How about this, so there is more counter space between range and sink? (and studbay storage on stair wall)

And again, we could scrap that little table and have the DW all the way in the corner.

What I like about the little table is that if it's on the wall with everything else, then I would put a shoe basket/tray and coat hooks between the fridge and the doorway. We have coat hooks there now and will def need them, and we currently have no specific place for shoes. If we decide we need that space for a pull-down table, I would probably still put something for shoes there but then put the coat hooks behind the door. There is technically room to hang them there, but it's not ideal.

What happened to this layout? It leaves you room for a little table and drop zone?

I probably shouldn't have entitled this "new plan to critique," as it's not exactly new-new.

bb: as I have played around with these, I have been paying attention to drawer width. I would like a couple sets of 30" drawers, and it seems moving the fridge to the other side would help with that. With the design just above, I'd have to move the range closer to the fridge to make space for wider drawers, and then I'd have the fridge and range super close, which I don't like. Am I being greedy, trying to get more than 1 set of 30" drawers? After all, I have none right now (or 30" lower cabs). Maybe that's not the hill to die on.

As for the one I posted at the top (suggested way back when), it is very similar to my friend's kitchen, right down to the placement of the range and the fridge just inside the DR door, and it works. Are there problems other than the range/drawer conflict? I could circumvent that by pushing the counter run out a few inches, right?

I really have to get over to my friend's and take pictures. It's possible that I am missing something important.

When at your friend's you might stand at the range and imagine if you'd like working in that configuration. I would prefer to have more counter space to the right and more clear floor space to the left, but it may not bother you.

Because I am used to so little! Whatever we do will seem like a dream kitchen to me.

I thought you'd say that ;-)

This isn't kitchen layout related but in our previous home space was tight and coats and shoes stayed in the kitchen in our eating area. We bought a Hemnes shoe cabinet from IKEA- if you can squeeze it you should! It holds a ton of shoes, is very narrow (I want to say 11 inches from wall but it might even be less) and you can put something on top to coral keys, spare change, wallets etc. Plus it looks nice.

kim, I am looking forward to that part. The shoes on the kitchen floor have always bugged me but the way it is right now there is no good place for them.

Oh! bb, what you posted *would* allow for 30" drawers. I have this among my many plans. The 2 stacks next to each other are 30" and the one to the right of the range is 24".

One concern I have is the potential trip hazard of various doors opening here and there. With every plan, I have tried to evaluate the risk of having, say, someone at the fridge right when someone else needs to open the oven. I am concerned about someone stepping back and tripping over either the oven door or the person at the oven (and same with dw in the plans where the dw is where the range is above). Maybe I am overthinking this though. It's not like people will be opening the oven and then leaving it open, like one would with the dw.

I have also perhaps not evaluated prep space correctly. In these plans, even when I know how wide various drawers are, it often *looks* like there isn't enough space next to the sink. But I just reminded myself of how much space I have next to the sink right now, and it's 20". Just one 30" drawer next to the sink would be great (10 more inches!), exp considering that I will have other counters where I can put the food I have finished prepping. That is really the problem right now. I cut up the meat for whatever and then need to move it to do the veg, and there's no good place to put it. That won't be the case with the new kitchen, no matter what plan I choose.

I will keep mulling this stuff over.

Your door to the foyer can’t be closed off. The door to the rear? Is there rear access through the DR? Could a window there become a door?

The door to the DR? Could you access the DR from the foyer route instead? Maybe with a pass through left of the DR door? Enough to put cabinets below?

Can you put the whole house sketch in this thread? One of those doors needs to get shut up. Need to figure out which.

Hi Stillpat --

Hi again from another old-house / smaller kitchen / multi-doorway person.

Hence my reaction to 90 INCHES of counterspace then the turn to the stove, I guess. Seems a little too far for efficiency if you are washing hands/things during cooking which is how I roll.

So in that plan, I wonder if taking one of your 30" cabs and putting it on the other side of your sink and DW would work for how you all cook. It would give you 2 quite decent landing areas on eiher side of the sink -- as 1 person pulls things from the stovetop and oven the other could be plating up to the left of the sink.

I'm always a bit biased toward plans with the sink and range on the same wall because they eliminate that need to twist and turn.

