I'd rather see the fridge where you have a pantry now (if that's a pantry on the bottom right corner), close to the MW and toaster for a breakfast/snack counter. It would also be a little more convenient to the DR and anyone coming from the hallway to the bedrooms.

Then move the DW to the right of the sink so that it's not in your prep zone between the sink and range. Since you enjoy baking with your girls, maybe a counter where the fridge is currently drawn could house the mixer, and provide space to line up baking sheets, ready for the oven.

Is that a pantry between the dining room and kitchen?

There is a wealth of kitchen planning info in this thread:

New to Kitchens? Read me first.

The row of storage beside the door in the addition/dining room is the mudroom area. Bench with hooks, cubbies, and overhead bins for the kids and a closet with doors for adults (and clutter, ha).

I *knew* GW (GWers?) would recommend moving the dishwasher! I've been poking around here THAT long, ha.

I was envisioning doing the baking at the peninsula - or am I on crack? I'd keep my Cuisinart out all the time - I'm not moving that thing out of a cabinet!

If I move the fridge to the other wall, do I put the pantry where the fridge currently is? Also, I'll have to be pretty careful about fridge depth then - wouldn't a 35" deep fridge, like they seem to make them now, stick out a lot? Counter depth, less cubic feet, more money. Sigh.

Is that a narrow pantry between the fridge and wall? You could put it on the end across the room, then the fridge. You have enough room in the middle of the kitchen to pull the pantry cab and the counter on the other side out to the same depth as the fridge (minus the doors), and closer to the depth of the mudroom closet . That would actually leave more room on the counter in front of the appliances, if that counter was used to make sandwiches, prepare lunches, etc..

The peninsula looks short to me, compared to the stretch of counter to the right of the sink, but I agree it would be a good place to bake with the kids in the seats--I can see three little ones decorating cookies. :) So I guess since you'd need to put the wider pantry cabinet in the top right corner, there's no long stretch of counter there anyway.

GW discussions--deeper counters

Are the sections of wall I highlighted in yellow required? Do you have to have a hallway to the kitchen in addition to the walkway to the living room? If not, perhaps you can recess the fridge into the hall?

Also, I commend you for removing a fireplace. We did the same in our renovation and it made all the difference.

What is the width of the space between the two rows of cabinets? It doesn't look like you have space for two rows of counters plus an island but I'm not sure if you have space for 24" of cabinets where the sink/range are, 48" of aisle, 39" of counter/bar, and another 48" of aisle against what is I think a staircase. This would get the thru traffic out of the kitchen and maybe give you the added benefit of opening up the staircase if you wanted to (if I'm reading the plan right -- can't tell if its a basement or 2nd story staircase).

Can the hallway wall between the kitchen and living room be completely removed?

Thank you all for your input!

The wall between the living room and kitchen is load bearing. It can handle the 5' opening as drawn but making it significantly wider involves structural changes that we're not willing to do/spend money on/can't afford - however you want to say it. Blocking off the hallway is an idea... we'd have to do some floor magic with our existing hardwoods if we shortened the hallway wall.

Stan Z - I think we're more than two feet too narrow to do a 39" island with 48" walkways. Wall-to-wall distance is 132".

Where are you at in construction? Have you considered and ruled out putting the kitchen in the addition?

Would you also post the existing layout and your goals that drove you to the proposed layout?

Immediately, I have two questions:

1) Do the stairs from the kitchen and the stairs from the dining room take you to the same place? To the backyard, maybe? If they are redundant, it'd be nice to get rid of the one in the kitchen. You can use that space for something else and also not have traffic from that staircase being directed through the kitchen.

2) This is a classic corridor kitchen. Everyone entering through the back will have to walk through the kitchen to get to the rest of the house, and that will be an annoyance to the cook(s) and sometimes dangerous (crowds/foot traffic + hot things are a bad mix). Most people renovate to get rid of a corridor kitchen. How far along are you with executing this plan? Have you considered swapping the locations of the kitchen and dining/mud room?

A first, quick stab at the kitchen at the back:

I looked at this kitchen earlier today and thought "Oh, NO, a corridor kitchen!". I had one once. NEVER again. I'm not so clever to think to move it en masse though. (Need to give my brain a kick!)

I love BB's plan above to move it into the dining room. I also think having living and dining next to each other makes it so much nicer for entertaining. Nobody has to come into your kitchen to get to the dining room. So much nicer. I hope you're on a foundation with crawlspace or have an unfinished basement to make moving plumbing easy.

