Kitchen remodel help needed: what layout works with few walls?
We are remodeling the kitchen area in a home that we just purchased. We'd like to open up the kitchen to both the dining room and the breakfast nook to have a little more space, but if we remove the walls, there is almost nowhere left to put the appliances.
Do any of you have layout ideas that could work in this space?
The drawing is not perfectly to scale, but hopefully the size and placement of the current appliances in the drawing give you an idea of what we are working with. We are not opposed to closing off the doorway to the hall to gain more wall space in the kitchen.
You can see in the photos below the back wall of the current kitchen (the one with the refrigerator and the pantry), the side wall with windows where the sink is, and the breakfast nook area.
Comments (15)
PROGN Builders L.L.C
6 years agoRelated Discussions
Kitchen Remodel - Layout Help Needed
Comments (17)This is better to me, but coupla thoughts. These don't necessarily have solutions. They are things that might be issues. Biggest problem is space for storing pots. Second is only one person can use sink at a time (its not far enough away from the corner). With two door refrigerators - sxs or french door - the most efficient landing space is behind you when you stand in front of it. Most people like to work between a sink and range (I'm a little wacked about that because I don't like cutting in a wet area). The most efficient place to work is the two feet between sink and range. Adding the island means lots of spinning around from island to water to island to ref to island to water to range, etc. While not spectacularly efficient, it doesn't get ugly until you add the second person. A sample of cooking path, chicken for dinner comes out of ref, lands on island, doors closed, check for sink access, pick up chicken, rinse off in sink, and put down... in a pile of dirty dishes or turn back around to island? I like to do stuff to raw chicken on a board so the can be well washed afterward. If I didn't get the board out first, I'm kinda stuck with two fouled hands carrying chicken, so I have to ask dh for one. Then turn back to the island and put chicken down. Do stuff to chicken while spouse is doing dishes - watching that I don't trip over open dw door. If I need water, ask spouse to move outta the way. Flip the chicken into a pan, turn around and move me and chicken beyond range so I can open door while dw door is open. If I do stuff to chicken while spouse is doing stuff to veg because spouse is sharing island, we're both walking back and forth to ref, water, range, pots storage,and asking each other to get outta the way. Again - tolerances for stuff like this are very personal with reactions running the gambit between its just fine to "get out of my kitchen". Its kinda hard to fit any form of a table and chairs in a space 7 feet wide. I always plan on a table with empty chairs on each side as being about 5 feet wide. That covers a 30" - 36" wide table. But, there has to be space behind the chairs in order for a person to become seated, they need about 30" beyond the table edge - another 5 feet in total, about 3 feet more than you have. THEN to be able to USE the cabinets needs at least 2 feet to open doors and drawers - so the table and empty chairs would need to be offset from the cabinets on the pony wall and they'd actually touch the cabinet by the side of the range. If you move the table beyond those cabinets, you'd have only about 7 feet until you hit the dining room wall to fit the table(30-36"), one side of chair (call it 24" for an occupied chair) and a walkway (24" to 30" wide). The chair on the the other side can stick into the aisle between the range and cabinets on the pony wall....See MoreNeed help with layout for kitchen remodel
Comments (12)Sorry, I meant to say den, not family room. There are beams in the attic and those walls were framed in below. We will verify it, of course, but the seller built the house and told us that the walls between the kitchen and den and the wall between the kitchen and dining room are not load bearing walls. They were in the early stages of planning their own kitchen renovation when a job transfer derailed their plans. I have considered moving the kitchen into the den area, but I wondered if that would drive the cost of the renovation up to a point that we can't afford. I'm not sure if we'd gain much wall space, due to the fireplace wall and the glass doors. I could be completely wrong, though, which is why I'm here looking for feedback, so thank you!...See MoreNeed help on kitchen remodel electric work
