Press Article
PROPERTY SQUARE MAGAZINE - April 2008
Find me a property with... A Beautiful Kitchen
Jo Eccles, an ex-banker and property PR professional, set up her property search company Sourcing Property in June 2006. Sourcing Property, which specialises in central London, acts for time-poor buyers and tenants, offering a comprehensive search service designed to eliminate the time and stress associated with finding dream a property.
Further information t: 020 7244 4485 w: www.sourcingproperty.co.uk
According to recent research by the Halifax, the dining room is dead, with more than half a million dining rooms in British homes likely to be demolished over the next 12 months as homeowners knock down walls to create bigger living space.
But where the dining room fades, the kitchen materialises; it’s long been said that the kitchen is the heart of the house and I would say that it is perhaps the most important room in the home today. It certainly plays a significant part in the search criteria of many of my clients. One recent client insisted on an open plan kitchen, with all the latest gadgets and gizmos, despite the couple being very open about the fact that they never cook.
Traditionally, the kitchen was hidden away and staff would be the only ones to use it; this is often highlighted in period properties, such as mansion blocks, where the kitchen is often tucked away at the back of the property. Times have changed however, and nowadays the kitchen is not just used as a room in which to cook, but as a place to work, entertain, dine and relax. As a result, the current trend is for open plan kitchens with breakfast bars and comfy seating areas.
I have a client who bought a property in a mansion block in Victoria and has completely gutted and redesigned the layout of the entire flat so that the bedrooms are now at the back and his kitchen is at the front (when he bought the flat it was the other way around). Whilst the new overall style of the flat is in keeping with the traditional feel of the building, he has chosen a very bold, modern kitchen which makes an impression and expresses his personal taste. This is an increasing trend; people tend to feel that they can make a statement in kitchens by using cutting edge or unusual materials or bold colours that they perhaps wouldn’t feel comfortable using in other rooms of the property.
I’ve also had a Canadian client buying a property for his daughter in London and whilst I showed them some spectacular properties, they just weren’t quite ‘right’. In the end, we established that the problem was that they are used to the kitchen being the heart of the home, and anything which didn’t have an open plan kitchen was considered too formal for their liking. Subsequently, we found them a lateral flat. which had a vast open plan kitchen, reception and dining area centred around a big fireplace in the middle. This was a major selling feature of the property and the most important factor to them, demonstrating the huge influence the kitchen has on people’s buying decisions today.
I think the kitchen will remain one of the most important areas of the home and will continue to be developed as the social hub of the household, going well beyond just a functional space.