Tiny L kitchen layout advice

10 years ago

Hello! I have enjoyed using GardenWeb as an encyclopedia as I'm starting my kitchen renovation adventure. Hoping y'all can help me with a tricky situation!

I have a 1940's house, just around 900 square feet. The cabinets are all custom/original to the house but in bad shape and not very useful. It's about 7 feet x 10 feet long.

Obstacles:
Circuit box on the interior long wall of the kitchen can't be moved.

Interior doorway/entrance to the dining room may be widened but I'd like for it to remain where it is.

Exterior doorway must remain where it is, for financial reasons.

I'd love to keep the sink where it is - it functions well and I like looking out the window.

As it is now, it's an L-shaped kitchen.

Goals:
I'm thinking about turning it into a galley layout to get more counter space & storage.

I'm planning on getting a Euro-style fridge (probably the 24" wide Summit) and would like an 18-inch dishwasher to save on space. I live with my two cats and have a boyfriend, but it's such a tiny house, it could never accommodate more than two adults!

I'd love a 9 or 12" pull-out pantry next to fridge.

I do a fair bit of cooking and baking and am planning on getting a gas range with vent on top. OK with downsizing the sink to something smaller, one-basin.

This is my starting point of the galley idea. Need a place for a microwave, preferably in upper cabinet.

I'm considering widening the entry to the dining room, but I don't want to give up any lower cabinets. I would love to add upper storage by way of floating shelves or glass-fronted cabinets, but I don't like the idea of it feeling off-centered.

It will be a tight opening between cabinets, but as it is now, the 30" square fridge is always right in my face, so I'd take a tight galley over that any day!

I'd love any and all feedback! Thank you in advance!

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Comments (10)

christina222_gw
10 years ago
Where is the door to enter the room? Are those both windows in the diagram or is one a door? In any case you'll have less than 3ft of aisle, that's not enough. I think you need to stick with an L and just design it better.
Cindy103d
10 years ago
I agree - 7' would be a really narrow galley kitchen. Any opportunity to steal space from another room?
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Ok, you have loads of good ideas going already. I'm on the road these days without access to my design software so I can't help much just now, but I will throw into the mix that we have an 18" dw for a family of 3 and it works out JUST fine. Most days we just fill it and run it once at night (and I like that I'm using less energy and water by running a FULL dw). Sure, after a dinner party it would be nice to have a bigger unit, but in general, the 18" is more than adequate (and VERY MUCH more adequate than the 0" dishwasher - that is, none at all! - we had before the remodel!) Also, a slightly OT question which I've been wondering for a while now: why in general are 18" dw's considered a step DOWN and a 24" DW drawer (which, if I'm doing the math right, probably holds less than the 18"er) is considered a luxury item? I haven't managed to figure that out yet!!
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Personally I'd make the following changes. I showed you in gray how you have almost no actual great room space. You need to account for walkways, etc. The grey indicates the actual usable space on your plan for the great room. Note how it's a tiny space in such a large houseI agree with Stan that you don't need the powder room. I would remove the powder room. Then I'd move the door into the front bedroom to next to the bathroom. This would give you a longer wall for furniture or a tv or a bookcase or... The other advantage is now the door to the bedroom isn't in the great room so there's more privacy. I made the closet more of a small walk in closet in the front bedroom and added a "window" seat and a window between the closet and the front of the house. If not a window seat, it could house a desk, or a chair or a??? In the second bedroom, I moved the entry too so now you don't have an awkward wall you walk towards when you go into the hallway. I wouldn't be so concerned with exterior symmetry as you need to concern yourself with interior space. I would move the doors to the side closest to the office. I personally would make it a single 36" wide door, but left the double doors. Then I'd shift the windows over so you have 4 windows in the great room. Now notice how you have a narrower hallway space but a much larger great room? I shortened your left perimeter counter in your kitchen and moved your cooktop closer up a bit. You still have plenty of prep space and this now gives you some room in a dining room area to put a buffet or some nice furniture. I increased your island size and I flipped the dishwasher to the side between the fridge and sink. This now creates good flow from fridge to sink to prep to cooking.
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I actually did look at a couple 24" fridges in my price range and as much as I wanted them to work I decided the one I picked was better for me. I don't know how long I will live here but if the fridge lasts that long enough I planned on taking it when I leave.No dishwasher and for me personally it wasn't a big deal when I bought the place but I know they are a selling point. I find doing dishes by hand to be quicker and more efficient for me. I also prefer to have the cabinet space over a dishwasher when storage is that limited. With that said I hope to have room in a redo to allow for a dishwasher should the next owner want one. But for now I just want a kitchen that works better and is not an eyesore without investing too much. My improvements have to be budget-minded not only for me but because the house will only get so much in return no matter what is done to it. I know what it is to have so many big ideas and have to downsize everything to something more realistic :) Yes that is a deck that was added on to the house. It will also need redone in time and I would like to expand the porch some when it happens. I do like the idea of sliding doors or at least a full view door. It is amazing in the summer the difference with leaving the back door open. All the light that comes in really brightens and opens the place up.
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Denise Marchand - thank you for all of your suggestions! We took your suggestion to move the refrigerator to the wall with the other tall cabinets but are keeping the sink and dishwasher in the locations on my original plan - this allows us to have a corner cabinet. We are using ikea cabinets so we are limited to 15" and 24". We are planning on using a gloss, white subway tile for the open walls (full wall) and back splash on the cabinet wall. We also switch to solid oak counters throughout. Do the window's it is hard to add shelving on either side of the sink. Once the wall is bumped out to even it out with the other side to cover the plumbing stack, the wall to the left of the sink only has 5/6"s of depth before the window. We may add open shelving above the dishwasher on the same wall as the tall cabinets and a high open shelf along the wall with the stove as well. We're going to wait till cabinets and counters are up before we make any decisions about adding open shelving. Since we eliminated the wall cabinets we also switched around the light plan. (below). With a 2nd row, we dropped down to 4" lights from the 6". We are somewhat constrained by the water pipes/stack and AC vents that run through ceiling. The tall cabinets will also have counter task lights. The box outline matches which switch they are attached to. We'll will make sure both sets are dimmable. Debating if it make more sense to only have 2 lights in the hall...If we add another light above the dishwasher, it could only be 10" from the wall. Since we eliminated the wall cabinets we also switched around the light plan. See attached. Since we added another row, we are dropping down to 4" lights from the 6". We are somewhat constrained by the water pipes and AC vents that run through ceiling. The tall cabinets will also have counter task lights. The box outline matches which switch they are attached to. We'll will make sure both sets are dimmable.
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catbuilder
10 years ago
Assuming that's 7'-1" and not 71", you do have room for a galley. Here's a link to a great galley kitchen that's only 81" wide.
Is the dining room door on the lower wall? Why do you want to enlarge the opening?

