Layout help - please help me plan a functional kitchen!

11 years ago

Hello - I'm a long time Kitchen forum reader (possibly an addict?). I have been mulling over the design for our kitchen for a couple of years and have come up with a few options. I would love your suggestions of how to layout my kitchen to make it function as well as possible.

Our house is a four bedroom Victorian that we are slowly restoring. It's about 3000 square feet. We are family of three with one child under 10 (not planning on any more). While we have no plans to move, in our designs we are keeping in mind that the next family to live here will likely have more than one child. The kitchen is visible from the front foyer of the house (through the door to the living room shown in the images below). We have some ideas about what we'd like to do finish wise, but first we need to decide on a good layout.

I am the primary cook. We are a tall family (I'm 5'11"). I enjoy cooking, especially on the weekends when I have more time - I can happily spend much of the day in the kitchen cooking and baking. I often have a helper to wash dishes. On weeknights, I am cooking dinner while a helper hand washes the (plastic) lunch dishes. On weekends, we may work together on a special dinner.

We have a formal dining room that we use regularly and will keep - we have the space, enjoy the formal room and collect antique furniture and dishware that is displayed and used in that room.

We entertain a few times a month - usually the group is 6-10 (total), but we also host one or two large indoor family gatherings each year (20-25). Our socializing usually starts in the kitchen with drinks and appetizers; we eat dinner in the dining room.

My wish list:
- two sinks
- a spacious prep area with no wall cabinets; the prep area cannot face the back (greenhouse) wall - this is how I work now, with my back to the rest of the house, and I hate it
- I do like to bake and would like an area to use the mixer and baking pans while someone else is using the prep area and stove top; I do not roll out a lot of dough and do not want a lower counter for that purpose

Appliances:
- 36" gas range with a well matched vent hood - planning on a Bluestar
- 2nd oven - 24" under counter AEG (I am in Canada and the oven I want is readily available - most of the time I will use this oven)
- dishwasher - Miele - already have it and it's great
- fridge - counter depth - I'd prefer a single door if possible, but will be okay with a french door - the bigger the capacity of the fridge the better (I have an additional freezer in the basement)

Limitations:
- the doors to the living room, entrance porch and family room are fixed
- the window on the greenhouse (back) wall is new, so position is flexible, but the height is limited because of the greenhouse roofline
- the pass through to the family room is new, approximate location is fixed but size is flexible
- the window on the right side of the room is fixed and very low - cabinets cannot be placed in front of the window
- the range can only be located on the back (greenhouse) or right (entrance) wall to allow for venting
- the 'working' end of the kitchen will be approximately the back half of the kitchen; we will keep a table with four chairs at the living room end of the kitchen (this is roughly the current set up and we like it)

I have come up with three general layouts, created with the IKEA kitchen planner. The images do not accurately show the cabinets we'd like and none show the range hood, but they've been very helpful in visualizing options. The empty base cabinet is the location of the second oven. The ceiling is 8'-9"; where there is a smallish gap shown between cabinets and ceiling/soffit, we would fill with crown. The soffit on the back wall is new and would conceal the vent for the range (can only vent out the right wall),

Layout A with peninsula:

Layout B with island and shallow pantry cupboards on the right (I'd put a shallow plate rack above these cupboards):

Layout C with island and cleanup sink on right wall (instead of the cabinets shown over the cleanup sink, I was thinking of a plate rack that would hold all of our everyday dishes). I imagine a shelf spanning the space over the back window and would display bowls/platters/pitchers there):

If you've read this far, thanks for your patience! I would truly appreciate all feedback regarding your favorite of these plans, or suggestions for how to lay out the space differently. Thank you.

This post was edited by saute on Sun, Apr 21, 13 at 13:41

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Comments (14)

