Mine stayed in the same footprint. Modified the layout but not a huge change. Kitchen is about 12 by 14 -- not large, but large enough for us. It is an old house -- not architecturally "significant" but we did not want to make any changes, nor did we feel we needed more space. I flirted with a new window but there was no way to do it that would have seemed correct so we kept the original window.

Lavender, did you get good news from your contractor when you showed him your plans for a budget check? Are you going to be able to move your kitchen as planned?

Sayde- Sounds like a nice size and I'm sure modifying the layout made a big change. It's amazing how moving a few things can make prepping and baking so much easier :)

Marcolo- Thanks for asking! I did show our contractor the plans and he was very impressed with Summerfield's software (SO much better than my drawings!) and he thinks the entire plan will work with the existing roof lines.

He thinks it's odd that I don't want a master bath, but when I showed him how the french doors separated the space, he thought that was pretty cool!

I'm still trying to decide on a few finishes and details, but he's going to try to get me a working budget soon. We aren't going to remodel immediately...and part of what we're trying to decide is whether we want to finish the upstairs now, or just rough it in and finish it later.

I wasn't sure how well moving the kitchen was going to be received (being a family farmhouse) but so far, everyone seems to love the idea. I think the sunroom really 'sells' it, since the dining room makes more sense in the back, with easy access to the sunroom.

There was a time (before the economy crashed) that we were planning to open up a wall and move the stove, but we ended up doing things a little more conservatively. Our footprint is exactly the same, appliances all in the same place. The only real change was the addition of cabinetry against a wall that previously had nothing.

No, not at all. When you walked in the front door there was a tiny 8x5 foyer. When you walked forward there was a galley kitchen (8x11) with a 3x11-ish hallway running alongside that, and a nicely sized dining room (about 14x12) at the back of that. The hallway included pantry and linen closets. The kitchen was a nightmare - smelly original 60's cabinets, sort of open to the LR so no uppers on the sink wall so not enough uppers/storage, Fridge 3' across the aisle so you couldn't open it if someone was doing dishes, sink 4" from the wall so no elbow room, sink shallow and way too tiny for a double. Can you tell I hated the sink? :) MW and toaster oven took up 1/2 the countertop space and spices, oils, cooking wine and booze took the rest. UGH!

We cleared out basically all the walls. Now you walk into the ~11x14 dining room. The 14x16 kitchen is beyond. The linen closet in the former hallway is to be taken out to make room for an island. The pantry closet is still there.. for now. Fiance will make the decision to remove it to enlarge the DR and replace with furniture-style pantry or not because he does all the work.

I am sitting at the DR table right now and love that we opened it up - the LR is in front of me, the kitchen to my right.

I will say that all the former walls and hallways made us love and buy the house. In addition to what was detailed above, the current 18x19 living room used to be cut up into a hallway, coat closet, breakfast nook, and living room. I think there's been something said about hallways leading up to a beautiful space, partial views enticing you, etc. I believe it was Palimpsest talking about a certain architect's work. We definitely fell prey to that - but as an art form. It doesn't work for the way we live, so we decided to do this. We're first time homebuyers, so this has been a learning experience for us :)

My old kitchen had an angled 45 degree wall at one of the short ends with an awkward triangular pantry behind that wall. We took out that wall and moved one of the long walls over 2 feet (unfortunately it was load bearing) so that we could center our new Wolf 48" cooktop on that short wall for a focal point. I hope to be able to post pics soon. We're all done but the camera is in a box somewhere that hasn't been unpacked.

Mine is essentially the same footprint, with openings added to the family room, and a wall taken down to open it up to a (new) breakfast room.

Mine is the same footprint with appliance flip flops. I think what makes it do-able in my case is getting what I want and need vs. living with what was there!

I did not want to get into a major overhaul in our 1850 house. One- because in an old house it often is like opening Pandora's box, and two- I just knew I would not be able to hack that big of a remodel. We have been here 9 years and have tackled just about every room. I am sadly a little burnt out at this point! =)

We have just started demo and already have had to re-group on day two! =0

Like its allaboutfood above I put my grander more expensive ideas aside when the economy went down and Florida real estate dropped so drastically. I made enough changes to the existing floor plan to make the kitchen function much much better and I have my long awaited countertop work areas. It's not perfect but works very well for me and the way I cook. Now that the kitchen is done I'm happy husband was squeaky all those years I was complaining as my ideas really were more than I needed. The way it turned out we still have some decent home equity.