Oh, and I see BB has given you a nice outdoor kitchen, too. LOL

I agree that corridor kitchens are far from ideal, but if moving the kitchen to the DR would not be possible then I suggest moving the kitchen window to the left (towards the DR). Since your corridor will be quite spacious, I believe you'll be fine so long as you keep sink and cooking/baking on the same counter.

I'm thinking (from the LR wall) 36 cab (toaster oven above?), range, 27 cab, 15 trash and then sink&DW, cab and the peninsula.

The other wall can be (LR side), Cab+MW, Fridge and pantry.

This is the current layout (tracing paper because it's Monday morning):

I should mention that there is a non-moveable bulkhead in the addition along the 14' wall. Oh, and that's a little half-wall divider thingy between the stove zone and the table zone. It's 1/2' wide. Only good thing about it is that I can sneak food in the kitchen without the kids seeing it.

Where are we in construction? The addition is down to the studs/insulation. Kitchen is still in place, and there is no hole in the wall between the kitchen/living room. And yes, taking out the fireplace was definitely the right move, it is already so much more spacious in the addition. It blocked light and floor space. Plus we never used it.

Our goals with the reno (in this area) are:

- to open up the kitchen to the front (living) room. We currently do not use that room very much because it is closed off from everything else. All of our "living" is done in the addition.

- move the back door - see that landing spot on the stairs? Our entire family of 5 piles into that space. There is no room to do ANYTHING and it makes coming home a stressful experience. There is also no room for boots, jackets, etc, etc. We live in Winnipeg, we deal with all sorts of weather, we need a better entry point.

- add a better space to eat. The current table and chairs placement is very crowded and uncomfortable.

- I also hate the stove where it is, it's in a terrible place, and we don't have a range hood, just a fan in the ceiling, which does a better job of sucking the heat out of the room than it does remove cooking smells.

- and like I said, we are spending a lot of money in other areas - roof, windows, new bathroom in the basement, so we can't go crazy here. But some of our cabinets are falling apart and I despise those corner cabinets soooooo much. So we are looking for an updated kitchen with more storage space. Would love a pantry (cabinet, no need for walk-in).

Moving the kitchen to the addition - believe me, I have been tempted, but the addition has a "sunroom" feel and I really think it is better suited for sitting and absorbing sunlight/nature. It is also under-insulated at the moment, although hopefully the sprayfoam we're adding in the crawlspace will solve that problem. Before now I have always been concerned about freezing pipes. I have been hesitant to even call it a dining room because I am soooo putting a comfy chair in there by the window, and as soon as I can afford to put a banquette in there, I will. I also like having two spaces to hide on the main floor - if everyone else is in one area, I can be sitting in the addition, in a quieter space. I'm going to think about it some more, though. The addition has a crawlspace underneath, the rest of the house has a full basement.

I do like that outdoor kitchen, BB!

The stairs at the back of the house (addition) are outside, the ones by the kitchen go to the basement.

The only window that I'm willing to move is the one in the kitchen. Our new door at the back of the addition was just installed on Friday - although I suppose we can still move it.

We entertain, like, 4 times a year. Most of the gatherings here involve toddlers during the day, not cooking/eating meals.

Did I cover everything? I've been interrupted 5000 times by children while typing this.

Does your family park and come in from the side or the front?

If the sunroom is better for sitting, have you considered putting the dining room in the front and the living room in the back of the house.

In homes of this size, I think it's best to have the dining room between the kitchen and living. It seems like newer builds are putting the kitchen between dining and living but theyre a lot bigger. It's rare that I've seen someone remodel to put the kitchen in the middle, usually we're moving kitchens to an end. It avoids traffic through the kitchen and thus increases functional workspace.

Just a quick idea :)

I was thinking you need a proper walk through mudroom, but it would drive me BANANAS to see my family's stuff in my sunroom. We have a small mudroom near our front door and I don't think any effort of organizing will ever make it look nice. The bags, shoes and coats for four people is crazy town. I drew up this idea that keeps your existing back door but turns your present dining area into a mudroom. Everyone's stuff can be hung on hooks and boots can slide under a bench and stay out of sight. Perhaps that area tucked behind the stairs could be storage for rarely used kitchen stuff.

Your new back door kind of kills the space for a decent kitchen, so iwthout knowing how everything works together I moved it to the other side next to the window. For me, keeping traffic out of the kitchen is a priority.

