Semi-Pro Kitchen Layout Help
I hope to become friends with all of you experts in the coming months (years!?) as I've been haunting your forums for top-notch advice for the last few months and we're just closing on a new home. I am beseeching you for help with layout design of the kitchen. The home was constructed at the height of the real estate boom, and when the market crashed, the previous owner ran out of $. Therefore it's unfinished, and much of what is finished, structure aside, will be demo'ed.
It's a great architectural space- all copper sided with a living roof, a tree spanning from the living room floor to the vaulted ceiling 2.5 stories up, etc. I have a hard time explaining my style- our current home is hypermodern, all black, white and gray (except for my chartreuse kitchen), but this is a question of layout. This new home won't support that stark palette anyway, what with all the wood, so I'm thinking industrial steampunk meets Alice in Wonderland meets the future in terms of finishes.
I spend 8-14 hours a day in the kitchen as a professional recipe developer and food writer. It is by far the most important room in the house to me, and I value a functional kitchen above all. I live with my husband and toddler (no plans for more). We entertain virtually nightly- someone has to eat all that food- on a small, 6-8 person scale, and twice a month we host 20-100+ ppl events. My culinary style is Little House on the Prairie meets Ferran Adria. In other words I make a lot from scratch (we're moving to this 5 acre lot so I can raise sheep, goats and chickens), but I embrace cooking with an immersion circulator, combi oven, and other modernist techniques. I am half science, half intuition and all soul in the kitchen. If none of this makes sense, check the about me section on my website for clarity: http://www.saltyseattle.com/about/ .
I teach cooking classes out of my home, so accessibility (especially in the pasta-making/bread/dough zone) is important. I love the idea of this 8' x 3' vintage baking station: 
but because of the backsplash lip, I'm not sure it makes sense to put it in the kitchen as it can only be accessed on one side and while 8' seems like a lot for a baking station, it's not if 3 people are working at it. I REALLY want to figure out a way to incorporate this baking station, however, as I love the pull-out flour drawers (I now consider them a non-negotiable need).
In looking at the cad drawings for the kitchen (below), nothing is immovable save the thin wall in the middle and the window locations. The whole house is very open floorplan with few closets. There is no existing pantry in the kitchen, but I need A LOT of storage. I also need the following appliances out on the countertops at all times as I don't have the patience, or strength in some cases, to put them away: stand mixer, ice cream maker, meat slicer, immersion circulator (which will likely reside near a bar sink so it can be plopped down in the sink for use), cryovac, food processor, blender, juicer, spice grinder, precision scale.
I kind of want to do two islands with the potential for bar seating near each, with one being the range oven zone and one being the pasta/baking zone, as I think this will facilitate teaching and entertaining. I am leaning toward one main sink (under the kitchen window) and two bar sinks, one for each island. If the kitchen needs to stretch into the rectangular room to the left on the drawing that is toward the bathroom and laundry room, so be it, as I can already tell that is kind of dead space, although it would make the kitchen somewhat difficult to cross from end-to-end if it were that large. Perhaps that is for storage, or as a resting place for that awesome baking table, although it would be far away from the baking station in terms of storing flour there and needing to track it back closer to the core.
I'm not sure what beverage centers and snack centers are, although there will probably be a wine cave under the stairs (just west of the kitchen off the living room). We are thinking of locating the bar (speakeasy) in the round room you see on the cad drawing and having it be accessible via secret door, though this isn't set in stone.
Here's the appliance and needs list:
1. Thermador Range/Oven 48" with combi: http://www.appliancesconnection.com/i202956-thermador-prd48jdsgu.html?ref=rap&mkwid=s5zbf5xvD&pcrid=16770592656&KW=prd48jdsgu
2. Miele built-in deep fryer: http://www.amazon.com/Miele-KM403-CombiSet-Electric-Boiler/dp/tech-data/B000VYZX34
3. Electrolux all fridge and Electrolux all freezer http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Electrolux-Stainless-Steel-Refrigerator-Freezer-Combo-with-Trimkit-/120831926973?pt=Refrigerators&hash=item1c2224e2bd