We gutted what was a 1950's remodel and then a partial 1970's remodel and left the layout nearly exactly the same aside from a little plumbing re-work

The original single sink we took out wasn't centered under the window so to make for a nasty dishwasher--so we pushed the dishwasher left and added a larger sink--but everything stayed the same. Even the wonky windows with sills at 36 inches were kept and we extended the granite out to the sash to form the new sill.

Here are some photos with the original fugly mess at the bottom.

Here is a link that might be useful: Beechwood 1928

We are moving the kitchen - to the old 1950's Den addition behind the Dining Room. We added on - (Den created an "L") - now the entire back is straight across with family room and kitchen all one room. Old galley went across center back of house connecting Breakfast Room and Dining Room - 8'x11.5' room, with basement and back doors creating only 8' ft. long walls for cabinets and appliances.

Honestly, I was against a huge addition because I knew the old adages "If something CAN go wrong it WILL" and "Whatever your budget is, DOUBLE IT!"

No truer words have EVER been spoken - it has been an absolute NIGHTMARE!

The new kitchen is only 13'6" long by 12' ("L" with island), so it's still relatively small. Honestly, Galleys are a lot easier to create a functional layout in (I had improved the original layout, but my mother decided to go all out and break the bank - believing my warnings were crazy). So far I've be re-framing the screw-ups and installing floors, trying to avoid the kitchen design arguments (some people refuse to take out a tape measure and believe I am a magician who can fit the entire world plus the kitchen sink into a room with fixed walls and lots of windows!).

The benefit of moving the kitchen is that you have a functional kitchen to live with while the new one is under construction. Another benefit is there is a place to store new appliances - so you can slowly collect them and make sure your specs will be accurate when you order cabinets.

The downside is the cost. We did an addition, and although the economy was already starting to flounder, it did not actually crash until AFTER we had broken ground and could not turn back. But, the benefit of that is that when we had to get a new contractor to rip down and install all new cedar siding (after the GC's crew installed it totally wrong), we didn't have to wait at all - they were finishing one house and had no new work in the pipeline.

The costs of moving the kitchen apply even if you don't add on - namely, PLUMBING! Copper prices have skyrocketed, so the costs of running all the new pipes will be much higher than 5 years ago. Plus, running ALL NEW electric - another big cost. We are putting in a gas range, and old was electric, so we had to pay to have the gas run to the house, the permits to convert to gas, the plumber to install the pipes etc - that has already added a few thousand to the budget (and that doesn't include running the pipe from the basement to the new stove / kitchen - that will happen later).

The benefit is planning to have PLENTY of outlets (unlike the whopping TWO in the old kitchen)!

My old kitchen had an angled 45 degree wall at one of the short ends with an awkward triangular pantry behind that wall. We took out that wall and moved one of the long walls over 2 feet (unfortunately it was load bearing) so that we could center our new Wolf 48" cooktop on that short wall for a focal point. I hope to be able to post pics soon. We're all done but the camera is in a box somewhere that hasn't been unpacked.

Thank you all for the wonderful responses...and Leela, thank you for the beautiful pictures! It always amazes me how different a space feels, with a wall removed. Thanks for sharing :)

We were going to switch our 9'x11' kitchen with our 20'x13' family room/eating area and move an exterior wall out 10' to accommodate the FR/eating area in the old kitchen space. that wall was also the wall for our DR and we would have wound up with a DR that was 21'x10'. I'm not serving banquettes and it would have also mucked up our traffic patterns.
We left the family room/eating area where it was but added a window and vaulted the ceiling.
In the kitchen area we still moved the wall out but only 4' so our DR is 15'x10'(perfect size) and with borrowing some space from our eating area for the peninsula we now have a kitchen that is 19 1/2'x10' also perfect.

Hi LL- I don't know if you've seen these before, but we removed 2 walls between our kitchen and dining room. One was load bearing, so we had to add a beam and a post. But the way it opened things up was amazing. Even the first day of demo DH came home from work and said, "Oh, yeah!!"
Before:

We removed front wall of house--added 12' toward street x 16' across house for kitchen plus 8' more across front of house for lobby which includes 3' appropriated out of garage. Old kitchen is on right (blue); kitchen addition on left (red). Former exterior wall in between.

The angled floor area (old 8'wide x 10' kitchen (blue) and 6' x 4' stairwell and entry hall behind photographer) is now a *hall and *lobby and *closet and *part of bsmt stair and *kitchen nook. Addition (red) holds entire new working kitchen except for a piece of the peninsula overhang and half of refrig.

