how much room will you end up having for it?

That was going to be my question...how much room? I'm nearly finished with a 10 x 10 U-shaped kitchen and it's much roomier and more efficient than I thought it could be. I also have a comment. You will NEVER regret giving up some kitchen space to work in the half bath. Whatever you do...dont' consider not doing it. I am in a home I didn't choose and would never have chosen if I'd been around when it was purchased. One reason I wouldn't have done so is there is NO powder room downstairs. You (and company) have to go upstairs and it gets to be VERY old. Some days when I'm extra tired, it's aggravating to deal with the stairs off and on all day. I also believe it would be bad for resale not to have a half bath downstairs and once we get to be elderly it will be a problem too. So, I would encourage you to be sure you put in the bath even if you have to give up some space in your kitchen to do so.

I think I'll wind up with a about a 12' x 12' space, more or less because it will become odd shaped due to carving out the bathroom space, and obviously because of 2 openings - one from the hallway, one from dining room. The good thing is that the dining room gains quite a bit more space this way, which is a huge plus. I have worked in smaller kitchens - the one I'm in now is awfully tiny (an apartment) and somehow they've crammed a ton of cabinetry into it - it stores all of my Fiestaware really well :)

Since your dining room is growing, consider adding cabinetry or storage there for less frequently used items? Also, consider carefully how many appliances you need -- giving up a double wall oven and a cooktop for a simple range, for example, or one sink rather than the two a typical "dream kitchen" would have. If you overload the space, it will feel more crowded than if you just stick to what you really have room for.

With 120 to 140 sq.ft you won't have an island. No big deal.

If the two openings are exactly opposite each other you can have huge functional kitchen in a 9' by 9' space.

The openings aren't opposite each other unfortunately. They are on neighboring walls.

I've already planned cabinets in the dining room with the kitchen designer; when we deleted the butler's pantry we designed two tall furniture style cabinets for each corner of the dining room. I have no coat closet either (the house, as mentioned, is quite old) so one of these will serve as storage for coats, etc. and the other for excess kitchen things.

I also realized if I want, I could eventually add storage underneath the stairway, which is where we were going to put that half bath. Makes more sense than the bathroom.

BTW, I was going through the finished kitchens blog and found a picture of exactly what I'm planning on doing. Even the entrance way into the kitchen looked like mine (arched). Gave me a good impression of how the kitchen would look. I showed it to my partner, who originally nixed this idea and suddenly, seeing a photo of it, made him realize that it actually was the most sensible approach.

I'm going to go back to my kitchen designer, and have them re-work the plan as soon as I can get an appointment. Keeping that bathroom is important, as others have mentioned and truthfully, I know it's the right thing to do anyway. I myself, have knee issues and at nearly 51, they can only get worse lol.

That's not that small, but a lot will depend on the wall space. My kitchen is less than 14x14 and it is actually less than 12 feet on one side with only 3 walls and doorways in 2 of those. I do have an island which I would not with 12 feet going the other way, but if you have a 4th wall, you would have just as much potential work area.

Post a diagram and get some ideas, especially if the space is tough. I think more eyes will give you more ideas and sometimes it is easier for fresh eyes to see a different potential than those that have been living with a space and that tend to see it a certain way.

My mother had to give up her house (at age 80) because there was no bathroom on the first floor. At $2500 per month, consider how useful that bathroom is!

I would be interested to see your floor plan and layout.

You and I may live in the same house. I too have a Four Square, 1911 in this case, with a 1/2 bath taking up one corner of, and opening unceremoniously into, the kitchen. Like you, I've found no way to put the bathroom in another room - not enough space under the stairs, would ruin the foyer, etc.

My current plan isn't to move it to the entrance to the kitchen by the stairs, but to leave it where it is, and perhaps use a self-closing door to keep the bathroom discreet. But I am interested in the solution you've found.

That's plenty of room for an excellent kitchen! Smaller kitchens are much easier to work in. I essentially made my kitchen smaller--the work area that is, with my remodel.

Have you seen Apartment Therapy? And The Kitchn? (the link is to my favorite, truly tiny kitchen).

Everything is tradeoffs. How big a sink do you want? If you're willing to have a small sink, and a narrow fridge, you might get your bigger range. A lot depends on layout, and how you want to treat corners, things like that. It's amazing the amount of power that can be packed into a small kitchen, however. My advice is to choose one thing that you really really really want, and see if you can plan around that.

Meantime, your solution about how to handle the powder room sounds good.

you can put drawers under stairways also.

yours has only 2 doors? that's good! mine has 2 doors on one wall and no back wall (open to the hallway). it's about 11 x 10

I'm going to take the floor plan to work, and scan it so I can post it here (if I can figure it out lol). It's currently as the kitchen designer worked it (our first draft, more tweaking to be done of course) to show without the powder room.

I also have a hand drawn one that I did on the day we measured, not completely correct to scale one on graph paper that I did, but sort of shows where the powder room is, which will give a better idea of the current layout.

I do have 4 walls, the back wall is going to get a new treatment - sliding glass door or regular sized door leading out back. However, it is possible to just put in a regular sized nice window because we could but the slider in the dining room (we need access to the back yard area as our detached garage is there and currently there is no easy way to enter the kitchen with groceries - other than going to the side door by the basement which is just too far a walk).

I'll be interested to see your floor plan too. I have an older house and my 1/2 bath is on a short connecting hallway between the kitchen and the dining room. Also, not the best place. My kitchen was 9 X 18 with 3 doorways. The bathroom bumped out into the kitchen. We toyed a lot with removing the bathroom or trying to shrink it to gain kitchen space but in the end we worked with what we had. I'm almost done now and I am definitely glad we didn't touch the 1/2 bath. Even though the placement isn't perfect, at least you can't see it while dining or cooking. It's the only bath on this floor. We have 1 full bath upstairs. None in the finished basement (another project for another time!).

Looking forward to seeing your layout soon.

I don't know if this is feasible since I don't know the layout, however, could you close off one of those entrances? We had a large cased entrance to our 10 x 10 kitchen and a peninsula jutted out and ate up 2/3 of the space on the open end of the kitchen. We closed off the cased entrance and gained an entire wall of cabinetry as a result and now instead of L shaped it is U shaped. We also removed the peninsula and now the same space looks & feels twice as large...and we have 10 feet of cabinets we didn't have before. Since your home is historic it's likely not desireable to do so...but it's a thought.

There are true genii on this forum -- post a copy of your layout and you'll get more ideas than you ever thought possible.

My own remodelled kitchen (1923 craftsman-esque bungalow) is 11' x 10' and bigger in feel than any I've ever worked in -- it's definitely possible. Chin up!

Ok, I'm about to post my layouts - going to create a new thread for it :) Hope I manage to get the pix included!

See you on the other side!