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alerievay1

Late 50s ranch with addition: Keep current layout and footprint?

alerievay1
8 years ago

Below is a rough layout of my current first floor public rooms, focused on the kitchen area. To the left are two more rooms; the top is the original living room (used as a more formal sitting/reading area), and the bottom is the original dining room (currently used as hobby space). I have drawn a partial wall to reflect the approximate location of the front door, just for reference.

We moved into this house a little more than 6 months ago. The kitchen size was almost a dealbreaker for me, but I've made peace with it and actually really like the layout. It has pretty poor 90s-era partial overlay cabinetry that seriously needs updating to create more storage. I've drawn a rough outline of the kitchen size (approximately 10 x 10) and the layout of the appliances. There is an induction cooktop where the cooktop is pictured, and a 24" wall oven (with a 24" combi-steam oven stacked on top) on that cabinet wall adjacent to the dining room.

We recently added the pictured cabinets in the dining room and main living space (with the french doors). The dining room cabinets function as pantry space, appliance storage, and a work space for our daughter. The living area cabinets are a bar space. Also, there is an original fireplace in the dining room that is open on both sides to the living space.

I cook a lot. Here are my main concerns/questions going into remodel planning:

1. Is this kitchen too small for the house? The main floor is a bit more than 2000 sq ft, with about 650 sq ft finished in the basement, and we may one day, in 5-8 years, add on to the (small) bedrooms, putting it at around 3200 sq ft or so. If we did that addition, we would probably put an in-law apartment with kitchenette in the basement.

2. I would like to put in a Kohler Stages 45 with 2 faucets where the sink is. Ideally, that wall would have no uppers and a larger window, depending on budget.

3. I would like to expand the oven cabinet to get a 30" oven. The current cabinet is 27", and there is an 18" cabinet between the oven and the cooktop.

4. Ideally, I would like to gain additional storage and additional prep space. I'm not sure that's possible, but I'm open to suggestions.

5. Do I need to strongly consider expanding the footprint of the kitchen? The wall between the kitchen and the original dining room/formal living room is the main load-bearing wall in the home. In addition, the original dining room is not very well-suited for the kitchen, in my mind, because it has a bay window on one wall and 2 windows on another wall, and it's visible from the front door. I would consider integrating it into the current dining room, but it seems like everything would be far away from the cooking zone.

I'll post current pics in the next post.

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