3 little lights. Thank you for your input! I love hearing your personal experience! I was starting to ponder what it would be like with the wall and this reminded me of what I like about it being open. Thanks again I appreciate hearing your side of things!

Thank you Sophie wheeler. Would I be right in saying if I put the wall up that I should have a U-shaped kitchen with a kitchen table in the middle?

You’re welcome Cali! I spent a lot of time reading old threads while we were in the planning stage.

I live in the NE, so I’m sure we’re very different stylistically, but this is how we handled the posts. I was nervous to post photos because I don’t have perfect pictures yet!! One of the pictures is panoramic, so it’s out of proportion and we’re still waiting on some odds and ends to be finished, but at least you can see how the posts run right through the island.

Three Little lights it turned out beautiful! Wow! good work! I definitely like the spacing of your posts better than mine. LOL I'm so glad you could fit a good Island between them. Just perfect!

Three little lights was it hard to get your custom cabinet maker to make cabinets around your post? I think mine is hesitant to do so because of our budget.

Thanks!!! I agonized for months about how to make this work, but in the end it actually wasn’t expensive to do. They were regular cabinets and I asked my contractor to cut into the back side that sits flush against the other cabinets, so no cut sides are exposed. I didn’t think I would ever really use them because they’re small inside, but it’s a great place for stashing the kids’ random odds and ends.

The only tricky thing was the countertop and that could’ve been much easier if we had gotten the fabricator involved at an earlier stage of construction.

Thanks three little lights!! This is extremely helpful! And the picture are awesome and makes it feel doable. I like that your contractor did this for you and hopefully it works out that ours will too! Thanks for all the advice. It is soo appreciated! If we put the island between the posts I defiantly hope to replicate this!

Ok, I have four different layouts. I would love to hear which one people prefer and why, as well as anything they might change about it.

#1 Iong island with end resting on post (or rap posts with island)

#2 L shaped island with table in the center (or banquette seating in the middle)

#3 Wall up with table in the middle

#4 island in the center of kitchen (counter height)

Thanks for your option!

You had it right here. Counter height. Adjust for your clearances on prep walls. Put the wall back, between the posts.

Reverse your living and dining and relocate the tv. Done

Of the four you just posted, the only one I would even consider is number 1. However, even there I would be looking for a way to improve the workflow, because I can tell you from experience that having your stove between your fridge and sink is not good. I don't care for any of the layouts that involve having the island wrap around to the family room side of the posts. If the posts are staying, I think they are a clear visual delineation between kitchen and LR and I wouldn't try to disguise that.

However, one option that you didn't post is the one that would probably interest me the most, and that is an option where you have a FULL wall between kitchen and LR, not just that little section between the posts. This would allow you to have a U shape with good workflow, with a long, narrower island with seating at the end farthest from the work area. Like this:

I love a table proper in the center of a kitchen so I prefer the wall up number four option. My goal for my kitchen redo is to be able to have a table height kitchen table in my kitchen. I do not care for open floor plans personally so for me the wall would give me the table to sit around for games, homework, breakfast with family but the wall would give me much needed quiet separation with a book and cuppa away from that same family. I love my family but I also relish some quiet privacy too. I actually feel ironically claustrophobic in open floor plans more than I do in small rooms.

Wow. You're good biondanima!! I will play around with this idea! Do other people like this too?

Jan i am open it this idea now. Ill have to see if i understand the wall placement. Would it be around the same as where biondanima put it? I like it, however in my mind its harder to wrap my mind around putting up a wall without any use to putting things against. (Maybe its just the walls in my head. LOL. JK) regardless i agree your on to something. Thanks!!

Roarah. I totally get that and you bring of great points i competely get and understand. Thank you so much for your viewpoint it is helpful!

This reallly becomes a question of how you want the space to function. Once that question is answered, then everything else will fall into place.

If you want an open floor plan, I would go with option 1 and flip the living and dining room.

For me, the benefits of putting a U shaped kitchen in this space wound not outweigh the closed off feeling, but I am in my kitchen all day.... cooking, feeding, and cleaning up over and over without end lol. An efficient layout with everything at my fingertips is really key for me as is having the ability to easily lay out baking stations to make cookies with my kids on a snow day.

3 little lights i would love to get your opinion on what you think you might have done in my situation and your opinon on open concept with a family.

Also anyone else with a young family. Would it be harder not seeing the kids in the living room. I like visually seeing things it doesnt wear on me, however i understand wanting a place to retreat.

One kitchen with posts done well doesn’t equate to your situation.

Tou atent going to fix the major problems with this home’s layout with a kitchen redo, no matter what that redo consists of space planning wise. The major areas will always remain bisected by the entry with s powder room.

If you want so much of what you want, that really means a different house. Wanting doesn’t make dysfunction into function.

Sophie can you offer any hope. Or gather what you think id be the most content with given your experience.

