My kitchen at home is an L. Starting at the short end of the L, is my range, then about 18" of counterspace, corner sink (upper cabinets above that end of the L), then about 5 feet of counter (cabinets below, windows above. Refrigerator is across the room, by the cellar door. And there is also a small area where I have some upper and lower built in cabinets that looks like a hutch, but isn't. Enough room for a small kitchen table, but I choose to have a stainless steel workbench, for more workspace.

In the country house though, the kitchen is a dream. You come in the back door (from the Florida room, and in front of you is the kitchen table--plenty of room for a table for 6. To your left, next to the back door, is a space large enough for a medium freezer (almost bought one today), then a narrow cookie sheet cabinet. Next is the cooktop (cabinets above and below. Then the corner--counter is a very wide U--with window above the middle of the U, above a double sink. At the other end of the U, is the eye-level oven, then the refrigerator, then a pantry closet. Nice island sits in the middle of the U. Loads of storage in that house--still haven't filled all the cabinets, etc. AND I have a room in the basement that I'm sure was originally a summer kitchen--with loads of shelves for any excess from upstairs. I eventually plan to make that into an extra kitchen again. All in all, the new house has so much storage, I'm in heaven. Have to be honest, though--one drawback it has is that there is no dining room. But with the larger kitchen, a nice deck (with built in gas grill) and the florida room, haven't missed having a dining room .

Mine is a rectangle. Front half is cooking area, then eating area with table and chairs, sideboard and china closet.

The dimensions are 18X26. Countertop runs across the 18ft, then wraps another 5ft on each side.

My main complaint is that the upright freezer and refrigerator are across each other, at the end of the 5ft sections. And the pots and pans are stored in a cabinet beyond the cooking area.

A lot of walking around....i've been promised an island. There sure is enough room for one.

All WILL be corrected by this remodel.

My stove is on the south wall, with cabinets on both side, but very narrow. To the right is the door to the garage, then there is a pantry. across from the stove is the fridge, and a trash compactor that doesn't work, then some counter space, which runs around the corner, with an eating counter on the dining room side. There is an opening between the pantry and the eating counter to get to the dining room from the kitchen.

Across from the dining counter is the kitchen sink, east side, with a window above it. to the left of the sink is the dishwasher, with counter space above it, and a cabinet above that. Left of that is the oven and microwave. Those are sort of in the walk way to the utility room. When the oven door, or the dishwasher door are open you can't go in the utility room.
to the right of the sink is counter around the corner to the stove.

I am not happy with the arrangement either. No relief in sight, as far as changing things, since we still own our other house.

But when we do have some extra dough, I want to take the cook top out, the cabinet out, get gas piped in and put my gas stove there.
I also want to get rid of the trash compactor, and hope to put a pull out cabinet there, that can serve as a mini island, when more counter is needed.

The oven... I am not sure yet, but I may take it out as well.

All my counter space is formica, which I am totally ok with, as I don't think the current rage of counter surfaces will last. :)

Moni

Moni...I got talked into Formica, ordered the top of the line with a beveled edge, and hope to be satisfied with it.
It is better looking than it was years ago, and I have friends who now regret the money they spent on granite. One is planning on taking it out. Too much maintenance.

My kitchen has two areas--one end is the dining nook and the other end the work area. It's a big room. The work area is 12'4x10'. The whole room is about 19' long. In the work area on the east side is pantry, frig, cabinet. Then it comes around with another cabinet, stove with built-in microwave on top, another cabinet then around that corner is the dishwasher, sink and another cabinet on the end. Above the sink is a pass-through with plantation shutters (that we never close).

The other end is a dining area that I use for my computer desk. We have a small table for everyday use in the Florida room and a dining area off the living room.

Everything is white--white, white, white! Cabinets, countertops and appliances. Way too much white. The backsplash is a dark burgandy ceramic tile. It looks brown to me. We want to replace the countertops and we're looking at Formica, too. I can't see putting $4000 in them when we can get the same look for under $1000. We've been looking at them and they are so different from the old Formica. There are other brands,too. LC makes them. I want the solid-core type. You can also have an under-mounted sink with them, which I really want.

Overall, I love my kitchen, just too much white and a messy DH.

I don't really have a kitchen just two aisles one side is the sink in a storage unit with a dishwasher (never use) the other side is the built in stove in storage and the refrigerator. there is an area away from it that could be used as a dining area but isn't

Badly.
But I'm changing that this summer.
LOL

Lori

Mine is square and it's okay for me, especially since I only cook breakfast in it. My first home had a long narrow one and I liked it. You could almost turn around and be at the stove.

I do like that part that I can turn around and be at the stove, Stargazzer. I wish it didn't have doorways and other things in the way of having more cabinet space and my refrigerator across the other side of the room. Since I am the only one that cooks, the galley arrangement is fine for me, just need more storage. Oh, well. I do like hearing about all of your kitchens.

Sue

My house is a 50's ranch,so i have the kitchen,which i would say is square.It houses the stove,fridge,sink,upper and lower cabinets,and a pantry cabinet.Then coming out of that you are in the dinette area where we have one of those breakfast nooks,the microwave stand and micro.Off of that is a formal dining room.
Kathi

Mine is a galley kitchen and though not all that big, I love it and have 4 work areas.

One side is cabinet/counter, range, cabinet/counter, and fridge.

The other side is cabinet/counter, sink with nice window above it, and another cabinet/counter. It's perfect for me, who does not do all that much cooking.

There is a great little pantry off of the room, and the freezer is in the basement, where it is out of the way and nice at cool.

I would however like both the doorways widened clear back to the countertops though, to open it up a bit. Hopefully will get that done sometime this year and then new flooring.

