A kitchen by the window: how we rearranged a flat on Shabolovka

Seventy-two square metres, three windows facing one way and the kitchen in the darkest corner. Why we moved it four metres, what was approved and where I got it wrong.

A flat in a 1958 brick building, fourth floor, 72 square metres. Three rooms in a row along the facade, all windows facing south-west. The kitchen, nine square metres, sits deep in the flat with a window onto a light well: grey at noon, dark by four. The owners, a couple with a seven-year-old daughter, came with a simple brief: "we want to cook and see each other". For four years they had eaten in a kitchen where three people couldn't pass one another, while a twenty-metre living room stood empty with a sofa and a TV.

What stood in the way

You can move a kitchen into a living room in a building like this as long as someone else's living room doesn't end up above your wet zone. Here the building is brick with timber floors on steel beams, and above the future kitchen is the upstairs neighbours' living room, same as ours. So the sink and the dishwasher stayed within the old kitchen, against the wall shared with the room, and only the hob, the fridge and the worktop moved into the room. Induction hob, recirculating extractor, gas disconnected and capped with a certificate. That counts as a layout change without moving the wet point, and it was approved in four months.

The wall between kitchen and living room didn't come down entirely: it isn't load-bearing, but a ventilation duct ran inside it. We kept the duct, boxed it in, and it became the end of the kitchen run. The result is a 2.4-metre opening through which the kitchen flows into the room, while the duct hides the fridge behind it. I now repeat this trick in almost every building of that era.

What we got

A 3.6-metre working line along the former partition wall, fronts up to the ceiling, no wall cabinets over the window. Opposite, under the window, a table for six: an ash top 90 by 180, chairs all different, collected over two years. The daughter does her homework at this table while dinner is cooking, which is exactly what the whole thing was for.

The old kitchen became a pantry and laundry: washing machine, dryer, shelving to the ceiling, and the sink stayed, handy for soaking. Nine square metres that used to be the least loved spot in the flat now take care of every household chore, and nothing superfluous stands in the living room.

What it cost and what I missed

The layout change with drawings and approval came to about 180,000 roubles; taking down the wall and redoing the wiring with a new board, another 240,000. My biggest mistake: I didn't allow for strengthening the floor under the kitchen run. A timber floor under 3.6 metres of cabinets with a stone top deflected four millimetres at mid-span, and the fronts had to be adjusted twice. In buildings with timber floors I now always put a steel channel across the joists under the kitchen; it's cheap if done before the screed.

The second thing I'd do differently: the window. It faces south-west, and after three o'clock the table sits in direct sun. The owners bought a linen curtain and it works, but the right answer was to draw wooden blinds on that window from the start: they keep the view and hold back the heat.