This photo is 6-7 months into the DIY project. We kept the wall intact until shortly before photo was taken--it held in the heat during winter. At this point, we started using camper for kitchen--April of last year.

[Sure wish I had pixie wand to go back to this moment and wrap and tie down those exposed plumbing pipes in blue wall to eliminate banging. And to insulate that wall space to dampen sound of gurgling in bathroom. Previously the wall was covered with very full cabs that dampened plumbing sounds.]

Reconciling stairs, ceilings, walls, floors took a lot of time after this photo was taken.

I think I am the only kitchen that stayed put. The house was designed by our architect many years ago when we added second story to the house (which gave us Mt Rainier view). I guess we moved the kitchen then (20 years ago); from the first floor to the second floor. Our common area is on the upper floor and our main floor is the bedroom floor. We have a modern looking house so it works. These types of floor plans do not work if you have a traditional looking house. The former kitchen is my DS's bedroom.

The old-new kitchen design was great for our family. We did not have the money to make the kitchen look GOOD at that time.

This time around, we spent the money to make the kitchen look pretty. We did not really change any function or floor plan of the kitchen. Completely a decadent, unnecessary remodel.

This house had had at least 4 major remodels. We could not afford to move out of the house every time we looked to move versus remodel. Each time, it was cheaper to stay in our house and remodel because of the view.

We gutted our kitchen and extended it out from the footprint of the house. So, we did have an exterior wall move significantly. Our scope creep included an addition of a laundry room (we only had a hallway closet for laundry before), a mudroom, half bath for the pool people, and covered porch. It got nerve wracking at the last. I was thrilled to pay the last bill on that huge project.

We stayed in the house during the remodel process, which lasted from February to August, when the last details were wrapped up.

Am I glad I did it? Heck yes!

My only caveat is that the choices can be overwhelming and if you find yourself saying "I don't care" about some aspect that you think at the time is small, stop. Wait and give the decision the deliberation it deserves. For instance, I said whatever to the drain inserts in the kitchen sinks. Now they are scratching and look horrible. Our GC agrees, so he's replacing them. Also, I rushed the knob selection, and I find that they still bug me. These are silly little things, but they can be really irksome.

stayed in the same footprint.
We made the walls thinner.
We also made thinner the stuff around a floor to ceiling chase (holding non kitchen ductwork).

then, we changed the layout.
we quadrupled our counter space.

Kaismom - you are not the only kitchen to stay put. Mine will be in the original footprint. My kitchen was redone in 1985 and it is very efficient. I just needed to tweak a few spots, but overall the kitchen functions great. We just needed to upgrade to cabinets which actually functioned properly - you know - doors that actually stay shut, appliances which worked, get rid of the fruity light shades, oh and my favorite recess a very obtrusive beam. Cabinets come in next week! Yeah!

Our kitchen is staying in (almost the same space). I guess I'm cheating to say that, since there weren'y any walls separating the kitchen from the dining room or the mud/utility room, so my creeping over those lines a foot or two isn't obvious. The biggest change in the kitchen itself is trading a peninsula for an island. Most of the structural changes are in what we call the utility/mud room end of the space we're updating.

The way it is:

The way it will be:

Yes. We stayed within the original footprint. Our kitchen is small, 8x12 with 89" ceilings. There is a connected pantry area that is roughly 4x8. There used to be a door between the pantry and the kitchen. During the reno we removed the door and widened the doorway as much as possible. We also installed one continuous floor between the two rooms to make them feel more connected.

Here are a few shots.

I'm also attaching a link to a before and after slideshow. Pay carefull attention to the lighting in the before shots.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Reno, Before & After

Yes, ours stayed put, too. For the first reno, 12 years ago (making the place habitable when my husband first bought the house 18 years ago doesn't count), my husband added cabinetry to the range wall, which had nothing except our O'Keefe and Merritt. Oh, and also added a broom closet. We also painted all the cabs to match, and he turned the solid upper doors into glass fronted ones.

It's small, just a one-bum kitchen, but a good u-shaped layout. We did, just last month, start our kitchen addition, but that's for a bigger dining space, since the original kitchen, esp the space for the table (no separate dining room in this house), was long and skinny. We are going to add Ikea base cabs on either side of the table, with shelves above, for a modified sort of breakfront; it will be extra storage for tablecloths, etc. and also for a lot of our home schooling things. Our poor little kitchen has to be a kitchen, dining room, office, and school room!

