Here are a couple photos:

In progress:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tableteer/sets/72157606548135672/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tableteer/sets/72157611175301350/

How I remember the 70's and Kiss. Your graffiti brings it all back : )

Being one who bought 6.5 acres, backing up to a 400 acre 4-H Center, and a 1974 ranch, and one who knows the market out here? I think you've made a wise decision if you're planning on staying in this area! You'll probably never find that again for anything near what you paid.

I a reno-ing courtesy of a house fire. I'll look forward to your progress! :)

Christine
Out between DC & Annapolis, south of Bowie.

Here is a link that might be useful: RJL443's Pics

LOL
I forgot to mention I've put in 32 solar panels and a solar water system. We are so much on a similar path! :)

Thanks!

We got 1 acre in western Montgomery County with a 4300ish sq foot house for 410k, so we were excited. The lots next to us is also vacant/not buildable and behind us has an 8 acre lot.

Working on a visio diagram of the 1st floor now.

Roberta

You've come to the right place! There are many here who can help you in your quest! I'm a fellow DC burb (Northern VA) person doing a kitchen renovation in a 1983 colonial...my old kitchen sounds like yours!
The kitchen was smack in the middle of the rear of the house, with an adjacent dining room to small to entertain in! We demolished the wall between the two rooms and now have a huge kitchen. Moved the dining room to the original living room and moved LR to the library across the main entry. DH still has a study off the dining room. Family room and breakfast area is an addition located to the rear of the kitchen.

Look forward to your design layout and progress!! Cheers!

{{!gwi}}

You seem to have a lot of space so there are a lot of directions you can go in. Can you answer the questions in the link so we understand what your needs, wants and limitations are?

At first glance, I'm thinking that you can remove the wall between the dining room and kitchen and have just one table height seating area, plus an island with counter height seating.

Here is a link that might be useful: o How do I ask for Layout Help and what information should I include?

At the very least, I'd take out the unused kitchen table and make the sink wall longer (and include more windows) and you'd still have plentry of room for an island, with stools. Of course, there are a lot of different options, depending on whether you want to keep the dining room separate or open it to the kitchen. Looks like a fun project :)

Thanks! There is small window over the sink that I forgot to include. I was thinking to take down the wall to the dining room and make a breakfast bar on the other side of the stove wall. Since we rarely use our dining room I would like to use that space. I have a ton of Fiesta Ware that never gets used that I would like to have space for. I thought about doing the stove as a peninsula with a wall cabinet backing to that for dish storage on the dining room side.

Provided the wall between DR and kitchen is not load-bearing, I see a fast solution:

1 - Remove the wall.

2 - Check for the possibility of adding some windows to the existing kitchen area - and definitely more light. Under counters, over islands and some in the middle just for general purposes.

3 - Make it into a modified galley kitchen. Expand the "kitchen" to the edge of the left-hand window and door and use the remainder of the dining room for an eat-in "annex" and homework area.

4 - Use an island with a prep sink to divert traffic between the Family room and eating area around the work area.

5 - Expand the cabinets all along the lower wall - make pantry larger, have ovens there,

6 - move frig to the end of the upper wall close to the "eating annex" to make it accessible without bothering the cook.

GW- Didn't someone else post a very similiar house layout about 2 weeks ago?

HAHAHA! My family grew up on KISS. My 8 years old got a KISS CD for her birthday and flipped out in joy. You oughta frame that! LOL J/K

KISS is coming to our town in September and we already have tickets.

You have already gotten any advise I would give you. You have a great space to work with and I'm sure you will get lots of ideas here.

It seems a shame to lose your dining room when you already have a generous space for an eat-in kitchen. I'd keep the dining room.

I've had 4 blind dates in my life. (I'm a slow learner.)

The 1st 3 were to KISS concerts. Front section, center seats, to die for.

If you liked KISS and really, really loud music.
Never have either.

Hi - I met with a renovater/builder today and went over the ideas.

His suggestion was to
- turn formal living room (big front room) into family room.
- combined dining room and kitchen into kitchen space
- make current family room into dining room.

This is an idea I had thought of before and liked it. He said that budget wise it would be $50k to basically replace what I have/open up wall to dining room. He said $70k to basically rearrange like that, not including appliances.

sticker shock!

