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Kitchen Layout feedback appreciated please

10 years ago

Our house plans are final and we are about to start building. We are a bit unsettled about the layout of the kitchen. Should we completely open it up to the Family room by removing that small wall of cabinets? Should we replace the bar height counter with a big island instead? How do you think the layout could be improved upon? Thank you VERY much for your help!

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Comments (7)

huango
10 years ago
I think you can get some great feedback on this forum.
let me try/get started.

1. I'd switch the oven w/ the range. I don't like the range on a high traffic aisle, from mudroom to rest of house.

2. I'd get rid of the small island.
I'd make the angled peninsula should just be 1 peninsula parallel to the pantry (new range location) wall.
The angle makes it difficult to use the DW and sink at same time.
Don't like how the fridge opens right into the peninsula/cutting off traffic.

3. I prefer 1 level countertop.

hope others will chime in.
Amanda
sena01
10 years ago
Agree with Amanda that mudroom traffic shouldn't pass in front of the range.

I'm not sure where the rest of the rooms are, but I think you have the garage on the right and since FR is on the left I assume traffic would be mostly to the left. So, if you have an island instead of the peninsula, you may have a bigger entry to the FR side.

Experts may come up with valuable ideas if you can tell more about yourself and family. Below link may help.

Here is a link that might be useful: How do I ask for Layout Help and what information should I include?
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Okay, after seeing your beautiful inspiration pictures and reading some of the concerns...mostly about the wet bar...I have an idea. If it's not for you, just disregard :) If you opened up the doorway through the wet bar, so it was an easy access from the dining room into the kitchen, like the pantry area, you could easily get to the wine and wet bar, from the kitchen. This would leave you with a doorway between your cooktop and sink...bad idea. So, could you split your fridge/freezer combo and put one on either end of your outside wall, with the sink and dishwasher, in between? This would give you a sink set up similar to your second inspiration picture and how often do you open the freezer, so it shouldn't block the pantry area too much. The wet bar sink's current location, would now have a door in it...so the sink would move to the pantry wall, shortening the pantry a bit, but giving you a much more accessible wet bar. The sink would now be where the back of the pantry used to be, so the cooktop could be centered on the wall that's left betwen the two doors to the dining room, with the steamer still plumbed into the wet bar sink. The opening to the family room (the solid wall part) is where I would put the ovens. I would make the space to the right of the oven a baking/snack area, with a prep sink and even use it as an extension of the bar, for parties. The island would be for prep and seating. I wouldn't necessarily have another sink, but that's up to you. I think a built in garbage area would be a good idea...and make it easy for the kids to toss stuff in, as they get older. The microwave could be part of the oven stack, a drawer in the island, or on a shelf, built in next to the fridge, depending on what you decide you want to use. The island drawer makes sense, but it would be more of a challenge with young children, so higher up might be better. Anyway, if someone could draw this out, I think it would make a lot more sense, but I do not have any floor plan software. It would give you a baking area with prep sink, access to the wet bar, a cooking area with the steamer, a prep island with seating, and a lot more light from windows over the sink...make the fridge/freezer a little less bulky...and make clean up a lot easier, whether it's from the dining room or the breakfast area...and did I mention access to the wet bar! :)
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Hi lyfia, all great questions. Love your mudroom suggestion, I had a layout JUST like that in one version! And yes, I have wondered if I'm designing 'too much kitchen' for this house. The island layout (#2) seems especially out of sync with the house size to me but the U shape doesn't have the same "overly large feel" to me. I can appreciate that it might look that way so I will give it some more thought. Yes the dining area is a bit constrained. Do you mean it's not expandable due to island/peninsula barriers? I've thought about that, and right now I don't have a great solution although I think with a banquette and expandable table we should be able to seat 8 comfortably and 10 in a squeeze. Ten people at a sit-down meal is going to be fairly infrequent (holidays) so I felt like the layouts would work. But I'll give it more thought. I haven't really wanted to formally combine the kitchen and living room areas, but do you mean just having a kitchen layout where seating is more-or-less where it is currently, so that it can be expanded into the LR when needed?
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Thanks emilyam819. We looked at making the slider a single door originally but that takes us too much over our budget. I do only really want one eating area, but I would rather eliminate the eat-in area of the kitchen than the dining room, I think having the kitchen stay in its current footprint of kitchen+eat-in area is a better flow to the rest of the house than having the kitchen go into the dining room. I do have a plan drawn out that eliminates the peninsula, has just the stove on the wall across from the sink and puts the fridge and cabinets (which get shallow as they go to the slider) in the eat-in area. Does that sound more like what you are suggesting. That one also would allow for a prep sink by the stove too, if we can swing it in the budget. My primary concern with that plan is that the fridge is then so far from the range and dining room (~15' to range, 17' to dining room). I can post a picture of that if that sounds more in line with your idea.
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However, if you usually cook using the cooktop, and if you, say, cut your onions and soften them as you cut your chicken and then brown the chicken as you cut your vegetables, in the pattern that the vast majority of cooktop recipes call for, having the cooktop behind you is incredibly annoying if you don't have a helper. So for cooks who use the cooktop heavily, prepping with your back to the cooktop IS a major issue. I know that a lot of people don't really cook, but if you do, it matters. You have several options: prep next to the stove as soon as you start using it and turn your back on the people at the island that you put there so you would face them; prep everything on the island before you start cooking and add 20 minutes to your cooking time every night; or turn your back to the stove and either burn things or switchback and forth a lot, also wasting a lot of time. But I suppose CPArtist is a special person with eyes on the back of her head. Or she doesn't really cook. I do cook, although not frequently. And if you had spent lots of time on this forum like myself and most of the other regulars, you'd know that Kitchen work studies have shown that you spend the following amount of time at each major kitchen activity: Prepping - 70% (some studies put this number higher - more like 75%) Cooking - 10% Cleaning up - 20% So based on that study, most cooks spend the majority of their time prepping the food, not cooking it. And most people prefer to prep while they are facing their guests, family, etc. So once again, prepping with your back to the cooktop is not a problem. And quite honestly, most people I know, including the chefs I'm friendly with, will tell you to prep everything in advance and not as you go.
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Fori
10 years ago
Is that a downdraft cooktop or is it just the image the architect used? A downdraft is what you use when you have absolutely no other options and there are other options if the place isn't built yet. If it's just a stock image never mind. :)