Comments (10)Revising the wiring doesn't necessarily require bringing the wiring up to code. Title 24 still includes NEC 250.130 (C) However, I would always advise rewiring the entire circuit anyway. The price per receptacle is so rediculously high, even trying to imagine California costs, that it had to include "fishing" the wires in without removing the drywall, which takes more time. It really doesn't matter much if they have to tape a few small sections of drywall, or a whole room, it still takes the same number of trips and the mud still take just as long to dry. This should have been included in the GC's contract to take care of ALL trades at one time. It should have been included as a general rule. If nothing else, as a listed charge as an "extra" that is almost quaranteed to happen. If they are charging you the price per receptacle for fishing in wires, and then charging you for removing drywall, so they don't have to fish wires, then I would call that double dipping, or at least getting charged for "fishing" that didn't happen. Charging more for inspected work is not a good sign. Writing a contract that presumes illegal practices is in itself, illegal. Any judge should be on your side immediately just because of that....See More1978 Kitchen Remodel - Layout Help Needed
Comments (44)Here's our latest and greatest that draws on several of your great ideas. This is way better than what we were going to do! We would love your thoughts on optimizing cabinet and appliance layout in this space! Some decisions we have made: We are going to shrink the first floor laundry room and stub in for a second floor laundry for next year's second story remodel. At that time, the smaller laundry would convert to a pantry. We are opening the wall into the DR ad using that space for the kitchen. We are not adding windows on the left wall of the kitchen (would only see the side of our neighbor’s home, north side of home so we would get no direct sunlight) but will invest a little more in lighting to compensate. We will partially wall off between current DR and LR and use either french pocket doors or barn sliders for office separation. We don't want to block off any of the current windows along the back of the house and will do a little window shuffling to fit best use (the boring details - swap multiuse and DR windows so multi use stays current height but 1' narrower to center, DR 1' shorter to fit over cabinets). We aren't going to make any changes to the FR layout or the first floor half bath. We have spent a bit of time looking at appliances and are sticking with what we had previously picked - 36" induction cooktop, wall oven/MW combo. Not (yet) replacing our fridge or DW. We’ll have space for small to large dining table in the multi-use area for us or future owners if desired (current plan shows 1 table in two different configurations). Here's the current plan - We'll probably shorten the island 6" to give 48" to cooktop and 45" to 1/2 bath corner. Also, my original measures post with DR was off by 5", corrected here....See More
zmith
6 years ago
A Hart
6 years agoA Hart
6 years agoOk, I got some dimensions for the dining, kitchen, breakfast nook and laundry areas. Any thoughts on how to reconfigure. We are open to tearing down walls or closing off doorways to get more wall space
PROHal Braswell Consulting
6 years ago
Susan Davis
6 years agoHmm just looking at it I think delete the dining room door and put the new entry where the pantry is....then place fridge where the stove is, create a 45 degree angle where the dining room door area is and leave sink where it is....remove the wall between back entry and the breakfast nook for more storage. Something similar to this placement, but disregard color and choose tones you love.
Maple kitchen · More Info
Country meets city · More Infoartistsharonva
6 years ago- PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
6 years ago A Hart
6 years ago
Anthony C
6 years agoThe problem is your kitchen has too many doors. Doors are ok for a dining room because you dont need the wall space for cabinets. I would get rid of the bay window in the breakfast nook and move the kitchen into the nook for a U shaped kitchen. You can still have cabinets running along the right wall into the original kitchen space. Put a table in the original area "kitchen" and have an eat in kitchen (trendy now and historically).
I would leave the wall between dining and kitchen, but I like dining and living to be separated from the kitchen for when guests come over. I would move the dining room/kitchen door to the left side.
The nook is small for a breakfast nook because people need 3 ft to sit, 5 ft if you want someone to walk behind them so the nook is really cramped for a table. However it is actually a reasonable size for a kitchen with a pretty generous U.I have a tendency to make suggestions with the smallest wall changes because this stuff gets very expensive fast.
Anthony C
6 years agoThere is quite a bit of hallway removal you can do to free up space for adjacent rooms. For example:
A Hart
6 years agoWow, thanks! There are so many ideas that didn't even cross my mind! This was my stab at making an L shaped kitchen to the correct scale. I'll have to test out the U shaped kitchen design. I'm thinking that it could make cooking with multiple cooks pretty crowded if we packed kitchen into the breakfast nook area.
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Hal Braswell Consulting
6 years ago 
live_wire_oak
6 years ago
sheloveslayouts