move doorway? or let DH freeze plans ...

13 years ago

I just thought of a tweak - we are still on paper, so it can't be that hard. First, the original plan, Second the other mods not shown, then last the new idea pros and cons.

Mods not shown in this drawing - the seat area is now more of a desk/counter against the bathroom wall, and the counter stops shorter. The fridge has moved forward to align with the front of the countertop, and there are cabs added where it says trash, alongside the fridge facing the bottom of the picture. Note there exists a door#2 that goes south from the kitchen, right across the corner from the pocket door. The door marked 3068 is an exterior door that sees little use. And the size/shape of the center non-island is not final.

South of the kitchen is a living room, which we use for quiet knitting, meditation and reading, and also for coffee with friends.

Past the powder room, across the foyer, is a bigger room that we use for dining - we leave the extra leaves in the table and the kid does homework there.

So the idea is to close the door bottom right (call it #1), and shift the #2 doorway left a foot. That allows the sink line of cabinets to extend to the bottom of the room. So we gain an extra forty or so inches of cabinet, conveniently close to the dishwasher (but lose a foot on the other wall). It opens the living room to the kitchen more, which is better for resale, although I'm not wild about it for noise reasons.

It would mean that the path from kitchen to dining room is maybe four feet longer, going through the other door. And we lose some sunlight in front of the bathroom door - no biggie.

What do you think? At what point do I stop trying to squeeze more cabinet space in here? Is this an improvement? Thanks for your input.

2 parents and a teen cook, 3 dogs, living here for past and next twenty years, traditional maybe victorian kitchen

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Comments (7)

dianalo
13 years ago
I can't answer to your door issue and I am not the biggest layout maven here, but the one thing I notice is your stove is very far from your fridge and clean up sink. If the circle in the upper left is a prep sink, that will help, but it does seem very stretched out for the day to day stuff.
Can you make your powder room smaller by any chance? I know our master half bath will be 5 x 5.5 and that seems spacious. Yours seems to read 6'10" in length. If you could work a pocket door in the powder room, you would not need all the room for the door swing. If you could cut the back 1 1/2 ft off, that would give more space to the kitchen. How much room does one need to "powder their nose" after all? The non-island seems to really present an obstacle to the room as it is shown. I think it would do better to shift to the right by a foot or so. If the back part of the bathroom got clipped, you'd have room to do that. I also think the non-island needs to be smaller.
formerlyflorantha
13 years ago
I don't get the peninsula. I think it's a boulder in the road.

Make up a list of typical kitchen tasks and then trace your walkpath as you go about the tasks individually, starting with "I enter the room" for each. Is this the plan the best use of your available space and how will it feel when you're in a hurry to do something? Like closing a window when it rains? Or fetching an item left on the range? Or getting an X from a cupboard?
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lyvia
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks for your comments - you have inspired a new round of thinking!

The thick wall on the bathroom is currently masonry existing house wall. We are taking out ten feet of it to extend the kitchen, but any more may compromise the structure.

My list of tasks is labeled "use cases" on the drawing - it's a software term. It's an excellent tip.

My latest thinking is that I can extend the seating into the non-island, if I can find a new home for the microwave (miele chef speed oven). I'm picky about the height of the microwave - My short arms can't reach over a range, and undercounter is too low. Maybe next to the fridge, behind the door? Dimensions are 23x23in, by 17 high. with landing space above it. I will have to draw that out later- work calls.
palimpsest
13 years ago
I remember this plan from a while back and I thought the non-island had been almost eliminated.

This doesn't answer your question at all but have you considered putting the refrigerator in the area you have marked "seat" in the first plan and getting rid of the non-island bump altogether? You could probably move the seating/desk over to where the fridge was.
lyvia
Original Author
13 years ago
DH asked about the fridge in the top right. I tried moving it around (with paper cutouts) and it seems to take up so much room in that corner. Why don't they make a corner fridge? In cranberry, please, to match the stove lol! In the drawing it settles into that niche better. It does lose some space behind it, but it just seems more efficient.

With such an odd shape, it's tricky to mentally disperse the zones across the new/old parts. The front center of the fridge is about ten feet from the front center of the stove, which is only three feet further than existing. We are okay with that because it gives him the huge baking counter. Plus we are both allergic to milk, so we don't add milk, butter or cheese to things on the stove.

Hmm. How to draw this next version ... I turned the non-island into a half kitchen table (2x7), which is seating and workspace - to cool bread or cookies.
lyvia
Original Author
13 years ago
Here is the latest.

It's missing some smallish uppers on the main sink wall - I haven't decided what fits. I want to put a pretty ceiling light over the end of the table, and have turned legs showing. The table has room for two chairs and a stool, which is an improvement.

The microwave is a Miele speed oven (normally a wall oven), 24x24x17 high, mounted undercounter under a raised counter, with landing space on top. Next to that is the dishwasher also raised. One drawback of this plan is the dishwasher is left of the sink, hope DH doesn't hurt himself with unfamiliar twisting. I think with french doors on the fridge, there is clearance fridge door to dishwasher door, although if both are open, there's no passage.

The pass-through adds needed (yet out of sight) landing space between the front door and the stairs, and will make it much easier to set/carry food/clear the dining room table, which can be a three person operation.
lyvia
Original Author
13 years ago
The microwave, DW and fridge are shown with doors open. DH took a glance and vetoed putting the DW out in the middle!

move doorway? or let DH freeze plans ...

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move doorway? or let DH freeze plans ...

Comments (7)

dianalo

formerlyflorantha

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palimpsest

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