4. Thermador dishwasher http://www.thermador.com/dishwashers/built-in-dishwashers/dwhd650jfm-
5. A large custom hood (the existing venting for it is near the garage- may be tricky to move that)
6. Some kind of additional wine fridge gadget under counter for chocolate block and various oils storage
7. Built-in rods for hanging pasta sheets (near baking zone)
8. Roll and cutter for polyvinyl plastic wrap
9. Storage for sheeted aluminum foil and parchment
10. Two storage zones for sheet pans (one near baking, one near cooking)
11. Flour storage for six 50# bags of flour at any given time, plus additional smaller bags
12. Garbage/recycling/compost solution (I waffle re built in or external)
13. Cooling racks
14. Pot filler
15. Wine glass storage, pot and pan storage, nesting bowl storage, photo prop storage
16. A whole lotta lighting. Tons.
17. Hidden microwave (it only gets used to melt butter. Pretty rarely)
18. Enough counter space for all those appliances but still plenty of space to work. Perhaps a way to make appliances look halfway decent since they're always on display
19. Room to grow. I fill spaces quickly.
20. A built-in tandoor is a wish-list item, but the outdoor pizza oven may have to do for now. Also a zone for cryo-frying meat post-sous vide is wish-list.
21. One giant induction burner or two smaller ones in addition to the gas range is also wish-list.
The countertops will likely be stainless steel and caesarstone. The cabinets will be reclaimed wood and more stainless. I am not averse to open cabinets. I love the peg board in my existing kitchen. Again, I like a functional, accessible, borderline professional kitchen and have very little interest in aesthetics in a traditional sense.
I am not delicate in any way. Feel free to eviscerate my ideas, suggest new ones, and state things bluntly. I'm here because I want all the advice I can possibly get before presenting my layout to the designers and contractors. I don't want to forget anything. I really appreciate any and all input you are willing to share. If you ever find yourself near Seattle, I'll gladly cook for you! Thank you for taking the time to read this lengthy diatribe. My kitchen (lifeblood!) is in your hands. Plans, both kitchen detail and ground floor context:
Comments (13)
beekeeperswife
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Semi-pro/commercial faucets used?
Comments (45)I have a faucet that sprays and stays: Cobra faucet. It's really great in my laundry room, which I used for dishes for nearly a year. ;) It's not so "nice" looking as some of the others. I think it would work really well wall-mounted; I have it on the deck of a laundry sink. It might help for you... Brenda, I had to look back at what I'd written when there was some implication that I was proferring any sort of marital advice!! lol and then some. While I can claim to have been acquainted with my partner going on 33 years, I know I know positively zero about marital (or any other kind of) harmony. By returning that faucet I wasn't really keeping peace or falling through on any game plan; it was just not really possible to have kept it. You kinda had to be there.... ;) Back to hosing about faucets ... I think there are a few parameters to consider and evaluate for your own personal relevant importance/priority. I'll try to list a few, others can add: (i) appearance (ii) spray presence (iii) spray style (depress and hold or stay-on) (iv) spray default (returns to spray on close or stays where you left it) (v) arc (affecting where stream starts relative to dink's edge) (vi) arm length (affects where stream hits bottom of sink, closeness to drain) (vii) pull down vs pull out (affects how your arm twists to grab moveable spray head) (viii) touch (foot pedals, finger touch - possibilities beyond needing a hand to turn faucet on/off) (ix) one/two handle (affects whether water temperature is mixed internally or by you with two separate handles). (x) mobility of spray handle (thus "pro-style", others address this as, say, the Cobra, Karbon's moveable spray arm, pullout and pulldown spray heads attached to faucet arm) I think selecting a faucet is a very, very personal priorities thing. Plus, critically, a matter of dovetailing with the sink you choose. Don't forget that. I think too often this is a source of outright mistake, as opposed to, say, personal preference. Problems arise when the faucet doesn't spray in the right place on the sink's bottom, or there isn't enough room to mount handles effectively or the spray is too high or hard or for whatever reason having to do with the sink (and there's no obvious formula for determining this), the spray bounces too much. I'm sure others will flush out these lists, the list of personal preference parameters to negotiate, as well as the list of problems-sources. The only part of this whole process I truly hated was choosing the faucet, and I'm not sure I did a good job. My Karbon Kohler gets too wet at the handle, all of the time. I suppose this is a function of how I use the sink, with dripping-wet hands. Dunno. It may be just that coupled with its appearance with the little chrome ring on the countertop you just really see the water all puddled up. It's kinda annoying. My lady lux needs to have a button depressed in a too-concerted effort; there's not a ton of room to pull it out given my sink - a mistake I suppose. Both faucets need a huge amount of water pressure before their spray stays on (not so for the cobra which stays in whatever stream style you depress; it's a mechanical switch rather than an internal one dependent on the water pressure). The cobra wouldn't have been a long enough reach for the kitchen faucets. FWIW the fauset I really really wanted was the Waterstone semi-pro. At $2500 that was just an order of magnitude more than I could stomach paying! But it had a great stream, good spring, beautiful appearance, great "hand" - really a good one if you could find it in a fire sale or something....See Moreplease help on kitchen layout (and house layout)