The plan I'm going forward with, if we go forward, looks more or less like that -- you have more counter between sink and range (envy!). One thing to consider is whether you need all the space to the R of the range or if you could drop to 21. Again, cooking styles -- despite lack of counter, I use the side of the range toward the plating and prepping (in my case the same tiny 15").

Also, I believe you're still considering induction, so remember you do get a little extra counter space during prep.

Lol Sophie - you think we have too many doors just in the kitchen area? Take a look at this! My husband is always grumbling about the amount of doors in the front/middle half of the house. My house is 99 years old and not unusual for my area. The only houses around here that have layouts that make sense are those that have been gutted and rebuilt. Maybe the houses were designed and built before anyone stopped to think about the congestion of narrow passageways and lots of doors. I have thought about just taking some of the doors off, but we close them often enough that that's not a solution.

I would not be willing to close off any doorways. I don't want only one way to access the kitchen. When I come in the front, I am often walking straight into the kitchen, so I want that doorway, and I want direct access from the kitchen to the dining room too. And unfortunately there is no easy/inexpensive option to have the DR lead onto the porch, as there are no windows on that wall.

If we had a lot more money, we would definitely restructure the first floor of our house. It is not even close to ideal. We don't even have a half bath on the first floor (but the full bathroom in basement helps). But we need to keep the kitchen project manageable, so we want to stay in the space that exists (aside from the $2000 chimney removal). And I'm ok with that. I know it's not going to win any awards, but it will be a lot more functional *and* attractive than it is now.

Sophie - photos at the top of this post do a good job explaining the situation. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4544608/pics-of-the-currently-terrible-kitchen

stillpitpat - it's going to be great! And I'm glad you're keeping your kitchen within the existing footprint.

Regarding appliance door conflicts, you might note how often someone is babysitting the cooktop while another person is getting in the fridge.

Why 30" drawers?

In a small kitchen like this, I think 60" between sink and range is on the generous side considering the space between range and fridge is a bit tight.

One plus my house has compared to many around here is the foyer. Many of my neighbors don't have a foyer at all. You walk in the front door and are in their living room. And even though our coat closet is shallow, at least we have one. Ya gotta count your blessings with these houses.

I also just remembered another friend with her fridge on the opposite wall, right next to the doorway to the DR. I can't remember where their range is though. I may have to go take a look. Funny thing is, both these houses have much larger kitchens than mine. I think the problem is that they are the same shape, just longer. They both have plenty of space for a table and chairs at the far end of the kitchen. I gave up on that idea long ago.

Are you set on a 36" fridge and a 36" sink? I can't remember. Is there flexibility with those?

Yeah, I realize now I don't need THAT much prep space. As for 30" drawers - I guess I figure they'd be the easiest to work with. My pots and pans will be in them, and I can get dividers if need be for other stuff.* I have been suffering with tiny lower cabinets and drawers, and big ones sound heavenly.

The way things are right now, there is definitely conflict between using the cooktop and opening the fridge. And of course the microwave is right there too. So yes, some space would be good.

Here's another thing maybe I have overthought - I want a french door fridge (I just like that style), but I am used to having a fridge that opens facing the counter, so at least it's easy to open the door, take something out, and set it on the counter (ok, on the cooktop) and then close the door. Is it going to be annoying to have a fridge door (well, half a fridge door) in my way when getting stuff out? Or do you keep the stuff you use the most on the more convenient side? I am kind of hung up on having an open fridge door block the counter, and then also not having a convenient place to put things down. Does that make sense? And am I overthinking?

Noooo, 30" sink. Or whatever. I don't have strong feelings about that, aside from it being a single bowl. Not looking for a really big sink. For the fridge, I used 36" in my plans b/c it seemed a common size for french door fridges when I looked at the appliance store we will probably use. I am not attached to that size though. I just want at least 18 cubic feet.

I have a ton of plans saved in floor planner. I basically put things in in all different ways and critiqued each one and then decided what I liked best. Maybe I should dig some others back out and we can discuss. I may have gotten hung up on the wrong issues.
Also: where does one store a wok? I have mine shoved back in my blind cabinet, which I may not have in the future. I don't use it a ton but don't want to store it in the basement.

It's good to overthink sometimes. This is a big investment!

I have a french door fridge, but I would not recommend it unless your situation requires it.