debrak_2008
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I can't read your layouts even when clicking on them. Please post larger sized layouts. If you can't do that with the Ikea planner than just use graph paper.
saute
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Thanks for letting me know. I've replaced the images with larger ones - hope these are better.
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lavender_lass - marble would be more of a possibility with the island/table combo. While I do love marble, I'm not sure that I would be happy with it while it developed its patina (and I can be a messy cook). DH is strongly against marble counters in the kitchen - partly because he thinks we've got enough already (fireplace surround and raised hearth, plus floor and counter in bathroom), partly because he doesn't think he'd be happy patina-wise, and partly because he'd prefer soapstone for the counter. Does soapstone come close to marble as a rolling surface for baking? But the combination of marble and then wood on the long island would be striking... I did some searching and found more discussions about extending islands and attaching them to a table and found info on houzz and here. One thing that came up was that with seating on only two sides, you lose some of the face-to-face contact that you have with people around a table. We do eat dinner in the kitchen about five nights a week, and I think I might miss having us around a table. The other concern I have, for my old house, is that the big island is quite popular right now while we're really after a fairly traditional look. Still intrigued a bit, though, so I'll mull some more. Any thoughts on the viability of the fridge location in the initial layout? Will I regret having to move around the end of the peninsula to get into the fridge?
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Hmmm, that looks like a good spot for a chimney cupboard, then. I'm not sure what to think about the extra bar seating in the family room. I don't know if it would get used or not. I'm willing to do that if we'd really use it. I just went through (too many) images looking for pass through window inspiration. I'm finding very little that looks like what I'm thinking of doing. Does that make me ultra-original...or whacko? LOL So, my thought was to put open shelves in the pass-through windows and use them for storing some of my prettier functional items. Good looking bowls, canisters, etc. Or, to do glass cabinet doors, something like the article in the scullery thread a bit ago. I linked the kitchen from Fine Home Building with the pass through cupboards below. Here's one image that sort of comes close. I don't have modernist leanings (that I know of), so this is a bit off, but it's close. Here is a link that might be useful: Maybe cupboards like this in the passthroughs, with glass doors on both sides?
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Your current layout appears woefully short on continuous counterspace. It does not have a long enough span to set down a large pan and bowl and plate up 4 dinner plates. Or to set down a mixer and 2 cookie sheets. Where do you anticipate eating on a daily basis? Your kitchen is quite large, but does not have the functionality it should due to most of its square footage being walkways. If that were my space to work with, I would rotate the island 90 degrees, make it larger, not have the prep sink centered, but have it across from the fridge, have the island surface all the same height, have the "work" side of the island rectangular, and perhaps do a curve on the seating side of the island. Or do all of that with no curve and no stool seating, but do a step-down counter off the island with 2 chairs on the short end by the stairs.
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I want to be logical, and not try to design my whole house around a dream kitchen, but alas, I am after all, TKO. Talk me down? I am flailing here, as you will see. I feel your pain because I'm in nearly the same position as you except it's my roof lines that are driving me batty. I've gone through countless iterations of what I want on my first floor and because I have fewer room needs than your plans shows, meaning fewer combinations, I've tried my hand at playing with orientations in order to achieve my multiple goals. What I'm finding is that no matter what I do, when I pull on the string in one place the rest of the tapestry is affected, so design, as I see it (I'm no professional) has to flow organically, one feature flowing naturally into the next. I'm sensing that you're hitting that same wall - the combination of shapes/orientations isn't working throughout the whole house. I wouldn't hesitate for even a moment in scraping a plan that you don't feel completely comfortable with and I wouldn't for a moment think that you're illogical for building a whole plan around your kitchen. I'm pretty much doing that right now. What I found was that the kitchen was the room that was/is driving me the battiest, so if I start with a blank slate (still mindful of my conditions, which in your case would be the underground garage plus other points) and then play around with the kitchen shape + workflow + adjoining rooms & features and get those issues mostly settled in the kitchen then the rest of the house can flow outwards from there. I noticed that your architects original plan had an angled section and that he put secondary rooms in there, leaving the primary rooms in the traditional square/block pattern. The square rooms are definitely easier to work with. Your attempt at a compromise put a functional room into the angled wing and this created an awkward junction between the family room and the kitchen right at the kitchen. Why not continue the angle with the kitchen included and then try to use the space where the two wings of the house meet in a way that serves a purpose. So my words of advice to you are to break the problems down into individual problems and then try to solve one at a time before proceeding to the next. Count on a 3 steps forward, 2 steps back type of process as you'll find yourself going back to what you think you had solved which now presents as a problem due to something you've just done, and then begin the process again, one step at a time. I don't know what you want to accomplish with the kitchen design, but one thing I would try is to orient the kitchen with the family room. In your crooked picture, find the point where the DR meets the kitchen and draw your 45 wall starting there. Then draw another 45 line right at your door, losing the little window wall to the left of the entry. Now the awkward angled space is right where your pantry and closets are located and it is here that you can hide the awkward space into secondary rooms. You have a lot of room to work with in your kitchen space, so mix it up, try things that you normally wouldn't, and may well reject, but try these new ideas in order to see how they play out and how they affect other aspects of your plan. Try bumpouts, try peninsulas, try a banquette, try a bay window, try an irregular shaped room (beyond just a room at a 45 angle to the adjacent room.) Most importantly though is to spell out what you want in your kitchen and which of the designs that you posted most speaks to you.
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debrak_2008
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Don't hate me.

