Layout Help Please for Forever Home
Hi All,
Well I’m back and we are finally ready to start renovating the kitchen in our current house. For context, here is our last kitchen that you so kindly helped us with: Prior Kitchen
Structural:
We have access to the basement below, so we can move plumbing, etc. We are taking down the wall between the kitchen and family room. We have already opened it up to the point load, but will be taking it down the rest of the way. No uppers on the wall where the sink is. Our house is dark, so to maximize the light we will put in large windows. Door to the screened porch will remain, just be moved down.
Current Kitchen Issues:
The biggest problem is the pinch point between the fridge and island. This is the main artery through the house and is only 25” wide from fridge handle to countertop. It’s ridiculous. Second issue is walking around the island to get to the fridge. Third thing we dislike is the cooktop on the island, so we’ll move that to a perimeter wall. Currently, the dishwasher is to the left of the sink, and even after two years, I can’t get used to it. I’m right-handed and would prefer to have it on the right hand side. Dislike the “mom” desk. Only gets used as a dumping ground for junk.
Wants:
The biggest island we can fit. I realize that at 13.5 feet wide, we don’t have a ton of space for a large island, but I’d like to make it work, if we can. We find it to be a gathering place. We are constantly standing around it, as are our guests. So we’d like it to be large, useable for prep space, and have seating. We also want to kitchen to function well, as our last one did.
Concerns:
Am I being greedy with the size of the island? Is it too big for the kitchen, and does it block the flow through the butler’s pantry area to the dining room? The first floor is a bit of a labyrinth with the traffic pattern from the garage to the family room. I’d like to make that easier to traverse and not build more obstacles. Is the dishwasher too jammed into the corner? Will I be able to load and unload? Is the corner susan too small to be functional? I like to store small appliances in there.
About Us:
Two adults and a 3 1/2 year old. Husband and I both love to cook, and when entertaining we prep/cook together. Daughter loves to bake. Dog loves to counter-surf. We plan on making this our forever home.
We welcome all advice/input! You all helped us design the perfect kitchen last time around. Thank you!
Current Floorplan:
Proposed Kitchen:
Comments (9)
mama goose_gw zn6OH
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoWelcome back to GW. Unless you plan to have seating on the short end, I'd reduce the island depth to the standard 42", which includes 15" seating overhang. I labeled the prep sink and trash pull-out 18" each, but an island 98" long could accommodate both at 21" (96" plus one inch overhang on each end. I also used one inch overhang on the working side of the island, and on the perimeter counters.)
Click to enlarge.
You might consider putting the range on the same wall as the fridge, then including a prep sink on the island. (ETA, after reading Stan's post I realized you have a prep sink included--I moved the trash there, where is can be shared by all zones.) That would make a compact prep and cooking zone, with you prepping facing the island seats. Clean-up is separate, and does not cross the prep and cooking zones, making it easier for someone to help without interfering with prep and cooking. Loading and unloading the DW, and setting the table will be easier, too.
I know the sink is not as nice a focal point from the living area, as the hood, but maybe you could have a decorative open shelf with pretty display over the sink.
In addition to the larger corner susan, which will be more convenient for small appliances, you could have cabinets to the counter on that side, corresponding to the dish hutch. The cabinets on the counter could also store small appliances, leaving space in the corner susan for pots and pans.
Are you using a range, or cooktop and separate wall ovens? In the following plan I put 30" ovens where the dish hutch was drawn in my previously suggested plan.
Stan B
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoRelated Discussions
please help on kitchen layout (and house layout)
Comments (35)I'm offering the following as a devil's advocate. Both positions for your kitchen are viable choices with nice reasons to go each way. That's why you need to draw up all possibilities to consider. If the middle is right for you guys, this will end up reinforcing that decision. Versatility and size? That 15x30 room is looking very, very nice as it is, but the far end is prize square footage with all those exterior walls (light/views in up to 3 directions), and right now you plan to actually dine there very little--pretty but underused. If you put the kitchen down there, that addition would be used as intensively as it deserves to be. The living area for furniture placement would be the same, but it would be more strongly defined. Nevertheless the whole should still appear very spacious because it would still be part of a 15x30 room with kitchen on end and still be open to the north, which would extend additional living activities that direction, instead of east. The dining room might well end up used more for various activities in the middle of the house. In considering this alternative layout, how about a pretty door to the outside from a middle/dining room, French perhaps? And for that matter, are you sure you wouldn't have a door directly out from the kitchen? You have an entry in that end that looks as if it would need some reconfiguring too. Would it enter the middle/dining room? Last night I also thought of one other -- possible -- advantage to switching the kitchen and dining room: the step down. This could be a design asset for a dining room, setting it off as special as viewed from the living room. Since you don't plan to eat there a lot, even with young children you could have a nice rug under the table if you wanted it. You'd take that step mostly on the way back to the children's rooms--longer journeys. For the kitchen, you guys'd be making all the many, many little daily journeys between the living room and kitchen on a level floor. Morning sun in kids' hallway? Have sunshine everywhere and you eliminate the pleasure of entering a sunny room. A dim hallway is often a design asset because it makes the rooms opening off it all the more inviting. I can't see what that cabinet in the hall is, but with a little attention to attractiveness and interest, the hall looks pretty good to me. The only way I could imagine to improve it would be to extend it to come back around on itself -- children love to run in circles. :) As it is now, though, the hall enters a sunny middle room in the mornings, setting that room off really nicely, however it's used....See MoreDeciding on our Forever Home (Classic Farmhouse) - Help Us Pick!
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Comments (4)That looks like a fairly typical 1960-80 layout. So, what are your goals for the house? How do you live? Do you need a separate dining space? if so, does it need to be larger? Or, is a single dining space plus casual counter seating/perching enough? Do you like a foyer with a little more definition? Do you cook a lot? What’s your style? I don’t mean what type of food, necessarily, but are you a ”mise en place“ or ”prep-as-you-go”? Clean as you go, or clean at the end? Do you entertain? Are there children? Do you work from home? Do you watch tv in the evenings, read, play games, go online, or catch up on work? What’s your budget? Lots of things to consider!...See More
sheloveslayouts
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoI don't know how feasible this is (the cook zone is a loooong way from the fridge), but I was trying to find a way to configure your kitchen to get more natural light; increasing door/ window size and maybe adding skylights behind the island. Also, I was wondering how you could reconfigure that back hall to get traffic out of the kitchen.
mama goose_gw zn6OH
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoI really like benjesbride's suggestion to flip the kitchen, but maybe you could preserve the butler's pantry with this idea. You get the view while prepping, and there is space for a cook on each side of the prep sink:
Fridge/oven/appliance garage combos:
lazy_gardens
7 years agosebby77
7 years agomama goose_gw zn6OH
7 years agoThere have been several threads recently about putting a cooktop/range under windows. If you do consider putting the cooktop/range on the top wall, but don't like that idea, I was thinking something like this might work (clunky photoshopping on my part):
sebby77
7 years ago
mama goose_gw zn6OH