Judy... I can't remember what it looks like in relation to the rest of the kitchen. Can you point me to a thread that shows this? My ovens my end up being off the beaten path too.

It has changed since the last one. I will upload a plan in the morning.

Judy

STORAGE! You can never have enough. Definitely pantry. What about mudroom/drop zone functions? A sink would be handy for potting, watering pets, etc.

I love the idea of using the ovens there for bread baking, but would you want to be making bread in a room without hot water? Is there any way to have a mini "demand" water heater installed there?

There should definitely be storage - It also sounds as if there was enough room for a breakfast nook sort of rearrangement, if you don't already have one. Or craft room. Or art studio. If you have young kids, they will be making plenty of projects for school, and it could be handy to give them some space for that.

Space! More Space! You lucky duck!

Pantry and baking room sounds excellent.
I think your idea of two ovens for baking bread in
a pantry area would be awesome.
When I see the plans I can comment more.

Enjoy the Space!
From space envy boxerpups :)

I would so put in an ice maker if I had a water line in there!! I am always running for ice bags when I have parties. And an extra refrigerator for overflow storage for large trays.

Smiles:)

I love all the ideas! There are so many things I want to use it for! Definately need to run the power and water/drains during construction. So I need to decide on sink and ovens placement.

Gizmonike, I love gardening, and will use it for potting, etc.

Hestia flames, hot water, hmmmmm, I'll have to see what is less expensive, a line or an on-demand heater.

Scoobyruby, we have a little dorm frig/freezer. That would be a good place for it. Not sure about the ice maker because we don't do much entertaining. Honestly, I hope that changes once we have a nice place to entertain.

I'll upload just a couple of pics and link the album below.

The hall, pantry and garage are off the upper right corner:

{{!gwi}}

Thanks for all your ideas!
Judy

Here is a link that might be useful: Project Plans

Wow- what a change from where you started!

I was just saying to DH the other day, that I would just love a little anteroom off the back deck. Where I could take off my dirty boots/shoes from gardening, and some days just peel off the wet dirty clothes too! I don't know where your 'entry' from your yard is... OK. looking at your whole house plans, I'm confused. Are you keeping the old garage too? You have the laundry off your old garage- so guess that would be a more logical place for a mudroom. I'd be doing potting up in there probably, rather than introducing dirt and mess into a pantry/baking area. (I am a gardener, and have a home-based plant nursery, so there's always a lot of dirt! :>)

What is the kitchen/keeping room going to be for?

Do you have an office/counter work space area? Perhaps that would fit nicely into there. Can't remember who, but someone just recently gave a link to her blog where she did a similar thing in a small space- using marble and white cabinets I think- it was stunning!

The important thing is to actively do something with it: If you don't define it, it will quickly become a depository for crap!

You could definitely do a nice little room with a setup for gardening (don't know what kind of floor you have or what your style is overall) inexpensively with a cupboard/shelves/hooks, a sink and drainboard (could even be used/salvage).

Real gardeners don't need fancy stuff. I assume you have a shed or basement somewhere for the real dirty/cool stuff, like tool and bulb storage and this is just a house garden playroom for starting seeds and washing up and oiling tools and things.

Nothing says you couldn't put the ovens there too, if there's room and you can really perform the two tasks in the room without major moving of stuff. Dual purpose is great; poorly defined purpose is not.

Good luck!

Oh, how cool!! That room could have so many uses. You could put a computer in there...nice little home office space. One of the biggest changes I would make is to have single doors on the end instead of double. That way, you'd have a whole wall you could put shelves on. 12" deep shelves is plenty for cook books and pantry items. You can also put baskets on those shelves to hold everything!

raehelen, Things have changed, alot since I began thinking about the new kitchen. It is in a different room, and I am much happier with the location. The KD measured for cabinets Friday and brought the sample qs oak door. It is so gorgeous I could sleep with it.

Willow Decor's butler's pantry is stunning!!! I would love to have something similar down the road when we recover from the kitchen expense. For now I will rehab the old kitchen cabinets and have a new oven cabinet made. These will be painted cabs.

I understand why you are confused about the house plan. This is an old house that has had so many additions and changes it's hard to find the original building. The old garage was built for a Model-T and enlarged just enough for a modern car. It will become all storage (unless DS moves back home, ha). It is farthest away from the gardens, but would be a nice space for a potting bench. I have one there now. Keeping the pantry 'clean' is good.

