Please critique my floor plans

15 years ago

Please help me with my FP. Our home is a 30 yr old ranch. Currently, the frig sits on the wall x'd out. It is about 9'5" to the sink. Our plans are to remove about three ft of that wall, between the kitchen and dining area. The main traffic flow is through the kitchen, so the area around the planned island is 42".

This plan has been reworked about a zillion times. Please give me some ideas or suggestions. The room is open to a sitting area with a fireplace. Maybe a peninsula would work better? In this plan, the frig is about 10' from the frig.

{{!gwi}}

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Comments (3)

Buehl
15 years ago
Is this a 1-person, 2-person, or more kitchen? Children? Ages? Do you entertain a lot?

What are the dimensions of the other things like doorways, walls w/no cabinets, etc. What would be even better would be a layout of the entire area...kitchen + surrounding rooms. It would give us a better "feel" for what would work.

For a major walkway, I would try to get at least a 48-inch aisle on the side of the island that will have that traffic (or, is it on all sides?)

If you take down 3' of wall, will that draw the traffic through the cooking zone (where the range is)?

What are your "wants"? Is there anything not in your current layout that you'd like if you could fit it in?

***** From the "Layout Help" part of the "Read Me" thread *****
- The best place to start is to draw up your kitchen (to scale, if possible) either without cabinets & appliances if you don't know where to start or w/your proposed new layout if you have something to start with. Regardless, measure and label everything...walls, ceiling height, widths of doors & windows, distances between windows, walls, doorways, etc.
- If you cannot move plumbing or gas, mark them on your drawing as well.
- Mark all doorways & windows (w/dimensions) and label them as to where they lead. If they're actual doors, mark how they swing.
- It also would be helpful to see the connecting rooms, even layouts so you see how they interact with the kitchen and/or extend the kitchen feel and flow.
- Make note of traffic flows in and out of the kitchen
Make a list of things like:
- What are your goals? E.g., more counter space, more storage, seating in the kitchen (island? peninsula? table?), etc.
- Do you plan to merge two rooms/areas (e.g., Nook and Kitchen into a Kitchen only)
- Where are you flexible?
  
  Can windows or doorways change size?
  
  Can they be moved?
  
  Can windows be raised/lowered?
  
  Can any walls come down?
  
  Does the sink have to be centered under a window?
  
  Does it have to be under a window at all?
- Do you bake? Do you want a coffee/tea/beverage center?
- What appliances do you plan on having (helps to figure out work flow, work zones, and types of cabinets...upper/lower vs full height, etc.)
  
  Range or Cooktop?
  
  Single or Double or no Wall Oven?
  
  Warming Drawer?
  
  MW? (Advantium, drawer, OTR, countertop, built-in, shelf?)
  
  DW? Standard or drawers? If drawers, 1 or 2?
  
  Refrigerator CD or standard depth?
  
  Vent Hood?
  