Here is a link that might be useful: Brooklyn Galley Kitchen
PRO
Kronhaus Custom Works
Original Author
10 years ago
Here's a sketch to scale:

I was hoping I could take down the wall between dining room & kitchen, but I can't move that circuit box. Thought about cutting the wall at the edge of the circuit box, but there is a closet in the DR. The back of the closet is not flush with the corresponding kitchen wall. It would be too deep for a fridge alcove, at about 59" from wall to partition.
User
10 years ago
COrn,
Wait and save your money for now.
Save it for a completely new kitchen, with the DR and kitchen made into one big room.
You have to have the circut box moved, meaning you will need to pay for rewiring, which will be worth it.
Make the kitchen and DR all one nice big room, and it will increase the value of the property BIG TIME, and you will absolutely love it.
Just keep telling yourself, I'm saving for my new kitchen and DR, and you can do it.
ineffablespace
10 years ago
How would you feel about a cooktop and separate oven?

There are a *couple* of cooktops that are relatively shallow:

A Fridigaire at 16 3/4" front-to-back, and a Summit at 13-3/4" front-to-back

You could do a shallow run of cabinets all along the cooktop side and put the oven in the other run, or a partly shallow run that bumps out a bit just for the oven, to gain a little floor space.

I wanted to link just the two cooktops I was talking about but couldn't. But they are both near the top in this link

Here is a link that might be useful: Shallow cooktops at AJ Madison
greenhaven
10 years ago
Wow, that Brooklyn galley is pretty dang awesome! Way to utilize every smidge of space!
christina222_gw
10 years ago
Love that Brooklyn Galley!
PRO
Kronhaus Custom Works
Original Author
10 years ago
That Brooklyn galley made me think it would be possible in my house. It is beautiful!

Re-locating the circuit box would also possibly include re-wiring my whole house to bring it up to code, which I'm not prepared to do. Spending a large amount of money on electrical in this house, valued around 120k, is not the best use of money for me, at this point in my life. I have a $15,000 budget for this and I don't want to price myself out of the neighborhood.

I thought about a small pass-through to open it up, or widening the entry way so it doesn't feel so cramped.

Thanks for all the notes!
mailfox7
10 years ago
We had a similar situation with a 7 foot wide galley. It can be done, not a perfect situation, you have to be willing to live with compromises.

Could you keep the dining room wall shallow at 18 inches deep for cabinetry for storage and counters and run your appliances along the outside wall? You would then have 42 inches of walkway and that would feel so much bigger. You would need custom cabs, but you could get pull outs and/or pantry storage.

Figuring a 24" fridge first next to patio door, then 23.5 inches of counters/cabs, then 33 inch sink cabinet (assuming that window is centered), then 47.5 inches left for a 23.5 counter and/cabs, then a 24 inch stove. You could fit a small dishwasher to the right or left of the sink if you wish.

You could open up the dining room doorway, but you would lose some of that narrow counter and cabs on that side. Lose the soffits to gain every bit of cabinet space.

We had to do a similar compromise with our 7 foot wide
galley. It helped so much to make the one side shallow.
Good luck.

Tiny L kitchen layout advice

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christina222_gw

Cindy103d

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Tiny L kitchen layout advice

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