I think I'd put the DW on the other side of the sink (with a drawer bank in between so you can get into it) and store dishes in the island. Then you could lose those upper cabs by the family room if you want. I'm not sure you would because that's just a personal preference thing, but you'd miss them less if they weren't your dish storage.

In general I prefer some consistency about angles. You have some angled passages and some straight and some have arches and some don't and they're all scrambled up together and might look great installed but weird on paper. The counters/cabinet shapes are square corners or 45s and I'm not so sure it's a good feature. The mudroom entry seems to have Great Importance with the special treatment it has.

Seriously now, is the mudroom layout (and the rest of what is down there) so perfect/unchangeable that it can't be reconfigured to open more naturally into the kitchen?

Forgive me for being critical--my plans have some pretty nutty angles too, but I'm working with old construction and yours still has a chance! :P
larsha
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you very much for your thoughts. We really appreciate it! Here's a little background if needed. The garage is on the right and family room on the left. We're a family of 4 with 2 young boys. We love to entertain informally and we cook a lot. The cooktop is just a stock image. Thanks again!
live_wire_oak
10 years ago
Do you have a larger shot of the whole house. The BIG issue of the traffic all going through the kitchen needs to be addressed, and I'm not sure that just rearranging the kitchen will take care of that problem. Especially since the kitchen island makes the breakfast room crowded, the pantry appears to be disproportionate, and the family room appears to be too long and narrow with too many traffic paths through it to support a good furniture arrangement. I'm not sure that the overall home plan is a very good one.
larsha
Original Author
10 years ago
Additional photo
sena01
10 years ago
Any chance of moving bath to pantry and have the pantry next to mudroom? If bath needs 3 entries, a shower instead of a tub perhaps?

And here's an island with 2 sinks.

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