(the other) Sue

Have y'all checked in on the "Kitchen" forum?

Formica isn't a 'bad' choice. If you sell and the buyer doesn't like it, it's simple to replace; you can even put something new on top of it.

My house was built in 1933 and has a galley kitchen that is short on cupboard space. You can walk through it when the oven or dishwasher doors are open but I do have to keep some things on the counters because of the shortage of cupboards.

Mine is small but very easy to work in. Would really love more cabinet space & especially drawers though. Stove & DW with cabinets above. Sink with garden window above it, cabs & corner cabs up and down, comes around to one more set of cabinets with microwave on the counter, & fridge. Stove is right next to wall and DR doorway. Fridge is next to FR doorway.

Opposite stove on other side of doorway is a large hutch we designed and built including a tall but narrow pantry, top and bottom cabinets and two open shelves in between. Table is on that side too.

My house was built in 1957, so the kitchen is square and pretty small. There's an attached dinette or breakfast nook. I don't have a real pantry, so I use a large closet off my family room for baking items and food storage. One of my neighbors with the same style house built a porch off the kitchen and they use the porch for food and kitchen storage. I'd like to do the same.

I did a kitchen remodel about five years ago and it's pretty terrific. Since my house is 170 years old, I wanted the kitchen to look like it always was here and it does. The day they finished it looked old. Plain&Fancy did the work and I have soapstone counters with a huge deep sink. The appliances are covered with wood panels. There are two styles of cabinets..Shaker and traditional and two colors of paint on the maple cabinets..slightly distressed. One is an original sage green we found on chair railing which they duplicated and the other is off white..We have a built in corner pantry which is huge. There is a large center island where the cats hang out. Would not change a thing.

It's easier just to show you...I took this about a week ago after it got a serious cleaning...Abby of course is giving it "THE WHITE PAW" treatment...notice the strip of velcro on the wastebasket?...That's because she came into our lives and as soon as she could reach the trash can taught the other dogs how to RAID THE TRASHCAN...in 29 years of marriage we've never had a dog who raids the trash...Until she came along...(we'll keep her though...she's my girl!)

My kitchen is 26 years old...it needs a serious makeover but is not gonna get it anytime soon...this house is not getting anymore of our money cause it most likely become a rental when we decide to leave it...We did put in a new sink and faucet and Bosch diswasher and I painted, put the wallpaper and border on and got the curtains to match...the previous owners laid down this awful floor and poly'd the cabinets and put on new knobs and the light over the table before we got it..I'd love to rip out everything and start over...I'd put a regular stove and micro above it where the frig is...put the frig where the wall oven to the right of the island and just make the island a countertop...it kills me to have the micro on the counter (I considered putting it on top of the frig but my arms wont reach that high up!...i have NO workable counterspace!

Liz thanks for posting the picture of your kitchen. It looks really nice to me.

Sue

We just remodeled our kitchen a little over 2.5 years ago. It was over 35 YO and had a pennisula and very dark cabinets. I hated it. I like the arrangement we have with the island in the middle and cabinets on each side and the refrig at one end. It is open and bright with more lights and sky lights.

Here is a link to pictures on the Kitchen Forum Blog.
Clare

Here is a link that might be useful: aptosca Kitchen

I have enjoyed your kitchen pictures too, Aptosca. It looks like you have a lot of storage in your cabinets. I don't have that many in my kitchen, however, my island is much wider and maybe a bit longer. I really like the drawers to put things in rather than shelves as they are easier now at my age to get to things. Very nice.

Sue

Here's mine:

A very nice kitchen and arrangement Nikki. Looks like you have quite a bit of storage too.

Sue

I have a galley kitchen.

I grew up in a home with a HUGE kitchen, and I've always missed that in my house. I dislike my kitchen, but I've grown used to it.

If I had the money, I'd move the kitchen to where the dining room is, tear out the pantry closet that is there to make enough room for a dining area, and make the current kitchen into a pantry.

Trey expensive, though.

The only thing worse about trying to work in a galley kitchen is trying to work in my galley kitchen when Mason, who's damned near as big as the kitche, decides he needs to lay right in front of the refrigerator or in front of the stove.

I am now hoping I can get some more wooden cabinets and paint them like what I have and have them installed on the back side of the island. My daughter said I could probably get upper cabinets and have them put on a base, depends on what size I guess. That would give me some more space. There is a pretty big overhang of counter top there that it would work. Son in law could do the work for me. I say the more storage space the better!

Sue

Here is my kitchen. It's too small and doesn't have enough storage but it's functional. There is a dining area just off the kitchen that is far too small to put a practical size table so we put a counter height pub table.

We have what is supposed to be the formal dining in another room but I've used that as my office/library for many years. Now that the kids are leaving, I will move my office and such to one of their bedrooms and make a proper dining room.

{{!gwi}}

Jodi-

I have a long galley kitchen with fridge-sink-dishwasher-stove along the outside wall. Opposite side, facing into the dining and great room is a an 8-ft peninsula. A built-in pantry opposite the fridge.

It's so cluttered! I planned on renovating the kitchen as far back as 2006, but I was too busy working. Then, my contract ended, so I had the time but not the money. Then I got busy working again in 2008. Now I have the time, but in the middle of a divorce and can't spend the money. I'm hoping that after the divorce is settled I'll be able to get going on it. With the down economy I should be able to get custom cabs for a very good price, also support a contractor or two. In the reno, the only major change in layout will be that the stove will move 90 degrees clockwise, facing the long part of the galley, and peninsula will be shorter by 1.5 feet. I probably won't go with an over-the-range microwave, but I am so used to it, so who knows.

Current kitchen
{{!gwi}}

New kitchen elevation
{{!gwi}}