Would you be opposed to walking 10 feet or so farther before entering the house? You have a large hallway in the foyer with a lot of potential for storage. You don't have room for such a good mudroom anywhere else, and it'd be a shame not to take advantage of all that space. And it would totally remove that traffic from having to walk through the kitchen, no matter where the kitchen winds up. And if you have to set out a lot of wet things to dry it won't be in anyone's way or cluttering up the kitchen or dining room -- it'd all just be set out in the foyer and out of the way.

It'd also be a pretty feature of the foyer if you could see right out the back when you enter:

I thought there was a bedroom below the stairs in the drawing.

Hmmm...

So, we have a back lane, our garage is there, so we enter through the back door. The only people who use the front door are guests (read: my parents and siblings) and CanadaPost/UPS delivery people. Putting the door on the south wall (up at the top) means a longer trek around the addition to get into the house. It is also inconvenient to access the back yard (left side as drawn), which starts behind the bedrooms - the addition juts into it.

I have pondered putting the dining room in the current living room but that is way overkill of a space allotment for our dining needs. It's the biggest room on the main floor, it should be a family zone. Now if I could only remove that whole wall... that means saving up more money... which will take time... please don't make me live in my current kitchen any longer, I've put up with it for 10 years, I can't take it anymore!!!

Uh oh, am I coming off as a desperate woman now?

I was thinking I'd face the window when sitting in the addition/sunroom/whatever, not the mudroom zone - I figure, if you can't see it it can't hurt you. Right?

Still pondering...

Yeah, there's a bedroom below those stairs.

My neighbours three doors down, who live in the exact same house as me, made their front entry their main landing spot. That works for them because they have a front driveway. It's a good idea, Jillius, too bad there's a bedroom in the way! Right now we store our coats in the front closet and it is SUCH a pain to walk through the house to hang everything up.

There is an exterior door there at the stairs, right? Below where I proposed a mudroom? I think these are pretty common for your era of house where the back entrance is kind of split level; down to the basement and up a few stairs to the main floor.

eta: What do you not like about coming in that door and coming up the stairs through a mudroom? Does it maybe need an exterior awning? I would think an entry would help keep all the mud and wetness contained rather than entering right into a living space. Our little mudroom is like 6x7' or something and located off the entryway, but despite our no shoes policy dirt still gets tracked in from the entry into the dining room. In my mudroom drawing, you'd have like 12 feet for them to walk inside before getting to living space and hopefully not tracking anything beyond the mudroom.

Can you show us the whole floor plan?

The rest of the floor is literally 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. But yes, I can draw it up.

lavendar_lass, I think your layout is pretty close to what the original kitchen was like. Talk about going retro!

Can you also draw the lane and the garage and everything else that you've mentioned on the floor plan? It's hard to plan an entrance without the starting point!

And, if possible, post some pictures of the back of the house? I can't picture how there is a bedroom below the stairs.

Is this your present master bedroom? What are the dimensions of this bedroom?

This is a tough one. Waiting to see what folks come up with that gets procrastinationqueen an improved kitchen with what she has to work with right now. Definitely don't want to see her have to wait another 10 years!

Okie dokie, here goes.

Whole main floor:

And here's the lot, it's approx 50'x150':

benjesbride - I tried to sneak in a mudroom at the top of the stairs, but there just didn't seem to be enough room. To have space for a 48" corridor, the mudroom wall you drew would have to be a lot shorter.

Believe me, this addition has been an interesting study. I definitely would have done it differently!

It took us one year to iron out the floor plan for our house. We went through a bad architect experience and then a bunch of iterations with weird solutions, but finally landed on a layout that works really well for us. You'll get there!

While I would love to see to get your kitchen, with three girls and one bathroom, I think this is what you need:

If you have a chance, could you add dimensions to your main floor drawing?

I've kind if been down this road before you. We turned our 1200 square foot 2 bed, 1 bath house into a very comfy 3 bed 2 bath without adding on. I'd like to think on your house a bit more with dimensions in mind.

Procrastinationqueen, I completely understand. After our kids were grown we added on a large dining/play room, with room for another bath (still unfinished), and a nice guest room. I love the space, but it would have been so much nicer to have had it when the kids were young (and we had no money).

We will have a bedroom and bathroom in the basement.

Dimensions added - bedroom dims are within a couple of inches. I know I shouldn't doubt you guys, but I'm not really sure what you can do. We can't afford a new kitchen *and* moving walls around. Plus, in my neighbourhood, once you start moving walls you might as well tear the house down and start new. And I'm trying to avoid that!

