Is there a floor above the kitchen?
I actually have a windowless kitchen, which I admit SOUNDS horrid, but it is pretty bright.
Like your situation, the kitchen is adjacent to brighter areas of the house. The window from the dining room in one side and the sunroom on the other side really help, but we also added two sky lights.
The cabs are white, which really reflects light as well.

Being in Chicago and having never had a windowless kitchen, I don't think I could stand it. I did once have an apt kitchen that only had one window, which was behind the door to the DR (door was always open), and I hated it. Do you think you need more space to replace the peninsula? I would keep the window and figure out something else for more storage if needed.

Windowless kitchens can be terrific, just as kitchens can be terrific at night. Make it a warm lovely place to be in and of itself and don't depend on the views into and through other rooms to make up for a "deficiency."

One of my favorite kitchens of all time I saw just for one visit but I've never forgotten it. A totally interior separate room with no daylight worth mentioning at all from surrounding rooms. It was basically square in all three dimensions, decent sized but not really large, and the cabinets, walls, and maybe floor (it was wood too) were all covered with beautifully crafted and finished knotty pine. It might sound rustic or boring, but it was actually exquisite, a very sophisticated and elegant foodie's kitchen, and wonderful to be in. Just a complete lovely space in itself, and it wasn't dark because they had the lights on. :) The only thing I would have done differently was make it a bit larger and put a table in the center so the people who wanted to hang there could sit down.

Our kitchen will be windowless once all of our remodeling is completed. I don't have a problem with that and will have plenty of elements to compensate for it (transoms between one room and the kitchen, large open spaces and plenty of lights).

The work area of my kitchen will be in the middle of the house and windowless. It will be completely open though to a completely window(ed) eating area and family room on the other side. Since I am a lover of natural light... I plan on installing a couple of solatubes. Maybe it would work for you? I learned about them on this forum and if you do a search you'll come up with several threads with great pics.

Here is a link that might be useful: natural lighting thought

Add plenty of incandescent lighting & go for the storage. Since Chicago has so many overcast days, you'll need more light anyway, not to mention the night time. If your window won't have a view, you'll be covering it up, reducing the available light still further.

My SIL had a similar situation in Philadelphia. She kept the window with sight lines into the mudroom even though her remodeled kitchen overlooked a family room with lots of windows. Part of her reasoning was that she wanted to monitor comings and goings from the outside and know what her children were doing. I think the natural light was a secondary issue to her but she liked that too.

How much wall cabinet space do you use? My new kitchen will have much less than the old one because the new one has a pantry storage area.

A lot of this will depend on your feelings about space and light and storage. I'm a natural light person first but I know others will have different opinions.

I'm depressed when I'm outdoors in Chicago winters - dark in the morning, dark at 4:30pm - YUK! If given a choice, windows are a must for me.

Can you do a light tube or a skylight? They provide a lot of light.

I'm not sure I can imagine at windowless kitchen -- tho commercial kitchens are probably mostly windowless. But I'm sure it would work better with light.

Hi Teddy,

Hmmm, sounds like you scrapped your earlier plans! Well, it's always best to look at the house as a whole and we were only seeing the kitchen before, right?

Being in the Seattle area, I wouldn't want a windowless kitchen. I think we have similar grey days! Is there a way to dress up the "mudroom" so it is an extension of the kitchen and not entirely closed off, like a peninsula on that wall? Or, interior windows and finish the mud room nicely enough that it goes with the kitchen? Also, do you really not want to be able to see outside? I think that you said you had kids, wouldn't having that window be an advantage to help keep an eye on them when they are outside as they get older?

Lots of questions, but not many answers. You could do very good lighting and if it were more open (than before) to the dining and family areas - viewing through the spaces to the natural light might work.