It's a bit of a pain having a door between the fridge contents and the landing space next to the fridge. Also, it's really easy to not shut the doors all the way and with a five and eight year old I regularly find the doors ajar, but not enough that the alarm goes off.

Anyway. It was our only option since our aisle is 38 inches wide, but I would rather have single fridge door, bottom freezer.

Putting a glass door from the DR to the porch would fundamentally change both rooms for the better. No, it isn’t cheap. But it isn’t expensive either. Better light in the DR, and a gigantic inprovement to the kitchen possibilities to not have that traffic path straight through it.

You really should look into that before you say no just because you don’t like change. The resulting better functionality would make the cost benefit ratio pretty high.

A wok might store nicely in your over-the-fridge wall cabinet.

Sophie, it's not so much not liking change as it is not wanting the project to run away with us. We have held off on doing the kitchen because every time we would start to talk about it, we would come up with more and bigger changes, and then we would realize that we had created a project we couldn't afford. Our goal right now is a better layout and much nicer aesthetics.

I don't hate the idea of a door in the DR, but I can almost guarantee my husband will. One concern I would have is that the kitchen door has a nice view, and the window doesn't. So removing the door from the kitchen would remove the nice view, plus we get light thru that door, as the window curtains are usually closed. Plus I'm not sure about coats and shoes and tracking dirt and water into the DR. I will think about it though.

Also, I hope my tone came thru when commenting about all the doors. I laughed when I read your comment about too many doors b/c you didn't yet know how many more doors we have. So many doors! It's a little ridiculous.

bb, I am so glad I asked about the fridge. I am not sure how/why I became enamored of french door fridges. And I thought maybe I was making up a problem when I because concerned about access to the counter while the door was open. What would be a situation in which someone needs a french door fridge? Because it would appear mine is not that situation. The main thing I want is the freezer with drawers. I love that feature.

I didn’t say remove the opening. Just the door. Make it into a pass through if that is conditioned space. A window if it isn’t. But it eliminates the bad traffic pattern through the space and allows a fridge on the wall next to the DR opening not be a royal PIA.

Heck, look at centering the sink between the two windows on that wall if that’s a great view. If you did a U kitchen, the range could even go on the DR wall wall instead of the other wall. The long wall could house the fridge, flanked by several pantries. And have a section for small appliances. That awkward area next to the foyer entry could be your flip down table, or a pull out table from one of the pantries in the wall. Win/win.

French door fridges are far superior to any side by side on the planet. Much better storage space because you have the width of the whole cavity. And not at all awkward to access.

Many old houses had so much clever storage in smaller spaces. Not just between the studs (awesome), but elsewhere.

Tiny house design has picked up a lot of this maximizing. but I feel like we old house kitchen people are so bombarded with standard imagery that's it's hard to even think about alternatives -- and that's leaving aside the need to hack standard cabs or pay for custom ones!

So I'd immerse yourself a bit in that just in case you find any great ideas to steal.

What do you want as your handle-to-handle open space between sink and frig wall?

If a 48" walkway is ok, then consider pushing your frig into the room a bit with a french door model that's either ~ 32" all-in or standard ~ 36 all-in (I know, gasp gasp) and then using the side of the frig facing the door for hooks and some kind of shoe storage situation.

[Hanging rack? 6" deep open shelf? Flour bin style tilt-out for shoes? I agree re IKEA having something that you could use, hack, or imitate to get the right proportions.]

Or if you have the clearance from the backdoor, abut a shallow (12"?) floor-to-ceiling cab next to frig -- with cutout for counter -- for same purpose + landing space next to frig. [Access to lower cab shoe zone could be from side facing door.]

For possible inspo --Just the section with the pull down table (shelves are covered when it's up) could also work next to frig as traditional kitchen storage.

I think benjesbride’s plan (11th post from the top of the thread) makes the most sense for your space constraints. The one thing I caution you on is the French door fridge. We have one and yes it holds a lot of food. However, those double doors are a constant inconvenience. 99% of the time we have to open both sides to get things in and out. We have a large “deli drawer” that holds a ton, but you have to open both dooors in order to access it. It is a pain to work around the door swing as far as setting out or putting away food on the counter next to the fridge. The worst part is that if there isn’t room enough for the doors to swing completely out of the way, it’s nearly impossible to get the drawers or shelves out for cleaning. IMO, the best spot for a French door fridge is across from an island. For your kitchen, a single door fridge makes so much more sense.