Roberta

Ooops I forgot to mention - he said that there wasn't enough depth for an island with the existing cabinet walls/space in between. He was allowing 42" walkway for one side and 48" for the other because it's a through-way to other rooms. The space left was not enough for an island.

oh and we still have the graffiti in the garage - my DH does not want to give it up!

It certainly would be cool to have a fireplace in your kitchen!

Oops. The fireplace is in the "family room" which is going to become the new dining room... my mistake. Ok, it's still cool to have a fireplace in a dining room!

{{!gwi}}

Hi - it's rough but it is a start - not sure about the following issues:
- what to do with big open space - since it is right next to dining room it does not make sense to put table chairs there.
-considered moving range/cooktop to back wall - and putting a window or two on this side of the house - but does that creep into cleanup space too much?

I'd think about keeping the separate living room (looks like a load bearing wall) and make that a dining room/library. Then, I'd open up the back of the house, to be a kitchen, informal dining, family room. That brings the fireplace back into the main space (where you'll probably use it more) and maybe add a bay window or french doors, for the informal eating area. That would be your view from the front hall...very pretty! :)

Your new kitchen space is huge, so you could easily add a peninsula, rather than an island. I think it would be nice to break up such a long space and it will give you a place for some stools, too. Do you bake a lot? If so, I'd think about a wall oven/microwave, where you have the fridge/freezer. Then the range on the same wall, sink under the window and the peninsula for prep/serving. The pantry, fridge/freezer...maybe a prep sink, could be on the back wall. If you put the prep sink on the end (closest to the current family room) it would be a great place to grab drinks and for entertaining.

Is your current living room sunken? If not, I wouldn't do that...can be bad for resale and difficult with small children. If it's already sunken, I'd check to see how expensive it would be to add a new subfloor and level it out. Many people like the 'idea' but it's difficult to entertain, with older family/friends, who have a difficult time with steps. Just a thought...

- goals - more counter and storage, reduce traffic jams to sink, buffet serving space for casual gatherings.

- family - two adults, one toddler (2 years), hoping for 1-2 more children.

- generally we have 1 prep & 1 cook, 1 cleanup
- yes, I cook frequently, usually only 1 cook at a time.

- we like to informally entertain a few times a year - lots of food, buffet style, lots of people hanging out in kitchen, lots of kiddos running around, never formal.

- rarely use separate dining room since it is *so* separate

- would love an area to make coffee/iced tea - we use our Keurig for both.

- we are on well water and have a water treatment system for all drinking water, would like to have ice maker that is hooked up to this, either built into an appliance or its own.

- I have lots of Fiesta Ware I would like to store and use.

- want to minimize open shelving since we have 3 dogs, 1 cat, lots of dust.

thanks!!!!

Your space is enormous. So much so that I think I'd go for a very different layout. I'd make completely different zones. One area for cooking, one for cleanup, and perhaps one for snacking/frig/coffee. Did I miss the info about your family and how you live/cook? That'll impact how it's suggested to lay it out.

There are only 3 of us (now) but hoping for more little ones. I do like to bake.

The living room is already a step-down, unfortunately, which nice hardwood floors. We rarely use it now so trying to figure a way to use that space and get the most kitchen.

I thought that our space would not be wide enough for 24 cabs/appliances in center of house, island and then back wall with dishwasher/sinks (it is 13" 6'). We want to allow wide clearance since neither of us are small people and my husband is a space-hog who grew up in NYC so he is obsessed with space.

I should mention - I have A LOT of kitchen stuff. We currently use the Dining Room as a "kitchen annex" to store this stuff, an extra fridge, small freezer unit. That is why we were looking at those freezerless fridge unit with seperate freezer unit. We buy in bulk.

I'm going through your pictures on Flicker. I don't know what number I'm on, but they're installing the siding. I hope you have "finished" pix at the end because I'm dying to see! I also hope you put a window in that little one that you found under the old siding. I love hwat you're doing to the house! I love your plans for a new kitchen too! I would definitely make that island bigger. And give it some more oomph (instead of just a plain old rectangle). Figure out a way to extend it into your empty space - maybe 5 shaped, or curved around, or something interesting and different! You have so much space to work with! Beautiful house!