Good Luck!

i definitely vote for the window. it is not an easy switch with a cabinet. you can always decide to store items that would have gone in that cabinet somewhere else. but you can't decide to add a window once it's done (not easily anyway). some people have interesting potracks or glassware racks in front of a window, which allows light and storage. but if you don't get the window at this time, you may not have that option later.. just MHO kren

Mindimoo, so happy to hear from you! No, the original plans are not scrapped. In fact, I wish I had a ginormous scanner so I could post the entire first floor layout for everyone's review. The architect just gave us the plans yesterday!! Anyway, he thinks I need the storage. I think I do also, but I ALSO want the window. (He also doesn't like the fridge where you suggested but it NEEDS to go there and I've already embraced the kitchen layout you suggested!)

I am in a bind over this. Also, the mudroom he drew has really no space for hooks (hello, I have 3 kids who will have school bags, soccer bags, ballet bags, beach bags plus my husband's work bag. AND all our coats, windbreakers, hats, etc...

Ugh!

Can't you add a small window, with a small cabinet over it?

Carla in Sac

Or cabinets with windows over them??

I've never lived in Chicaco so I'm not sure quite why a view of a dreary dark day would help you recover from the same, but I'm with you all the way in loving natural light and views out in any case, so my own personal choice would be to ditch the cabinet in favor of all the windows I could get.

In case you decide for the cabinet, another thing I forgot to mention earlier was that a main reason that kitchen was so lovely to be in was that the finishes were particularly rich and beautiful in artificial light. If a space is wonderful enough in itself, it doesn't need views out.

I was only going to have a bay-window-ish area facing north with a 12' covered porch and no other windows. Outside the entire east side of the house was going to be a septic mound, two large AC units, two large well pumps, another pump gizmo, a whole house generator, and an aerator; none of which created an attractive view. So, I put 24"W x 12"H windows above my cabinets to catch the morning sun from the east. I am so thrilled I did this because it would have been a dreary kitchen had I not. My windows above my cabinets were supposed to be about 4" higher than they are, but the structural engineer said a header had to go on that wall so I dealt with it. My cabinets were custom made, so I had the uppers on that wall made to 32" with a 5" crown.

Here's a photo from the beginning of our project.

Here is a link that might be useful: Modifications almost completed from Cabinet fiasco three years ago

My kitchen, my mom's kitchen, and my MIL's kitchen are all windowless. My MIL's and our kitchens both started life as a window-ed kitchen, looking out into the backyard. Years and years ago, they added a family room and the window became a "pass through"/"look through" into the family room. When we remodeled our house last year to add a family room, we did exactly the same. The window over the sink looks into the family room, and the old sliding glass door area in the dining area became a big archway into the family room. I have only a little natural light into the kitchen, and I live in SoCal where it's usually a lot more sunny than it is in gloomy Chicago! (I was born and raised in the southern 'burbs of Chicago.)

So what did we do in the kitchen???? We added more lights. The old kitchen had a 60 watt fixture over the sink, and a 6-bulb fluorescent fixture sort of "centered" between the dining area and the kitchen. There was a fluorescent fixture in the double-oven range: WHEN it decided it wanted to work! The new kitchen has a two-60 watt bulb fixture over the sink, undercabinet fluorescents, a 4-bulb newer fluorescent fixture over the island, and a six-60 watt incandescent chandelier over the dining room table (on a dimmer switch).

My mom's kitchen is a "Pullman kitchen" - meaning it's in the center of the house and it's long and skinny like an old Pullman train car. She's in hot and sunny Phoenix. It still has one good sized fluorescent fixture and a Hi/Lo bulb over the range (which I also have) in the OTR MW.

DonnaR/CA

Sherilynn, thanks for posting the photos. Your kitchen is gorgeous. The windows above the cabs is an interesting solution.

Hello,
I don't usually post here although I do read the Kitchen Forum daily. (I got addicted to it when our kitchen was remodeled three years ago.)

Anyway, we have a bathroom w/o windows in our house and recently had a Solatube addition. It really makes a difference and it added a lot of light.

We're very satisfied with the results.

