Making myself crazy with kitchen layout - please help!

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

I thought that my plan was pretty simple and now I'm second guessing pretty much everything about it. Here's my floorplan. I didn't measure the length of the dining room or the basement steps, and I'm still trying to figure out the best tool to use for this, so it's not perfect, but it gives you the idea. The white in the middle is hallway. The small 'rooms' are all closets.

The plan was to take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room - which is a load bearing wall, but relatively small and also recess the fridge into 8 sq ft closet.

Here's what I came up with. The measurements shown on the left are a drawn slightly wrong, the numbers are right, the arrow is just in the wrong place. the original wall was 13'3" , that is where the 58, 37 and 64 inches came in - the measurements of the window and the space on either side. This drawing assumes that the wall was taken down, so there is more room to add the peninsula, but the arrow for the end of the wall doesn't show that. Basically that peninsula is almost completely in the next room.

I had a brief consult with a KD and she suggested taking the peninsula cabinets down to 12" deep to allow space for the overhang and not take too much space out of the dining room. She also suggested the shallow pantry that runs perpendicular to the fridge. We want to make the distance between the basement door and the pantry or wall there a little larger because right now it's just too tight to carry anything down into the basement. That's why there is a 30x17.5 square that looks like it's blocking the pantry - that was the original outline of the closet.

The other problem is the window in the bottom right corner. The bottom of the sill is 30" from the floor, so the counter will overlap it in this layout, and the wall cabinets would also obscure it a little. However, I think I'm willing to make that trade to get the storage of those cabinets running the whole length of the wall. We have a large window over the sink, and the door is mostly glass, and the cabinets wouldn't block much of the light, so light isn't really an issue, just the fact that it may look a little odd. I'm waiting for a price from my contractor as to how much it would cost to move that window or remove it and put in french doors, but I suspect it is going to be more than I want to spend given that the outside of the house is brick. The KD had mentioned putting the cabinets in like we are moving the window and doing the actual moving of the window later. I also know that there isn't technically enough landing area around the stove, but I don't know how to get around that without moving the stove. My husband really wants a double farmhouse sink. That's pretty much the only thing he has asked for, and I think it would drive me nuts if it wasn't centered under the window. Right now our sink is off center by an inch or two to accommodate the dishwasher and that really irritates me.

Since we will need a post in the corner for support, I didn't think I could really use a corner cabinet, so I thought maybe a smaller cabinet that opens under the peninsula. I don't love that idea, but that's all I had.

Thoughts? I would have loved an island instead of a peninsula but I just couldn't figure out a way that I would have enough space. And sorry I just realized that the two drawings are from different perspectives.

Edited to add: we are a family of 3. I was hoping for the area over by the window to be a coffee/wine station. The goal here is mainly for me to not hate my kitchen, but more specifically we don't have enough cabinets or counter space and our refrigerator is tiny. Currently we use the kitchen as an eat in, with a rolling butcher block cart on the long wall as additional counter and an old table as a makeshift island for prep work. I'd prefer an informal seating area like the peninsula, and we can use the dining room - which will become part of the kitchen if we take down that wall - as our main eating area. There is currently a water pipe in the smaller closet, so that can hook to the fridge, but I'd prefer to not move everything around due to the added cost. Right now we have an electric stove but we bought a dual fuel one and they are going to have to run the gas anyway (from the basement more or less near where the fridge is in the current layout), so I guess moving the stove isn't a huge deal.

We bought our new appliances already, a 30" slide in dual fuel stove, a 36" french door refrigerator and a new regular dishwasher. I want to have a range hood, but I haven't bought that yet. People keep suggesting putting the microwave over the stove to save space, but I really have my heart set on a range hood.

One more thing I forgot - that picture was the lower cabinets, here is my plan for the uppers.

Also, I love the look of open shelves and glass cabinets but we aren't the tidiest family and I know it would end up being a total mess. I have two glass upper cabinets in my plan but I want to stay away from much more than that. I think I can manage to keep my wine glasses and coffee mug collection looking nice but not much else beyond that.

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