Oh no, I think you covered the little window back up! This is like a movie clicking through your pictures. I don't know what the end is :)

If you figure out the end let me know please - we are so overwhelmed with this!

We "lucked into" this house the week before out wedding. I had to have it and the price was amazing. They had 7 other contracts after being open for only one day (they took off market because the roof was caving in more from rain damage).

That seems like a huge kitchen without any inviting space for hanging out and congregating, though I guess a kitchen table would go in the empty space between kitchen and dining room?

Off the top of my head I would suggest you look at farmgirlinky's kitchen. She has what I would consider a long & narrow kitchen and she has less than the mandated isle spaces.

Here is a link that might be useful: farmgirlinky's kitchen

We are in the final stages of our remodel and our kitchen and dining room where in the same location. We took down the wall between kitchen and dining room. Here is our drawing. We included a second entertainment/breakfast island to take up the extra space, as you have in your rendering. Also, we have deeper pantries, which if you, can swing, will be much more functional. Food for thought!!!

{{!gwi}}

Here are a couple more pics further along. We moved our dining room to the original living room, as we have a study and a large library off the entry hall, in addition to family room and breakfast room off the kitchen. Plenty of formal/informal space. We entertain a lot too!!

This is one idea that I came up with -

1. is the pantry/fridge/freezer too far away from the cooking area?
2. should we add an island sink - if so where?
3. placement of the 2 dishwashers?

This is a major change and before you modify, I think you need to think about how your family will change and how you use the space. I raised my three kids in a layout very similar to yours only my family room was large and off the back of the kitchen. We had an eat in kitchen and never used the dining room. I prefered to have two living spaces on the first floor as the kids got older, not including the den. One had a TV in it, one did not. Preteens and teens could watch a movie in the family room while adults entertained in the living room. Ultimately the space evolved into this as the kids got older - my den became the music room, had a piano, 3-4 guitars, 3 amps, and a full drum set! It had doors that closed! My living room was the living room and had no TV. My dining room became the office, lots of work space tables and two computer stations. It kept computers screens where I could keep an eye on their content from either the living room or glancing through the doorway from the kitchen and kept homework confined to an area that was not the kitchen table so projects could be left out and worked on as necessary. The basement had the air hockey and pool tables and the video games.

That is how the space evolved for me and we had large families and entertained often and the space worked for us. The second layout would have worked better for me with 3 active kids and their friends.

How exciting for you! I love your ideas so far. Good luck! Can't wait to see it all coming along.

Hi - Those are some of the possible layout ideas we have. I am really torn between them.

Where is your garage? Do you have a deck or patio? Where does the door out the family room lead to? Do you need a mudroom space? If you are planning on more children, its definitely something to think about.

It seems to me that you are not optimizing use of your LR or DR in your current set up and I'll speculate and say that your den may not be used much either.

In your May 17th at 12:45 post, you loose your family room altogether. With a growing family and also for consideration of resale, this is probably not the best plan.

In your May 22nd at 16:52 plan, your kitchen is in the midst of a walkway between your DR and FR.

If this were my home, I would start some new layout sketches with the kitchen in the left most corner and move the entrance to LR to the right. I think this is the key to improving the flow and layout of your home. Even though it is a step down, moving this doorway will direct the traffic to the center of the house instead of into your kitchen work area. I would then put the dining in the center of the room and leave the FR as is, but put a large walkway or pocket door into the den.

You might want to read some of Sara Susanka's books. Even though your home is probably bigger than her focus with "Not So Big Living" concepts, her books are great to get you to think about how you live and how you use your space.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sara Susanka

I prefer your 16:52 post, though that island is way too long IMO. I'd want a straighter shot from the refrigerator to the sink and cooktop. In that regard your second design is better. I just don't like the cook top on the peninsula.

Hi again - I have been reading and researching a lot :)

Today IKEA is coming to review the space and see what they think. The plan is sort of like the "8:19" one but with the stove peninsula wall pushed over into the dining room somewhat to get some more real estate.

We also considered putting the stove on that back wall, with the dishwasher-sink-dishwasher to the right of it.

Or should we try to get the fridge on that side of the room also. Are we trying to cram prep-cooking and cleanup into one area too much then?

Roberta