.