Comments (35)I'm offering the following as a devil's advocate. Both positions for your kitchen are viable choices with nice reasons to go each way. That's why you need to draw up all possibilities to consider. If the middle is right for you guys, this will end up reinforcing that decision. Versatility and size? That 15x30 room is looking very, very nice as it is, but the far end is prize square footage with all those exterior walls (light/views in up to 3 directions), and right now you plan to actually dine there very little--pretty but underused. If you put the kitchen down there, that addition would be used as intensively as it deserves to be. The living area for furniture placement would be the same, but it would be more strongly defined. Nevertheless the whole should still appear very spacious because it would still be part of a 15x30 room with kitchen on end and still be open to the north, which would extend additional living activities that direction, instead of east. The dining room might well end up used more for various activities in the middle of the house. In considering this alternative layout, how about a pretty door to the outside from a middle/dining room, French perhaps? And for that matter, are you sure you wouldn't have a door directly out from the kitchen? You have an entry in that end that looks as if it would need some reconfiguring too. Would it enter the middle/dining room? Last night I also thought of one other -- possible -- advantage to switching the kitchen and dining room: the step down. This could be a design asset for a dining room, setting it off as special as viewed from the living room. Since you don't plan to eat there a lot, even with young children you could have a nice rug under the table if you wanted it. You'd take that step mostly on the way back to the children's rooms--longer journeys. For the kitchen, you guys'd be making all the many, many little daily journeys between the living room and kitchen on a level floor. Morning sun in kids' hallway? Have sunshine everywhere and you eliminate the pleasure of entering a sunny room. A dim hallway is often a design asset because it makes the rooms opening off it all the more inviting. I can't see what that cabinet in the hall is, but with a little attention to attractiveness and interest, the hall looks pretty good to me. The only way I could imagine to improve it would be to extend it to come back around on itself -- children love to run in circles. :) As it is now, though, the hall enters a sunny middle room in the mornings, setting that room off really nicely, however it's used....See MoreKraus KHF200 Semi Pro Faucet?
Comments (20)Just catching up and I'm sorry I missed this. But to answer the question, in my installation it doesn't block the view. But you know what? I don't know what all the fuss is regarding the view from the sink. Honestly, I never stand at the sink and stare out the window. If I'm standing at the sink, I'm doing something like scrubbing pots or large baking pans and sheets. Or I'm rinsing food. I don't know about you folks but I keep my eyes focused on the task. I do think I remember an old black and white movie where the housewife (maybe Doris Day or Mrs. Cleaver) was standing at the window drinking a cup of coffee and daydreaming out the window. But who the heck really does that? Realistically, the faucet, while tall, is relatively narrow. If it blocks anything it isn't much. And from the side, it's mounted far enough away from the window that the side angle view out the window is unobstructed. If you're keeping your eye's on the kids, then it's narrow enough that your peripheral vision should be fine. I'll try to take a photo of my daytime view for some perspective....See MoreHelp with Kitchen layout - ARG design, appliance layout
Comments (31)Doug already knows my views about cooktops on islands. So, I didn't share it when critiquing the original design. My opinion only, but putting a cooking surface on the island is a decision of last resort. Both safety and efficiency are compromised by this type of arrangement. I think the Buehl's idea of using that beautiful front window area for dining is inspired. It would get you and additional 28 sq.ft. in the kitchen. That's not chump change. That front window would be a lovely spot to sit with a cup of coffee and watch the kids. The light would be glorious. Seriously consider moving the kitchen to the rear, moving the dining room to take advantage of the window and sew/craft in the now freed up space in the front of the house, The old dining room in front could be used for a flex room/library/study/extra bedroom for overflow guests/sewing room/home office. Like Doug will tell you, everything is a compromise. Every decision effects another decision. It's just a question of how many comprises you have to make....See Morecaminnc
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agoMichelleDT
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