You need to post measurements. What are the aisle widths, counter edge to counter edge? How deep are the counters as they appear different? Any other measurements you can provide will be helpful.
saute
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I'm just glad you told me :)

For the next while I'm helping DH hang some drywall in the bathroom- will add measurements around dinner time.
User
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
In for a penny, in for a pound. If you're going to do a passthrough, it's not that much more complicated to just take down the whole wall. And although changing out that exterior window to a shorter one is difficult, it's also not that difficult. If you use the DR for the majority of your meals, then you don't need the additional table in the kitchen, although you probably do want some casual seating.

Think outside your box!
sena01
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Layout A looks fine in general, but I also like those shallow pantry cupboards in layout B.

In layout B, maybe you can move the range to where the sink is and the sink to wall B (close to corner).That way the sink can be closer to the fridge. Dishwasher can be on wall A at an appropriate distance from the sink. The back window can be in the middle (or nearly so) of the wall as you have envisioned in layout C.
smiling
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I like the idea hollysprings posted! Are those pantry cabs he/she added on the wall nearest the front of the house?
saute
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
hollysprings - that's definitely something I hadn't thought of (and that's exactly why I've posted). I really don't know what's structurally possible (there's a second floor above and it's a load bearing wall in a balloon framed house) but it could be possible, or if not, a variation with a huge part of the wall would be an option). The family room is a step down from the kitchen, but I don't think that would be an obstacle. I need some time to get my head around it and will mull it over some more. One think I omitted from my layout was that the bottom right corner of the room is diagonally boxed with drywall - we're stuck with that because it contains the pipes and ducts for the bathroom and bedroom above, but we currently have a shallow pantry cupboard there, so it could still provide some storage. Definitely requires me thinking about things differently - thank you!!!

sena01 - I was set on plan A for a long time and think it would function pretty well, but when I saw the 3D version of the peninsula I didn't love how it cut off the room so much visually. In plan B, wall A seems tight with the corner cabinet, range, dishwasher and cleanup sink all crammed in to 14', but I like the openness of the island. I wondered about moving the dishwasher to the right of the cleanup sink - but I think there are guidelines that would push it out of the corner. I've also always had my dishwasher on the left ... I've heard you can adapt :)

smiling - I'm pretty sure that those are pantry cabinets - they'd definitely add a lot of storage (which I always seem to need!).
User
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
OK, here's a tweak on Holly's plan if you can't take the whole wall down. You CAN do support posts and headers rather than a long engineered beam (but maybe not all that much cheaper) It would still let you have seating at the island, but the seats in the family room would be taller(with a foot rail on the back side of the wall) than those in the kitchen. The tall pantries could have a chase cut out of the rear with no problems and would add a lot of storage. What I like about either big island version is the circulation and flow through the space.

Where is your DR in relation to the rest of the space shown?
buildinva
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
The collaboration on this site is amazing! I love how holly & GreenDesigns re-worked your space!!
formerlyflorantha
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
In design above, I'd want to move range closer to window--need plenty of room behind the range user who stands there. Currently there is a potential bottleneck while that person cooks.
saute
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
florantha - yes, I would want to protect the range from traffic more than in that last layout.

The suggestions of opening up the long wall on the left are interesting, I don't think they are right for our family. We do want to keep a table in the kitchen and upon reflection, I don't really want the kitchen completely open to the family room since a little separation is nice when friends are over and the kids are watching a movie in there. I do think that the thoughts are ideas that could inspire other readers in their own planning.

I am leaning toward option C (last) in the original post, but I am a little hesitant about the fridge location. I like it along the back wall because it leaves the sides of the room more open, giving more of a feeling of connection to the family room and to the outside through the window on the right wall. The room is long and my idea was to place the bulky fridge to shorten the room, not narrow it. Placing the fridge on the back wall in the corner also allows room for a bigger (deeper) fridge without interfering with traffic in the room - I'd like to maximize my fridge space without going to the expense of a large built in. But I also know that it's preferable to have the fridge on the perimeter of the kitchen. The proposed location would not drive traffice through the prep and cooking area, but perhaps it's still a bad plan? Feedback would be appreciated.

For Layout C, the shallow pantry on the left side of the room is 12" cupboards, the space from there to the island is 41", the island is 41" wide, and the space from the island to the cleanup sink is 48". I've pulled the counters on the back wall so that the counters would be 30". Sorry not to have added these dimensions to the drawings.
lyfia
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I like layout B with the window and sink shown where the window is shown in layout C, or at least closer to that. I'd want the DW on the right of the sink so you could have it open without blocking things while cooking. Then I'd move the stove to be where the opening to the family room is. If you still want the opening then just make it open on the sides of the range. I think it is shanghaimom that has openings on each side of the range.
sena01
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
If you go with layout C, I think you should place a narrow cabinet between the refrigerator and the wall, so the door of the refrigerator can open freely.

Do you think you'll have enough counter space with that layout when you are baking, while someone else is doing prep and cooking? How about something like below?

Layout help - please help me plan a functional kitchen!

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