Well, the bed and bath in the basement will certainly help. We bought the home we raised our kids in from a family who raised 9 kids, 7 girls, and they only had one bathroom. We went to school with several of the kids and they told us stories of all the girls crowded into the bathroom together in the mornings getting ready. That explained why there were mirrors hanging on three walls. I can be done! :)

I started out loving to cook, then hated it, then now I love it again. It didn't dawn on me why until fairly recently when I realized that I loved cooking when I had kitchens that were pleasant to cook in and had decent counters and work flow, and I hated to cook in one that didn't plus it was the only one that didn't have good windows with a lot of good natural light which is important to me. I'm hoping a better kitchen will bring joy into cooking for you. If you have to do it, you might as well enjoy it, right?

I think you have been given several good plans that work in that space. Of then, I think I might choose Lavender's plan. I simply think your kitchen is a bit too wide to have the fridge across the room. With this plan, I would have the table on nice casters that lock so I could easily roll the table a bit closer to the work zones if I was doing a big project, like maybe decorating sugar cookies for Xmas, to get extra working space. You could still having a dining table in the sun room.

So, let's go back to opening up the living room wall...maybe a nice arch? Then keeping things fairly simple.

Can we add a window in the living room? How about a larger one over the sink? And some plants??? :)

ETA: Maybe a message board on the side of the fridge, so you see is as you come in from the hall? You could still have the toaster oven, over by the fridge and microwave.

I get a little carried away with the cut and paste sometimes and I hesitate to post--I don't want anyone to think I'm cuckoo--but in case it sparks ideas I'll post my totally not-to-scale drawing ...

I moved the stairwell and turned the addition into the master bedroom putting a small 3/4 bath in the present dining area. As suggested before, maybe if your back door lined up with your front door you could have an efficient "mud hall" with closets/cubbies in the existing foyer area since it's a nice size space (8x10?) and meant for such things. just a passthrough type opening between kithen and living room to keep an eye on things. I'm just brainstorming. Obviously I don't know what's below the proposed stairwell.

(ETA: My thought with moving this stuff around was that a master suite on the main floor might add value and convenience, and might relieve you of any urgent pressure to add a bed and bath to the basement.)

Just for fun.

A few ideas.

This one has an addition.

I have the kitchen same as in my previous post of Monday, 5:22 AM. For the mudroom area I suggest doors (louvered) for the hook/cubby section as well if you decide to have it in the DR.

I don't know the size of your master bedroom furniture, but you may be able to fit a small bath on the (north?) wall.

We installed a 13,78"x23,6" sink in our very tiny PR and it feels a lot more bigger now.

I think Ikea has similar sized sinks.

Benjesbride- Nice idea! I'm all for thinking outside the box....but isn't it very expensive to move a stairwell? I doubt ProQueen has much more change in that winter coat pocket :)

LL - I haveno idea. I watched Tom Silva build a stair on the This Old House not that long ago and he made it look really easy :-)

All things considered, the plan that moves the stairwell might not be more expensive than the original plan assuming it's more expensive to put a bathroom in the basement versus a bath next to the kitchen. Also, if resale is a consideration a master suite on the main floor is likely to have a greater return on investment. I think it would be worth getting estimates if it's a more desireable floor plan for PQ

procrastinationqueen -- going back to your original plan and the others that incorporate the galley design here's something to consider. You have a wide aisle, which you will want because the kitchen is a traffic corridor. However, you may want to make the cabinets on the staircase wall deeper (e.g. 36") so that a full size fridge/freezer will look "built in". With 36" of depth you could also design a walk-in pantry. Here's some ideas I found that you could consider (doors that open out, a pocket door):

Kitchen Remodel (Recessed - Built In Pantry) · More Info

Stonewall Farmhouse · More Info

The upside is that you may gain more storage space; the downside is that you would lose the countertop next to the fridge. It's a personal preference and what you think will work best for you as there are a lot of tradeoffs in your kitchen (until you win the lottery and can move to a different house).

Well, here are a bunch of ideas.

1. I really think it makes the most sense to keep the back door right where it is. It is the least disruptive to possible room layouts on that end of the house if the traffic is deposited in between rooms like that.

I understand that the current entrance has a small landing, but it seems functional enough for people to enter through that small landing one by one if they can immediately spread out more once inside.

There are now two large closets nearby for mudroom-type stuff to go.

2. The kitchen is no longer a corridor kitchen and could have multiple cooks working at once easily.

3. With a bedroom and bathroom downstairs, you could be fine with just two bedrooms and a bathroom up here. And in the case of this home, I think the third bedroom on this floor is causing everything else to be compromised. The bathroom is small, the closets are small, and the rooms are small.

