Layout: how do I build this wall of stuff right?

8 years ago

Hey GW!

We're starting to plan our kitchen remodel. I've done a bit of the big blocking and tackling already, and one area I need some help with is this "wall of stuff."

Here is what it looks like today:

You are standing in the middle of my kitchen in this picture. To the left is a 9' x 4' island with a sink and dw. To the right is a 14' counter with what will be a cooktop.

The "wall" straight ahead is exactly 9 feet wide. The left 40 inches or so are a coat closet on the other side which we will close off and flip around to gain more kitchen space. The very left front corner of that wall, behind the left edge of that whiteboard, has a load-bearing column, so there will be about 5" of drywall there no matter what.

In the center is our old fridge that we will be replacing. It is a 36" fridge that is 30" deep. The actual depth of that hole is 31", and the fridge is about 2" proud of the front to give door clearance. When we flip things around, we should expect 31" front to back across the whole area.

On the right behind that white door is a very crappy pantry. Dark, deep, crummy shelves, etc.

The door to the right of that pantry door is the exit to our garage and has to stay.

The room is 9 feet tall.

The plan:

1. Replace fridge. Prefer 36", standard depth, french doors with bottom freezer. Goal would be to get close to a counter-depth look. So far it looks like hinge/rotation clearance is going to be the limiter. I would consider shelling out 4x for a built-in if you all thought it would clean up the lines considerably.

2. To either the left or right of fridge, place stack of wall ovens. We had a GE single-double dual unit (PT925SNSS) in our last house that we liked. We bake bread and desserts often, but all roasting is done outside on one of our numerous grills, year round. GE unit plus advantium microwave above it is about 48". This leaves room for a nice sized drawer below and some shelving up above.

3. On the other side, we desperately need efficient food storage. This is really the only area in the kitchen devoted to it.

Concerns:

1. Is this even reasonable? What other option(s) have I not considered here?

2. How do I make a good transition from painted drywall and trim to "cabinetry" when I have these appliances? Should I bring the oven stack forward and fur the cabinets forward? Get custom deeper cabinets for the space?

3. For the "pantry" area, one idea we had from a previous small kitchen was to have a series of narrow, tall vertical pull-outs. These worked very well in that previous house since they make it easy to see everything in every rack/shelf.

4. Whichever thing ends up on the right -- ovens or food storage -- is necessarily "tighter," because there are 6 less inches over there, it's in the corner of the room, and the garage door makes things feel a little claustrophobic. (No one will come bursting in the garage door unannounced, however; it's not a high traffic entryway for us.) We need access to the pantry probably ten times more than the oven and five times more than the microwave.

Thanks for your thoughts, all welcome. Don't be gentle!