What's better - kitchen diner or second toilet?

[mamatwo]

We currently have a second toilet off our kitchen with no wash basin and no room for one. We have one other room downstairs and a kitchen with no room for a table. When we come to sell the property in a few years time do you think room for a table in the kitchen or a second toilet be more attractive to a buyer?

[pingping]

legally, I don't think you can have a toilet off a kitchen if it doesn't have a wash basin (but I'm sure buildersmate may know more about this). personally i think a kitchen/diner combo is more attractive to buyers as everyone wants a dining room/area.

[cassa333]

How big or small is your kitchen? If the loo is so small would it realy make that much difference to the size of the kitchen? Perhaps you could convert it into a larder or put the washing machine and the dryer on top as a mini utility area.

[ummmm]

You can pingping if the house was built before a certain time. I would prefer a kitchen diner personally.

[mallam]

I feel sure ping� is right and cassa� wrong (about the k/d v utility q). I also thought p was right in not thinking you can have the present arrangement at all. I had it in my first house, and got away with selling it with no improvements at all, but I seemed to remember there had to be an easement for the loo, which was being used unconverted (of course) as a broom cupboard.

Now umⁿ (not counting) says it's OK if the house was built before a certain time. Well I should think any definition of 'a certain time' would figure for my house! Perhaps the easement was just to boost some functionary�s fee.

But that makes three of us who would prefer the kitchen/diner.

But more important than preference is saleability. No contest there, I should imagine.

[annie0000]

Why not combine the two by taking the door of the toilet and using that as one of seats at the table?

[buildersmate]

Loos next to kitchens with no wash-basin.
Building Regulations first came in around the mid-60s. Before that there were local regs, but this sort of thing could have been commonplace. This reg has probably been officially outlawed since 1984. But that doesn't mean that houses with such an arrangement had to change it.

[mallam]

I have a nasty suspicion that that's not allowed either dennis!

[mallam]

lol. But you have already installed it! What other purpose that it is meant for are you planning to live with now?

[mallam]

No more lols, dennis?

[mamatwo]

Thanks for all of your answers! The toilet room is almost the lenght of the kitchen but only the width of a corridor so no room even for a titchy basin! Looking at knocking the wall out to extend the kitchen now - thanks for your help!!

[mallam]

Actually dennis you have given me another lol, but unless it is some sort of double bluff, an unintentional one!

I was of course just making a lavatorial joke about whatever purpose you might still have for it as well as the purpose for which you have already installed it.

Just my perverse interpretation of what you said: "If it is meant for some other purpose i guess I can live with it." I.e. live with that other purpose. Geddit?

[mallam]

Intrigued by your Confucius quote, dennis. Where did you get it from? I don't recognize it, altho I have read quite a bit of him in the original! But I think this might be a version of the Japanese saying translated as "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".

You may have seen it represented as three monkeys, "The three wise monkeys", because the words of the original all end in -zaru, meaning "not ...ing", and it's a pun on saru, meaning monkey, which has a combinatory form -zaru. as in Nihonzaru, the Japanese macaque (Nihon meaning 'Japan', of course.)

So the three monkeys are the not-seeing monkey, the not-hearing monkey, and the not-speaking monkey: Mizaru, kikazaru, hanasazaru, and they are wise, of course, because they do none of these things.

[dozeydo]

Are we straying somewhat from the thread, Dennis and Mallam???! ;) If Mamatwo knocks down the wall between kitchen and toilet, it sounds as tho' she'd have room for a table but probably no more space for cupboards etc. With only one other room downstairs, I think I'd prefer a bigger kitchen.

[mallam]

Hi doze. Being strayed from seems to be the raison d'�tre of threads.

But Im not quite sure what you mean about the conversion question. A bigger kitchen is what M will have if she knocks down the wall, isn�t it? A kitchen/dining room or �kitchen/dinette�, in fact. How would that leave her without space for cupboards? One way it might actually give her more is if she put in a divider, which would consist entirely of cupboards and shelves, whereas a wall just takes up space. It�s not, as even she seems to imply, a matter of having room for a table: you could have a fold-down table or high chairs at a counter as things are, if that were all you wanted, but she seems to be inviting discussion of the merits of a presentable kitchen/diner from the saleability point of view.

As you may readily see, I have plumped for saleability (as I gauge it), but I think not in the least to the detriment of liveability. In fact you might even be able to build a lean-to WC as well in the course of the conversion, though I believe building rules would not now permit direct access to it from the kitchen/diner, and would require you to have some sort of lobby between them, and THAT is where you could have your WHB.