Lose the third bedroom, and suddenly everything that remains is a lot better. Two amply-sized rooms, quintuple the closet space, and a roomier bathroom where two people could be getting ready in front of the mirror at the same time.

Two of your girls would have to share a room, but that room would be larger and have WAY more closet space.

Hi all, thanks for your feedback. I've been sick, ugh, so haven't been around.

Comments/thoughts/etc:

- we are not interested in a master bedroom in the addition. It is far too nice a space to waste on a bedroom. I know that sounds weird but it's true. The windows are much too wonderful. I don't need my boobs on display for my neighbours.

- we can't move walls or staircases. It's not going to happen. We might as well tear down the house once we go down that route. On the main floor, we can afford to put in a new kitchen, add much better lighting, and put a hole in between the living room and kitchen. That's it.

- we want a bathroom in the basement. Where we live, most houses have very livable basements. Having a bathroom downstairs makes the 1000 sqft in the basement much more user-friendly.

I'm not looking for a perfect house. I'm also not trying to be one of those people who posts asking for advice and then ignores everyone. I do want the feedback, but most of what is being proposed is far, far, out of the budget. My goal is to make the kitchen as user-friendly as possible. Would a 2' wide island help divert traffic? Is putting the fridge on the opposite wall too far a walking distance? Can I make the peninsula longer? Is there any way to get a small U shape in that space and still leave a traffic corridor?

I feel sort of lost.

I have a galley kitchen, and my fridge is across the sink/cooktop counter. The distance b/w the fridge and the other counter is about 64"(I think yours would be about 70"). It's not too far to walk. My kitchen is a closed one so there isn't much traffic, but when people use the fridge or walk behind me they don't disturb me at all. So I think you'll be fine with a galley and an island would only complicate things imo.

I started working on this when you posted but it took me awhile to finish. Not sure if it is a workable option for you but that's for you to decide, not me. =)

I moved the kitchen to the addition with the DR between it and the LR. IMO, that's a better flow. Better for entertaining and avoids the corridor kitchen set-up. I also moved the lockers and closet out of the DR to its own separate space so that mud, snow and salt from shoes and boots aren't getting tracked into the house. (I grew up in the Midwest.)

Kitchen Pantry · More Info

You could do a combo of open and closed cabs for display and storage purposes.

I widened the entry between LR and DR to give you a little more clearance around the end of the table and to allow more light to flow from one end to the other.

The windows added to the DR can be done at a later point. Mulled windows - look like separate windows but are actually one big window - gain you a bit of elbow room over the whole width of the unit because you don't have the framing between the windows. We did that in our DR (and bumped it out 7" from the house) for that very reason.

Kitchen is a U of sorts with peninsula seating for 3, a large walk-in pantry, a cubby for the fridge and a wall of windows. You have decent stretches of counter to work on between sink and range and on the other side of the range, too.

I voided the corners (no corner Susans, no BCC units, just support for counter) in order to gain wider drawers on each side of the corners for pots, pans, dishware, etc. Glassware storage is a bit of a hike away from the DW in the uppers to the left of the range. You could also give up one window and do an upper by the DW.

The dishtowel cubby is like this:

Traditional Cherry · More Info

Ireland in CT · More Info

The mudroom is separated from the kitchen by a pocket door. On bitterly cold days, you can keep the door closed for a little extra buffer between outside and in. Storage lockers are lined up on one side with a closet (deeper than you drew so you can hang coats on hangers) on the other. The downside is that it's a walk-through mudroom. I tried a few other variations but they all required more square footage.

The addition is slightly larger than your planned addition but you gain better function, IMO. If you can swing the cost, I hope you consider it.

I also tried a few variations on your proposed plan, trying to fit in Stan Z's idea of putting a pantry behind the fridge but I couldn't figure out how to make that work, not without shortchanging either the pantry or the aisle. Maybe I misunderstood his suggestion.

Good luck to you, whatever you decide!

Thank you lisa_a, I really like that plan. Especially pocket doors between the landing zone and rest of the house - that would definitely keep the heat in!

But... (sigh, there is always a but, I sound like my kids!) the addition we're dealing with is an existing structure built in the 70s, and adding on to it is cost-prohibitive. Believe me, if I were adding an addition, I wouldn't do the one we've got!

In other news, we are using the door in its new location and I.love.it. It is so nice to be able to walk downstairs without tripping over boots and dashing between piles of winter muck, and there is soooo much more room to spread out and take off boots in the new area.