The entries are at the front between the bay window rooms, and at the back. From the new garage, up a few steps and into the kitchen hall. We gave up on a nice back entry porch because of the budget. sigh

The keeping room will be for breakfast (at the counter), hanging out with friends and family, visiting while I am cooking, reading, computer browsing, and occasional TV. We may put a small dining table if we find we need one. My recipes are on the laptop. We have a good-size office space upstairs with two desks, TV, and small dining table.

Judy

Growlery, rolf, I am a saver and DH is a pitcher. A room of my own would quickly become a repository for all kinds of things that should have been pitched out.

ccombs, I love baskets and the would look so much nicer on pantry shelving than the garage metal shelving they are on now. I am gravitating toward the pantry & bakery concept. I have wondered about designing the room to meet the health code for baking & cooking. A friend has a B&B who could use baked goodies for breakfast and teas. I am struggling with the doors. Doors swinging either direction will be in the way. Maybe a pocket door? There are shelves on the right wall about 6'' deep for single cans and jars with no looking behind to see what is shoved in the back. There could be deeper shelves toward the end of the room, though.

Judy

Judy, I think what your planning is a brilliant use of space. Not just for the "immediate" but also in terms of future planning. You'll be all set up and good to go if you every want to update for a more formal scullery look. Actually, once you "tweak" your cabs, you may find that it comes close enough to giving you the look you want and you'll choose NOT to spend more $$ on cabinetry. Now.... promise me the two KA mixers you show under the MW will go in the baking room...:-)
Elyse

Thanks Elyse! You have inspired my attempt at refinishing cabinetry. Your baker's table is so beautiful. I have wanted a scullery from the very beginning. I am just afraid to move all the traditional scullery tasks into that room. I will be very happy if it feels and looks sculleryish. I've also thought about moving the Napanee Kitchenet (my baker's hutch) into the bakery. If I find it is not too small or confining to work in there, I just may do it. Then my 2 KA mixers will go too, ha! At least the ovens are close to the island prep and kitchenet for the time being.

Judy

Is that red thing on the wall before you turn into the "scullery area" a support beam?

Yanno... I knew so little when I started frequenting the forum . I had never heard of a scullery and didn't know what it was. My mind kept conjuring up morbid images though!

Cotehele -- It's not just you, I promise!

It's so easy, particularly when you're moving things around at this stage, to just stick everything you don't know exactly what to do with into "that place". Everyone has one. If you're not careful, things can stay there until the next time you move!

I have a quirky layout in my house that works for me. I have seen a lot of quirky layouts that work. You have to ask yourself, when you make this room/baking center/scullery, if you are REALLY going to use it for its intended purpose where it is, and then, you need to make sure you give it everything it needs to be successful and independent right in that location.

If you can't imagine getting all the eggs and butter and pans in one room and walking down the hall and scooping out flour and mixing batter and baking and you don't have enough room to roll out (or whatever -- you can think it all through) or you'd be carrying hot pans through doors to cool somewhere else, or you COULD, but you you just somehow feel you won't, then maybe it's good to just leave the room essentially naive until you REALLY know what to do.

Or do you need an extra setup of everything for that room?

Or maybe it's not a problem at all.

Elyse, That's funny! Scullery does not sound like a nice place to spend time. Scull > Skull, I can see the association. I was talking to my GC about a Larder, and he had no idea what it was. He must never have read Beatrix Potter.

Red marks the part of the outside wall that cannot be removed. The house juts out one foot (you can see it on the other side by the cooktop). I kept wanting to remove that little wall because it would be soooooo nice to move the pantry wall back just a bit. I was trying to put the refrigerator there and the ovens where the refrigerator is. The challenges make me take a look at the space in so many ways, that in the end, the plan is better.

Growlery, you bring up good points to consider. Everything should be in the room or just around the corner to make a good bakery. A short length of the shelving can be used to cool baked goods. Eggs and butter I can get from the fridge, or store in the little fridge. Hopefully I will have some time to try working in there and make adjustments because I will be the one building shelving and rehabbing cabinets. And I don't work very fast, lol.

Mudroom?

Oh, and Message Center and/or drop zone for mail....along with the Mudroom...

Judy,

I haven't carefully read all the messages (stuck with old glasses), so I hope I haven't got this wrong. I totally get the commercial ready bakery. If you can do that, great! But would you really want no oven in the main kitchen? Even if you don't anticipate selling your house, things happen and plans change... And is it even allowable by code not to have an oven there?