  Other?
  Sizes of desired appliances (e.g., 30" or 36" or 48" cooktop; 36" or 42" or 48" wide or other Refrigerator? Counter depth or standard depth refrigerator, etc.)
- Pantry: Walk-in or cabinets?
***** Very Important *****
Is there anything you:
- Can't live without?
- Definitely don't want?
- Would like if you can find a way?
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Debbie Laird
Original Author
15 years ago
Thank you Buehl.I'll add info and try again.
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I should preface this post by saying that kitchen lay-out is my stronger suit but I had an idea for your bathroom. This plan assumes that you can move the waste line and plumbing lines for the toilet. The areas that would need privacy in a house of 2 boys and 2 girls are the shower/toilet area, IMO, so it made more sense to put these in a room together, not the toilet and vanity. This way one of your daughters could be at the sink while a son is in the shower. My brother and I had a bathroom like this growing up and it worked for us. Oh, and putting the toilet in the same room as the shower means less chance of siblings playing pranks on the one in the shower. ;-) If you install transom windows above the shower, door and vanity area, you'll get natural light into the shower/toilet area. You could also check into a frosted glass door for even more light into the shower area without giving up any privacy. I added a window seat below the window to give you more storage and to give that area a purpose. Besides, window seats are cute. ;-) If clearances will allow it, you might be able to lengthen the vanity up to 1', which would mean your vanity would be long enough for 2 sinks, making it even easier for your bathroom to serve 4 kids.
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Garage/home walls have to be fire rated. It would function better if the garage was set apart from the main house with either a courtyard or breezeway between the two so that you could get more natural light into the house and still be able to utilize the visual connection between the two. A garage that needs to house two cars stacked on a lift will need to be taller than you are planning to account for not smashing the lighting on the ceiling. You might want to house something beyond lower height sports cars. Our 4 post lift in our garage won't allow a tall vehicle like a SUV on it and then raise to full height, and we vaulted our already 11' tall ceiling to 15' in the lift bay. Even with Corvette stacked on top of Corvette, it's really tight with the lighting when the lift is up enough to get that second vehicle under it. Only Formula cars without the wings would really work to have the double stack be comfortable at that height, and they have issues with the ramps, needing longer ones to get the ground clearance for the chassis. We also climate controlled our garage area, as that keeps the vehicles in much better shape, and it's a much more pleasant working environment. While you plan on having guests here, this isn't a very guest friendly house. There isn't enough room allotted for them, either in the public or private spaces. I might suggest the separate garage have a second floor guest suite(s) and make the main house more about your groundfloor space on one side, and the public space on the other, linking to the garage space visually through the breezeway. Double height space is very difficult to heat and cool, so I would suggest having hydronic radiant floor heating for winter comfort so that the people in the rooms are closer to the heating source.(We did that in our garage, so if you happen to need to be on a creeper under something, you don't have a giant cold mass of concrete sucking the warmth out of your body.) For summer, if you rarely get temperatures above 85, then I probably wouldn't do AC at all since you are in a low humidity climate. I would focus on doing some type of cupola with operable vent windows that will allow the hot air that rises to be vented externally. That's an old fashioned technique, but very effective in climates that don't heat and humidity to need full time AC. Overall, you really need a good architect to take these ideas and make them more functional and designed specifically for the site, to take advantage of it's positives. You will need that anyway for permitting, and in CA there are plenty of creative people who would love to be a part of an interesting build. Take a look at some back issues of Architectural Digest and see if you come across any designs that you like, Then contact a couple of those folks. This needs a large amount of technical expertise to wade through the red tape of building and permitting. So, you need someone local as a builder, well as an architect whose work you admire to work as a team to accomplish this build. Hire good people, and then listen to them. A good design is an interactive experience that makes the work better. Good design is "invisible" You don't even notice that things are where they need to be and work the way they "should". Bad design is obvious, especially if you live with it. It makes life harder. Don't make your life harder!
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funkycamper, thank you so much for the feedback! I did actually consider putting the refrigerator where the beverage center will be, and there were a couple of reasons I decided against it... The first is that the space is only 69" long, so there isn't enough space for the 48" built in refrigerator plus the pantries, so I'd still have to have some of the pantry space be over where we have it shown. One of the reasons we are getting rid of the pantry that is there now is that it's pretty annoying having the pantry space split across the kitchen like that, I frequently find myself running back and forth from one to the other. Plus, if there is something I need from the other pantry I would have to go over to that side anyway, so it would seem to be more convenient to have the pantries and fridge together so I only have to go to one area to get the food. The second reason is that currently we have a regular depth refrigerator in that space and the opening to the dining room is 2 ft 5 in. We are widening the doorway to 4 ft and putting in a built-in (therefore counter depth) refrigerator, so I figured that would keep the refrigerator doors from blocking the doorway when they are open. Although I do love the idea of getting as big windows into the space as we can, the reason we have the upper making that turn is that we are going to have an appliance garage under it to put my food processor, blender, and stand mixer. I didn't want them to be too far from the range since I will likely be using them either right before or right after things come off the stove/out of the oven.
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I'll second the idea of extending the porch across to the garage; otherwise, that empty space between the porch and the garage will seem awkward. I don't like the garage at all: This big and forward-facing, it's going to dominate the exterior of the house. I'd change the door in the master bedroom closet; note that it covers part of your clothes -- you'd have to enter the closet and close the door to reach some clothes. Inconvenient. I agree that another 2' of width in the dining room would be a big plus for comfort. I agree that the mudroom /laundry layout is very nice, even if it isn't convenient to the bedrooms. I'd try to incorporate the pantry into this space ... I don't care for an in-kitchen corner pantry that interrupts the workspace. The biggest thing that needs work though is the kitchen: You've chosen a U-shaped kitchen, a design that's ideal for a single cook, a design whose strength is that everything is at your fingertips with just a turn ... and you've filled it with an island, removing the design's strengths. The island acts as a barrier and reduces efficiency. If you want to keep a U-shape in this area, I'd suggest you go to this type of layout: Yeah, I know, it doesn't include an island, and today's trend is "island at all costs" ... but the shape you have here doesn't support an island. You could
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Buehl
15 years ago
I don't mean to discourage you, but it helps us so much to have more rather than less information!

I had another question...is the UC MW 24" or 30" or something else? I think I see the following:

36" Sink Base
24" DW to left of sink
36" or 42" Built-In or Counter Depth Refrigerator (looks built-in)
30" Range
24" or 30" Undercounter MW
18" or 24" Pantry Cabinet
72" of cabinets in island + 15" overhang on two sides

Cautiously...the layout looks like it could work with the usual workflow:

Pantry/Refigerator --> Sink/Prep on counter or island --> Cook/Bake in range --> DR or Island for eating --> Cleanup/Sink

But, I need to see where, for example, groceries enter the kitchen (garage? front door? other?) and how the rest of the house works with the kitchen.

It might be nice to have a Prep sink on the island near the range (cut off one seat on that long end for the sink so you don't lose a cabinet) or on the short cabinet run south of the range & island.

If you have graph paper, it would help you and us with dimensions & scale. If you don't have any, you can download & print some...

Here is a link that might be useful: Google Search for Free Graph Paper
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Please critique my floor plans

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Buehl

Debbie Laird
Original Author

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Please critique my floor plans

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Buehl

Debbie LairdOriginal Author

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Debbie Laird
Original Author