looking for that elucive perfect layout...

11 years ago

Hi all, I'd love some feedback as I've been struggling over the layout for my new kitchen for months. I didn't get very far with a KD, and I'm feeling like there is some brilliant perfect solution that we're just not seeing.

Our challenge is finding a solution that meets all our needs:

1) adequate wall cabinets. (I feel I need 5 feet of linear space for all our dishes and glasses.), while maintaining our semi-open feel and the large windows.

2) I really want an induction cooktop, but I don't really like the style of the slide in ranges available. We don't have access to gas, don't want to install propane, and who actually likes cooking on an electric top?

3) I'm not willing to put the cooktop in the island because of the myriad problems with that design. The only plans I seem to like put it in a corner, but then I'm not sure we really want the oven below it because of access issues.

4) the main sink needs to be at the window. It's currently in our oversized island, and DH and I both hate it there. It took us a year of living here before we stopped intuitively looking for it at the window.

5) we want to maintain as much of an open area to the DR, FR and to the hall as possible. Our hall is really a front to back entry, with French doors out the back to the deck (access to the grill) and kitchen garden. How many times has every else been halfway through cooking and realized you forgot to pick the parsley, chives, etc? Easy assess to my outdoor spice cabinet would be helpful to maintain... Plus I like the light that openness will provide

I'm posting the general shape of our room: 16 X 14. The window will be 5 ft. we'd like it to be as centered on the outside wall as possible, but can be tweaked a little one direction or the other...

Will post some options/ideas too.

Comments (7)

mamacat74
Original Author
11 years ago
Option 1:
What I like - overall symmetry, extra space on either side of cooktop, fridge located in place with landing counters, and out of the way but easy to get to. Not sure how practical is it really to get cabinets close to a corner hood...

What I don't like - if the oven is a wall microwave combo, then the cooktop area will be too closed off. If we do it as an under counter wall oven, where do we put the microwave?
mamacat74
Original Author
11 years ago
Option 2:
What I like: Again, overall symmetry, especially into DR, flow would probably work well, best option for wall cabinets, but:

What I don't like: Corner fridge, we'd have to come up with some asthetically pleasing way to deal with the corner hood at the pennisula, and I just feel like the working area intuitively wants to be the upper left rather than the right. We lose 6 inches off the island. Easier to do if the island is one level, but we were considering a tiered island so you can't see the messy kitchen from the DR.
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I vote for the full wall behind the bakers table. Nice sight lines from the seating area at the peninsula. I think it's OK not to have a landing counter next to your ovens since it's a quick turn and step to the counter next to the cooktop. But, given that that counter is also next to the door, I worry it will never be an available landing space, if you're anything like me :-). I'd go ahead and do the cab between the oven and the bakers wall without a counter, but hedge your bets and put one of those pull-out thingies (I have a pull-out cutting board in my kitchen), but a countertop instead of a cutting board. Then if one day you discover that your oven mitt has a thin spot you never noticed before, you can slide out the pull-out and make an emergency landing. Also, I slightly favor switching the sink and dw, and switching the baker's table and fridge, to tighten the work triangle. Although, I have a large triangle and it doesn't bother me. Just throwing it out there. I really like the boundaries you have to work in. the way the main corridor of your kitchen, for example, ends up being about 5.5 wide; that's really nice. Not too narrow, but not a football field either. Can't wait to see the lovely baker's table in its final home!
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I'm going to take this question as a philosophical one rather than a concrete one. :) THe thing is, we don't use our kitchens differently! At least, not that differently. :) Food comes into the kitchen, and gets stored. Dry storage and cold storage. For that, you consider the traffic path and any possible encumberances from the exterior all the way to the primary storage spot. Now, the amount of each type of storage can change based on family size and real estate available, but the need itself doesn't change. Then, food is removed from that storage, washed, and prepared for consumption. If all that's being prepared is box mac and cheese, then you don't need a lot of space to spread out the prep for that, but you still do need access to the measuring cups, pots and pans, and water. You'll always need some counter space and water during prep. And if you're doing Thanksgiving dinner, the more prep space the better. There's not really any such thing as too much prep space, as long as it includes access to water designated for that prep alone. This consumes the most time spent in a kitchen, and therefore should receive the lions's share of space. It's the only true work space, really. All other counter space is secondarily occupied if at all. Then comes applying the fire to the food. That can be a microwave heating a freezer dinner, or it can be standing and stirring a roux for 20 minutes while it reaches it's perfect brown color. Actually doing this step takes much less time than people think! Even if you do a lot of slow cooking sauces, if you've got the right tools to keep them at a simmer, you don't need but to periodically stir. After you've started to make a pile of dirty prep things, then comes stowing them away in the cleanup zone, or, if you've designed the kitchen correctly and have a partner, the partner can take the dirty prep items and be loading the DW with them while you are still chopping up a storm. That's what separating the prep and cleanup functions well can do for you. And it's not necessary to have that second source of water in a kitchen to do that, you just need to get over the idea of symmetry in a lot of cases and allocate the majority of space for the side that serves the prep. There have been many kitchens that have been designed here over the years that have done a good job of keeping the zones distinct and separate, yet compact, and minimizing outside intrusion into the high traffic areas while actually allocating enough space to those high use areas. That's all that good kitchen design IS, actually! Breezy's kitchen and Bee's kitchen both come to mind as being fairly close to "ideal" as far as the mythically perfectly designed kitchen. But reality is that no one designs the perfect kitchen and then designs the home around it! There are always tradeoffs. Money and space always come into play, and never in a good way! LOL! Even in homes that are being designed from scratch, bigger usually doesn't generate better. 50 steps between the prep sink and range is so much worse than having a step and pivot. It's like biology, when an organism reaches a certain size, the actual volume enclosed makes it so unwieldy that it's just not successful.
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mamacat74
Original Author
11 years ago
Option 3:

Played a little with a different pantry option, thinking it might make up for loss of upper cabinetry. This pantry has a 24" opening for door, 15" deep shelves. It's like the one I grew up with and loved, but most people seem to be doing cabinet pantries these days.

This work flow seems like it would be pretty good, and we keep a fairly wide opening on the right into the FR despite the wall ovens there, but we lose the extra counter space without that right side peninsula. Lost the extra 6 inches either side of the corner cooktop to keep it from getting too close to the sink.
lavender_lass
11 years ago
Easy to see why you want to keep the kitchen open to the hall/garden access. It sounds very nice :)

I think the corner range is causing some of the problem...but the fridge placement seems to be the real challenge. If you have the fridge so far away from the sink and range (with no prep sink) the island becomes a barrier island.

So, what if you put the range on one wall, the sink and fridge on the other...and put the oven/microwave across from the fridge? The microwave is still somewhat handy to the fridge and you have easy access from the island (baking area?) to the oven. What do you think? {{!gwi}}From Cottage house plans
angie_diy
11 years ago
I like LL's layout! Can you live with the oven located there? If so, I think the rest of it cooks better than your alternatives.
pricklypearcactus
11 years ago
I agree with lavendar_lass regarding the corner range and I like her design much better than any of the other options. I might also consider putting the refrigerator where the pantry is in lavendar_lass's drawing.
mamacat74
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks for the input! I havent really wanted the fridge along that wall because of how much space it takes up and how visually prominant it is, but DH has been thinking along those lines for a little while. I've been resistant partly I think because that's where it is currently, but I hate my current kitchen. It might end up feeling really different with the rest of the layout changes. I've been trying hard to get the corner cooktop to work because I love how they look, but we just might not be able to swing it. I don't think I'd like the oven being so far from a full counter, though, since that's not a great landing for hot things in that design. The island was supposed to have a prep sink, but that got cut when the island got narrower. Would that alter your feelings about functionality?
The cooktop wall used to be shorter, with more openness to the deck. Now that we've made it longer anyway, it very well may be the better place for the stove. I hesitate, although lavender makes good suggestions, because that plan just seems to be a little less interesting. But I need function over form, as they say.....
Prickly pear: the fridge is in that other location on some of the other options. What did you think of those?

looking for that elucive perfect layout...

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looking for that elucive perfect layout...

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