With electricity, diffuse light from other rooms, and skylights/tubes for lighting, the issue is really the relation of the kitchen to the outdoors, whether the degree of connection the typical kitchen has is needed.

sherilynn,

My cabinets are white and I want my glaze to look just like yours! Please give me some details on the products you used and the steps for the cabinet glazing. I have tropic brown granite, mexican mocha tumbled tiles, and plain white just looks too stark against all the earth colors. I need some dark glaze in the crevices to accent the earth tones. Your coloring is just what I need. Thanks so much in advance! By the way, your whole kitchen is gorgeous. I know you are loving it.

I've lived and cooked in windowless kitchens all my adult life and managed OK. The rooms were open to the great room so there wasn't a closed in feeling.

In my new house I insisted on a window over the sink, even went so far as to change the architect's plans. I have my window, but it was at a price and so much work to get things "to work" especially having the stove now in the island. I wish I'd stuck with the original plan without the window, but now it's too late.

You have to figure what things are really the most important and go with that.

You can install "daylight" bulbs in your fixtures that will give you plenty of bright light.

Ask your architect if he can send you the plans in PDF form via email. Mine was able to do so with no problem. Then you can post them on here for us.

I have a magazine clipping somewhere and the kitchen had two unique types of windows. One was windows above the counters (under the upper cabinets). So the backsplash was a window. The other was windows behind the cabinets and glass doors on the front of the cabinets. In other words, the glass doored cabinets (without backs) were installed over windows. Of course, those cabinets would have to be kept neat but I thought they were both great ideas to get light in a kitchen and still have cabinets on the outside walls. Very cool.

I think that YOU sound concerned about the idea of a kitchen without windows--so you should not have a kitchen without windows.

I think some inventive solution could be found--windows under or over cabs, for example. Or alternate storage in another area.

Frankly, I would rather keep my pots in the bathroom than give up my window. My MIL has a lovely windowless kitchen with views into rooms with lots of windows on either side. She is thrilled with it, but it's not for me. I feel claustrophobic in there, even though it has more space than my own kitchen. Windows are clearly a personal thing, so let YOUR instincts guide you on this decision, not your architect's!

PS My architect, whom I absolutely loved, had some ideas that honestly didn't work for me. I stuck to my guns and suggested alternatives, and I am really happy with the end result. An architect can be smart, have great taste, and be exceptionally talented, but even this does not mean that every tiny detail will work for you.

"What do you think of having a windowless kitchen?"

I cannot begin to express how awful an idea it is.

"Will I be depressed in the Chicago winters?"

Yes.

I recommend finding another architect. Any architect worth his salt will be able to come up with a design that won't leave you with a windowless kitchen.

I like our architect because most everything else he drew is great. And we are still in the tweaking phase, so I will make sure he puts those hooks in the mudroom!!

But after reading and reflecting on everyone's responses, I truly believe that yes, I do need my window. I will have a nice big and bright view into our big and bright addition, but I think mmme is right - I AM concerned about this so it does matter to me.

Now the next question is this - how would this "look" to you on the wall:
upper, upper, upper, hood, upper, window.
Do I need symmetry? Is this current layout weird? I don't really have a focal point in the kitchen.

And I think I WILL ask for those plans in pdf form!!

Thank you, all. I love this board!

Hi Teddy!

Sounds like you are making great progress! And, yes, you can make upper, upper, upper, hood, upper window look great - even well balanced! - either by using different types of cabinets - glass. open shelves, etc. or step the cabinets up and down or by depth - a lot of different ways. Don't stress it, just have your architect get creative, that's his job! And, if you want to make the range and hood your feature, go for it - use the two uppers adjacent to the hood to frame it and treat the next uppers differently so that they balance the window.

Don't be alarmed if your architect doesn't want to give you a .pdf file at this point, many won't. It can be a liability issue, especially at the preliminary stage. There's been quite a bit of write up on the subject of digital files lately.

However, we'd all love to see it, so I hope he will!

Keep us posted!

Thanks, mindimoo! You are always so positive and encouraging. Right now our builder has the architect's plans to give us a budget estimate. Once we finalize with him, maybe that'll be the right time for the pdf file. Thanks for the heads up :)