Layout advice for proposed galley/island kitchen

ohenry_2006

14 years ago

First of all, thanks to Buehl for posting some tips for kitchen threads- i've tried to follow these!!!

We just closed on the house and plan to redo the kitchen before we move in. The existing appliances/kitchen are in bad shape and we don't want to sink anymore money into it and would rather demo the space and start from scratch.

We've included some PDFs to show the space and how we plan to do the layout.

House layout

google sketchup top view

google sketchup view from living room

google sketchup view from dining room

The flow of the house and the adjoining rooms (dining and living room) are what we love about the house but it also puts some limits on our kitchen design. There are only two walls and we don't want to move either of them. We really want the larger sink on the right centered under the window. Last but not least, we are reluctant to stretch the kitchen out of the existing space (for reasons of cost and also how it affects the overall geometry/flow of the house)

We are a family of 3 right now and hope to have more children. We like to entertain but are very informal. We like the little bit of counter seating that the current design gives us but don't want to sacrifice efficiency for in-kitchen seating (and we like using our dining room). Most of the time there is one person cooking, but we like working together in the kitchen, especially around the holidays.

Appliances we are looking to add in this area: 36" induction cooktop, Double wall oven, small microwave on shelf (TBD), 30" all fridge with separate freezer drawer or 36" combo (48" if we think we can fit it), dishwasher.

Dimensions within the kitchen space are a little over 15'1" feet wide by 11'5" long. This gives us 48" between the side counters and island (which is 3 feet wide). The island itself is almost the full length of the kitchen, giving us a little over 3' between the prep sink and cooktop and about the same on the other side of the cooktop. Behind that space there is about 5 feet of countertop that we would could use for baking prep and/or staging (maybe less if we go to a 48" fridge) with a double oven and refrigerator on the sides. We are probably going to have a small pullout pantry here as well as upper cabinet storage (flush to the 8.5' ft ceiling) between the oven and fridge. We will have large pantry/mud room off the garage for bulk items and seldom used kitchen appliances). The wall with the main sink will be used for clean up as well as additional prep space.

If you've read through all of this - THANK YOU!!! - we would really love to hear your input

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Comments (3)

bmorepanic
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Justa couple things to think about.

There is no reason the freezer drawers need to be near the ref.

When entertaining a crowd, the prep sink becomes a bar (if glasses etc. are stored on that end. If you are done cooking before people come, that's fine - but if you normally continue to work on stuff during the party, the loss of that sink and as the drink fetchers invade your side for ref and ice. Alternates to consider are giving the main ref up for entertaining and using ref/frz drawers for the prep/cooking side (solves for ref, but not water). Next would be to move the sink so it was more prep area only and add some drinks type of ref on the cleanup side - getting the drinkers out of your space completely.

In your kitchen, the cleanup side functions as a main walkway between living and dining areas ... Not ecstatic about the position of the cooktop - I understand what you're going for, would like it a lot if the island was 4 feet wide, but its not.

The seating at the island will be a bit iffy if its occupied and someone needs to work on the cleanup side. If you need to open a cabinet or drawer behind the stools, you'll have a problem doing it.

You don't have any pantry space nearby.

You might consider a convection micro or a speed oven plus a single conventional oven stacked instead of a double oven plus separate micro. Depends on how much you bake what!

Given your house, I would also look at "L" plus island designs that discourage the walkthru traffic, channeling it back out towards the hallway instead of everyone passing through the middle of the kitchen. Is the wall between the kitchen and the front door structural? Not about moving it so much as wondering if there can be a different kitchen arrangement.
ohenry_2006
Original Author
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Hello bmorepanic,
First of all, thank you so much for having a look at everything-we have never done anything like this and it is so overwhelming (although I have been lurking on the Kitchen forum for about 6 years-yikes).
I really like the idea of having a drinks ref. on the clean-up side and keeping those people out of the prep/cooking side altogether.
The position of the cooktop is something we are still playing with-we have a 20 month old and the thought of him accidentally touching it really scares me-I just don't think we have the space to make the island any wider.
We were planning on a small pull-out pantry near the wall ovens with the bulk of the items in the main pantry off the garage--but your idea of a speed oven plus a conventional oven makes a lot of sense--I really don't think we need double wall oven (husband does).
We have looked at an "L" plus island layout-but it really can't work due to space limitations unless we bring the kitchen out into the dining room or
living room and it disrupts some of the flow into the back bedrooms. We did do a mock up of this in google sketch up and I can post it later (when husband gets home).
The wall between the kitchen and front door is structural--we hadn't really considered what else could be done as far arrangement and that particular space but it is good food for thought.
Thank you again for your input-it is so nice to have "fresh" eyes looking at your space, especially when they are providing valuable suggestions.
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I'd definitely like the refrigerator opposite to preserve that nice work space you show--enough space located between sink and stove, under the window, refrigerator a quick step or two away. Can't beat it. We needed an extra 3" to fit in a drawer stack to hold silverware, etc, so our garbage pull-out is a 12" wide lower pull-out cabinet with everything but the bottom shelf/tray removed (the door stays attached at the bottom to that). A Rubbermaid Slim Jim sits in the pull-out tray (after we cut the top down to clear the counter). It holds a 23-gallon bag (almost too much) and works excellently. (This design was copied from someone I'm always grateful to at Ikeafans.com.) For a sink, if you find yourself counting inches, I also like what we did. I measured my widest commonly used sheet pan, and a refrigerator rack and chose a single-bowl sink they could both lie down flat in. (Everything else is smaller.) That turned out to be stainless steel about 31+" wide with flanges, with about 29" in the bowl. Specs said mount it in a 36" cabinet, I said heck no!, I NEED that space for drawers, and copied those here and elsewhere who mounted in a cabinet ALMOST wide enough to hold the bowl itself, a 30"er in our case. We chiseled out enough wood on the cabinet sides for the sink to sit down where it needs to be, but the chiseling didn't go anywhere near any of the corners. It's great! We both love it--and the 15" drawer stack this and the slim trash pullout enabled. Note that the sink could have been wider still given that the sides of the cabinet and of the cabinets adjacent are 3/4" thick (3/4 x 4 = most of 3 inches to play with. If we had needed to take away so much wood that it compromised support in the middle of a wall, we would have added thin metal strap supports across the wall to make up for it, but no need at all.The sink sits solid as a rock. Are you SURE you don't like the scallop? :) I'm not just suggesting someone ELSE keep a vintage element I wouldn't really have in my own new kitchen. I really would keep it.
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rhome410
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Am I missing a way to look at the floorplan closer? I can't see the details well enough to give a thorough look.

This is a proposed layout, right? What is the current one? (Sorry if you said and I missed...I suffer from brain jumble today) From what I see, I don't think I have anything to add to what Bmore already said, but I definitely share the same concerns about the island cooktop in this layout (although it being induction makes it some better), and was surprised to re-read your post, and see that you planned to have seating at the island. We have 4 ft aisles between our perimeter cabs and island and sure wouldn't want seated people in them...and the cooktop and traffic thoroughfare would make it worse.

I'd like to confine traffic to one side and work area to the other.

I'd really like to swap the kitchen with the dining room, but I'm guessing that might not be reasonable, budget-wise?

Layout advice for proposed galley/island kitchen

Comments (3)

bmorepanic

ohenry_2006
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Layout advice for proposed galley/island kitchen

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bmorepanic

ohenry_2006Original Author

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ohenry_2006
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