Keeping the fridge over on the working side also gives you a clear walk path from the back to the front of the house, without having to walk around a 3’ cube obstruction. This also gives you an ideal spot to keep the coats and shoes along the wall to the dining room, ideally in some sort of shallow locker system that could be converted to pantry storage as the (I’m assuming) kids grow and head away from home (yeah, if you do have kids, you need the pantry storage now more than later, but still...)

Thanks for all the good info and suggestions! I wish I could work on this more today but I have so much crap to get to. Hopefully I can get back to this tomorrow!

Is there ANY way you could move the stove?

Let me know what you think!

stillpitpat - what will be your ceiling height in the kitchen?

that I can tell you quickly (before dashing off to the store). 8 ft.

take the plan with the sink, stove, and fridge on the one side. Make a split entrance between dining room and kitchen. Two passages-one up at top by back door and the existing passage. Remaining on wall is about 6 ft......do a barn door nifty enclosed area on dining room side for your stuff...can do something on kitchen side. This alleviates traffic and gives you a space that can be closed off when needs to be out of sight[entertaining] for your gear. I would insist that this traffic issue be alleviated with this project. Folks coming in back door can slip right to dining room and "unload" and move on. Folks wanting to go out back door can bypass the kitchen action by passing through dining room. Why don't you address the elephant in your planning which is traffic.

Okay. I revisited the plan with the fridge on the stair wall. I think this worked out well to maximize your storage.

The uppers fit perfectly all around with fillers on each end. The bases all fit well with fillers on each end plus a 3 inch filler to the left of the corner cabinet. If you look at the details it might look like I went a little bananas with the end panels, but you need them on both sides of the sink and both sides of the range so the exposed sides of the upper cabinets are finished.

I aimed to have about 42" of clear floor space from the counter corner by the fridge to the edge of the range to avoid conflicts.

The sink is 30"

The fridge is also 30". I went to Best Buy's site and it looks like its feasible to get over 18 cubic feet in a bottom freezer within a 30" wide fridge: one example

Here's a link to this plan: Open the design

If this doesn't float your boat, no hard feelings. I totally had fun with it.

Whoops. I realized what I thought was a dishwasher is actually a base cabinet. I fixed it here: Open the design

bb, I like it! It's funny that I had to convince myself to like the plan with the fridge on the opposite wall, and now had to convince myself back, but yes I do like this. Realizing that 30" is plenty of space (for my kitchen) between the sink and range, and letting go of the french door fridge, have helped. And we are back to doing the drop-down table or whatever on the DR wall.

I didn't realize all this time that you were using the ikea planner. Let me ask - do you have any concerns with using it on your device? I had some problems when I tried to install it, so I googled to see if it had known installation issues, and what I found were comments about how the app required A LOT of access to various information on one's system, and some people were very concerned about that. However, this was all from a couple years ago. Idk if they changed the permissions or if people stopped beating that drum or what. My husband is a programmer so I asked him to look into it (he always wants to be sure that anything we download is safe and he can check more thoroughly than I can) but he hasn't gotten to it yet.

herbflavor and Sophie, I am curious about this traffic issue. I get that if we had put the fridge along the DR wall that that would be a traffic problem, but if we don't put it there, I'm not convinced we have an elephant at all. Is it because of the back door being in the kitchen? If so, we really don't have a problem with that, esp since we can plan for a place for shoes and jackets with the new layout. To me, the main traffic problem is the narrow passage from foyer to kitchen, but that can't be helped by routing people from the back door to the DR. I also don't want stuff being deposited in the dining room. It's semi-formal (if that's even a thing) and I can't imagine having shoes and jackets in there.

I am wondering if this is an issue of house floor plans/architectural styles/regionality? Every house I can think of in my neighborhood has a back door in the kitchen. Our garages are not attached, so most people either enter from the front (if they have walked or taken the train) or the back (if they have driven) and it's always through the kitchen. Some houses also have side doors, but their back doors are still in the kitchen. The only house I can think of that has an exterior door from the DR is a neighbor whose large unruly dog has pretty much wrecked their backyard and deck so they built a side patio that they access from their DR. They could only do that because they have a lot and a half so they actually have a side yard.