Becky

We converted our 2 family into a single and used the tenants 1st floor kitchen (12.5'W x 14'L) as our kitchen. The last updates were 1950's or '60's. We gutted the kitchen and moved the ceiling height to the room above it (raised about 1'). Found an old floor just above the lowered ceiling made up of ~170 year old wide pine that wasn't used for at least 100 years and we will now incorporate it into the banquette. We bumped out the back of the house 6' for the kitchen (now 20'L).

Since some of our bathroom plumbing was from the 1850 - 1870s and the newest being 90 years old we replumbed the whole house. Also most of the wiring was when they invented it so we had the whole house rewired and upgraded to 400A service. We added the "sandwich" in a new nook opposite the basement door (60"W x 22"D cabs). We recessed the frig into the back stairway - much more than the drawing shows.

In the bump out we added 5 windows, french door and skylight to the kitchen, 1 small window in the half bath and a transom between the half bath and pantry.

Here's a basic idea of the kitchen but we swapped the range and sink plus DW after suggestions from GW and moved the prep sink. The shaded area is the bump out.

We did signficant changes to the floorplan of our house, but the footprint only changes with the new addition.

our house needed structural repair and since we had to strip it down to the bones, no reason not to change things. This included all exterior openings and a good portion of the interior - including relocating the stairway.

In the end, the kitchen is where the dining room was, the dining room is where the den/front porch was and the den and main bath is where the kitchen use to be.

The PO came in once, they said it didn't even feel like the same house. The PPPO is a neighbor, and he's happy to see someone finally fix the old place up. He raised his kids in the house, and he loves what we've done as it shows we love the house.

Hi lavendar..

We pushed out peninsula out into the breakfast nook...I didn't think it would make a big difference...boy, was I wrong..the kitchen is soo much roomier!

before..Notice the window on the right in the breakfast nook...now you see it...

And now you don't ..we put a glass cabinet there...

KA:)

KA- What a beautiful transformation. How much overhang is on the stool side of your peninsula? Do you like that better than none before? Sorry LL--didn't mean to hijack

No. We moved it, changed direction, opened it up and made it twice as big. We also gave part of the old kitchen to the hallway to become a laundry room and stole part of the living room to add to the kitchen.
Our new kitchen is nothing like the old one in any way, shape or size. We did an extension to the back of our house and added approx 400 sqft. The bedroom got the smallest part as it only went back 5 feet. The living space went back 11 x 26 across the old back wall. We added a screened in porch as well. The house almost looks the same from the front as we only added an eyebrow window to the roof. When someone steps in, they get to see the change and it is fun to see the look on their face. It is still a modest size home, but it now has a large but not crazy sized kitchen, a modest main level den and a nice master bedroom suite instead of a tight one.
If we had remodeled the previous footprint for our kitchen, we'd have been compounding their mistakes.

KA, I don't recall ever seeing your before. What a great transformation! I love your kitchen and all of that counter space for prep work. So pretty. The light backsplash sets off the dark of your cabinetry beautifully!

My post reads a little funny! Sorry.

I meant to say, I hadn't seen the before photo of your kitchen before, KA!

Hi Lavender,

My favourite thing that we did was to put french doors out to the back yard and open up the wall between the kitchen and the living room. We installed french pocket doors in that space so we could keep separate if we wanted to by closing the doors. I love it! We kept the same general footprint for out kitchen with the exception of moving our fridge. Sorry for the crappy photo, but you can get the general idea.

Thank you all for the great responses and pictures! It's so fun to see everyone's kitchen and find out about their design :)

Newbie- Don't worry about it...rather than a hijack IMHO, this kind of thread supports exactly what you asked. Finding out what others have done...it's not only fun to see and appreciate all their hard work, but maybe get ideas for our own kitchens.

As always, I'm awed and amazed by the creativity and ability on this forum. Every kitchen makes me want to incorporate at least some small detail, into my own plan! LOL

Hi,
1850's house, kitchen is in a 1906 addition. Kept footprint, made a few tweaks to accommodate a new layout. Removed back stairs. Removed 400lb radiator where the main sink now resides. Moved one door 2 feet. Clipped off the outside corner of bathroom wall to allow a passage to the back door. Added a casement window over the sink. Put doors back up to hall and dining room. I closed up the plan instead of opening it up.
Casey