If you don't do the commercial kitchen, I would hesitate to move the baking there. When I'm baking, especially bread, I want wide open spaces. I can prep veg for an army on a 24"x30" counter with no trouble, but one of the reasons I put an island (though very small) back in my own plan is to have a nice open space for shaping loaves and pastry. I can prep veg against a wall, but love having a view when baking. So I wouldn't want to be in a little room if it didn't have another attraction like the health certificate, especially with such a beautiful, open kitchen to be in. So I'd be doing all the baking tasks in the kitchen and schlepping the loaves, trays, etc., into the baking room.

For alternatives: In an old fashioned house that room might be a "flower room", not so much for potting, but for arranging flowers, storing vases and baskets, maybe cleaning dirt off of vegetables. Also keeping garden boots, gloves, apron, hat, i.e., mudroom. Or it might be a gun room, but I don't think you have coverts, right?

It sounds like you have a lot of storage, but I like the larder idea. A spare fridge. A freezer. Pantries. Etc.

Or you could use it as a "lumber" room, that is a place for suitcases, spare bicycles, etc. All the dumped stuff you've been warned against. The trick is to start out with shelving, hooks, slatwall, etc., for organizing whatever comes in, as it comes in, so that it doesn't become a horror.

Plllog, Thank you for your compliment on the kitchen. It has been a challenge to keep the cost within budget. Sorry about the glasses, I know what you mean.

I like your old way of thinking! Oh, the flower room is enchanting. It would be a perfect place to hang herbs to dry. The west end of the room windows will nearly span the wall. It may not be the best view (of the street), but I hope it will be a pleasant place to work. On the chance it is not, though, I am keeping my options open. I could have movable table and push it by the window to work.

We don't have much storage now. I just cannot imagine how much our house will change once construction is finished. The basement will be dry and usable, the old garage will have lots of storage space, the old kitchen will be a kind of 'lumber' room (I love the name), and keep our many bicycles (that formerly was the first thing one saw upon opening the front door, ack!) and be a proper laundry room. I feel like one of those TV programs when they visit some months later to see how things turned out because I just don't know at this point.

Thanks for your many ideas :)

Here's a crazy idea that probably won't work but here it goes anyway!

What if you were to extend the counter right into where the DO are. Have the support just go down through the counter like we see on islands all the time. You gain 3' of additional counter space. Then put in your DO, counter, sink, and then let me find you a bakers table in your neck of the woods to refinish! It would be more incorporated into the kitchen You'd lose the doors but I'm not a closed off kinda gal so that wouldn't bother me. Put a full wall 18" deep pantry in along the entire opposite wall or some counter space for cooling.

If this is a stupid idea... I'm sorry. One of the girls I teach with tells me I remind her of her sister who has a "stream of conscienceness" kind of thinking. That would be me, I think out loud.

BTW... I'm ashamed to admit I have no clue what a Larder is. But I'm going to use my context clues strategies that I teach my 2nd graders an say a storage area for food products , perhaps in the old days dairy products?

Elyse, I love your imaginative thinking! Where would we be without dreamers? You are not crazy, but I am a visual kinda gal. I am not following how the counter could extend into the pantry.

This is the north wall of the new kitchen. The double window has been removed and will be relocated to the west wall of the pantry. A 4ft opening will be cut on the left side in the yellow/brown wall for access to the pantry and hall. The window opening will shift right (behind the cooktop).

This is the view from the outside

BTW, I would love a bakers table as nice as yours :D Would you bring it to Indiana??

Yep, you are right about the Larder. I remember the wonderful storage rooms at the Biltmore House for meat, dairy, root vegetables, eggs, and such. They were fairly small partially underground rooms with windows and high ceilings that had wood cubbies or boxes to store items. I tried to find a picture, but could not locate one online.

Judy

Here is a link that might be useful: Larder

I'll try to lamely draw up what I was trying to explain. In the meantime...

Here is a link that might be useful: bakers table

This is a very rough idea of what i meant. I don't have design software and can only do it in powerpoint. You see how I took the cab run straight into the butler area? no wall... but you would still have a support beam that just goes through the counter. We've seen lots of pics of kitchens where they do this in islands or sink runs. It's not to scale... it was real hard to see the details in powerpoint when I pasted it in. Just tried to give a pictorial of what was in my brain.

Again... it may be a ridiculous idea or simply not feasible.

The baker's table is in beautiful condition. The wood is so rich and gorgeous.

Now I understand the concept. It is not ridiculous at all. It will not work, though, because the entire corner and short wall must stay. They can't leave part of the wall or replace it with a beam. The extended counter would be quite nice and access to the pantry and ovens much more efficient without the wall and doorway. On the other hand, there would be no hiding the mess I would no doubt make.

I must learn how to use powerpoint on the mac. Yours looks good!

Time for bed.