I'm not saying that it's bad to have a door in the DR or anything, but for me having people enter into the kitchen is not a problem. If we have to have a place for people to put their shoes and jackets and to potentially track in water or dirt, I'd rather it be the kitchen. And it also keeps the scope of the kitchen remodel manageable for us. We plan on being in this house for a long time so we are not too concerned about resale. And even if we did sell, all the houses around here are weird, and it's not going to put a buyer off (unless they throw up their hands with the whole town and go further out into the burbs where houses are newer). I do thank you both for your advice. I really appreciate people weighing in on all of this.

I will get to the other comments at some point, hopefully today/tonight. For now, I am off to the dr as I threw out my back last night. :(

Man, I hate to be the flotsam in the punchbowl but --

I've been living with a similar smaller-space range 90 degree to frig set-up that we were naive enough to put in 16 ago and I so so so hate it.

If I lived alone, I'd adore it. I'm not even a 2-cook household, really, but it never fails that two butts seem to be competing for that space a lot. Especially when trying to get dinner wrapped up and plated.

But of course it's pick your trade-off in a smaller space.

If my reno goes through it will be frig + micro across from sink + range with the traffic straight through between them. Trust me I got some comments and concerns re that but I have walked it, mocked it, visualized it [and vetted with an independent KD] and just hope we can make it happen!

Vixen: how much counter between edge of range and front of fridge do you have? I don't recall. I hoped the drawing above would give enough space for someone to open fridge and someone else to stir a pot or something.

Still: the planner has been frustrating to use in recent weeks after ikea changed something, but overall it works for me. My husband is a programmer too, well, he's a software developer and I think that's the same thing? He's particular about our devices, but we've had the IKEA planner on our computers (pc and Mac) since 2006.

I really think whatever you choose is going to be great. As with all renovations it's a matter of prioritizing your needs and compromising accordingly.

BB -- the "still life with open frig door" tends to be ok, but it's the reality of people wanting to use the counter space at the same time, or needing the oven door open while the person at frig is mucking about in frig/at counter that I wanted to warn about.

It can all be managed with patience and politeness but I seem to have low stores of both lately. ;)

makes sense. we had a similar situation with fridge and dishwasher at last house with the "still life with open frig door." :-) haha!

Carly, thank you for giving this a go. Now I am leaning toward benjisbride's most recent (but also oldish) layout instead of having anything large and permanent on the DR wall. Way back when, mamagoose suggested studbay storage and a pull-down table, so I think we will do that.

House Vixen, it's a good idea to revisit old/tiny house storage ideas. I love things like that. As for the proximity of range to fridge, I can see this being tight, but right now they are adjacent at a 90 degree angle, which is awful.

Just to throw a monkey wrench into this, I tried flip flopping the range with the sink/dw so the sink would be closer to the fridge. It's not an even trade, so it doesn't work out great, but here it is. Comments? Reasons it's not as efficient?

It's generally frowned upon around here to put a dishwasher in your prep space. BUT if you see fewer conflicts between sink and fridge than range and fridge, it might be the best solution for you. I spend A LOT more time standing at the sink than I do the range, so I'd probably put the sink farthest from the fridge.

Is that because it would be in the way when you're doing prep, like if you have to keep opening it?

Yep. Buehl does these great zone maps and I think the goal is that zones do not or minimally overlap. when your dw is between your sink and range, your prep zone overlaps your clean up zone.

That makes sense. Also, I had forgotten about the dish rack, which I wouldn't want in my prep space. And I walked out the distance from fridge to sink, and it's not as far irl as it looks on the plan. Because nothing is far away in there!

stillpitpat- I have a few questions about your kitchen. I want to make sure I didn't overlook something in your plan. Can you message me? https://www.houzz.com/user/benjesbride

Benjesbride, I will hopefully be ready to go to ikea pretty soon, but I can't open your links. Do you know if they are only good for a certain amount of time? When I click on them, I get a blank Ikea page. I don't suppose it would be a bad thing for me to recreate what you've done, but I am lazy. Also, it looks like the planner is now entirely online. No download needed. Maybe that change is the problem?

Scratch what I said about not needing to download anything. I was on the UK site. Oops. Anyway, I got to the US site and am able to access the planner after downloading the plug-in. Still can't see your plan. :(