3 little lights. You are very wise and i really relate to what your saying. Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!! Sophie is right that each house is different, which is why there is should never be a one size fits all approach to design. And I can see what Roarah means about wanting having separate rooms. There is nowhere to “go” in an open concept space.

Full disclosure, I do have a separate first floor den for watching TV and a playroom upstairs, but even if I didn’t have those extra rooms, I would still want the open concept because my goal was to create a multipurpose space for us to be together as a family and be able to host casual dinners for extended family and friends. And it has worked out perfectly!

This is not everyone’s goal in a reno. There are a plethora of very good reasons to prefer separate rooms. Everything from not wanting people to see dishes in your sink, to traveling odors, to wanting separate spaces so everyone isn’t on top of each other, etc. I kind of love that it’s a bit like a cooking show when I have friends over for dinner. We hang out, enjoy appetizers around the island, and share technique, but that would not work for everyone.

You really just have to identify what your main objective is and then go from there. I know it’s super overwhelming, but the question is not one of aesthetics. Wall or posts or a beam, a well planned design in the hands of a good carpenter will look good. It’s really about how you see your house functioning over the next 25 years. You need a mission statement!!!

Two thumbs up threelittlelights.

cali59, I liked your #1 until I read further and saw biondanonima's idea which I like A LOT!!! Seems to be you're getting the best of both worlds with that layout. I wish you well....keep your chin up, you'll figure it out!

Regardless of the wall or no wall, the design itself is awkward for that no man’s land area. It isn’t pulling its weight. It needs to be addressed in some fashion.

And yes, I much prefer the suggested wall. And the workflow order. But the clearance for the island would need to be double checked.

Agreed with Sophie that the area next to the laundry room is problematic, although with a doorway there I'm not sure how much more there is you can do with it. If you don't need counter ALL the way to that end of the kitchen (which, IMO, you don't if you have a nice long island), then you could consider putting in pantry cabinets or even a deeper pantry closet there:

As for the island, obviously you'd want it centered (which I didn't bother doing in my mock-up). If I am reading the plan correctly, your kitchen is 16'7" wide, so you should have room for a 3'+ wide island even with 4' aisles and a standard depth fridge. With this layout, an island/table combo like the ones posted by decoenthusiaste upthread could work:

[houzz=https://www.houzz.com/photos/elegant-open-plan-kitchen-and-lounge-transitional-kitchen-dorset-phvw-vp~80413503]

Sophie brings up a good point that no one has discussed about the dead space.

I think you’re looking at about 44” for each aisle considering 25.5” for base cabinets plus overhang and then a little less for where the appliances are. It’s doable, but tight for a family of 5.

The island in this u shaped kitchen is a barrier. It’s not really serving a function, other than a possible landing for the refrigerator, until you get to the seating at the end.

In any of these layouts the natural workflow is going to lead to all your tasks being done facing into a corner. It looks like a bright, beautiful corner, but again we’re back to asking what the priority is!! One of the major pluses to open concept with a giant island is that you’re facing the interior of the home for a large percentage of your time spent working. People sitting at the island will be looking at your back in the current open floor plan layouts. It took awhile, but I see what Sophie was talking about. Open concept done well has a different goal, so it shouldn’t be a closed concept layout with a wall taken down.

I love the idea of evaluating what our mission is threelittlelights13! You are on point! Thanks again! Very helpful advice.

Looking at what our goals are it defiantly involves no walls. However I appreciate all of the layouts posted on here. We will most likely go with no wall.

My cabinet guy wants to wrap the posts and beam above in the same rustic knotty Hickory as the cabinets and my husbands idea is to cover the posts with logs. He is crafty that way we are wanting a cabin like look for our house out in the wood. All of you bring up great points. And I am grateful for all your help. I am personally leaning towards #4 and then my second choice is #1. I understand it's ultimately our choice, however I do value all of your opinions so much. Other then looks which one do you see more functional? To be honest I like #4 because it would feel more open to move about the kitchen. I feel #1 seems like it cut the kitchen in half. I also like that the island will be closer to the counter tops and longer by the range. In #1 the aisle ways would be 5+. Also, the corner seating is something we would enjoy better. However, I feel that in choosing #4 I would be making the wrong choice because it's not what a designer would design. I fear making a mistake and regretting it. Thank you with your patience with me and continuing to help me. I do feel I am making progress. So, if I choose #4 in what ways do you see this layout working against me?

#4 is great! I think the big reason people were leaning toward 1 is that it is giving you more storage.

The placement of the fridge is not ideal in relation to the sink, but that is also true in the #1. It would be much better to put it at the end of the run on the sink wall, but it looks like there isn’t enough room.

Think about the process of cooking: take something out of the fridge, it moves to the sink to wash, and then over to prep area to cut up, and then to the range for cooking and then serving. It is not efficient to cross the cooking zone during prep time, but there may not be a better way to handle it with the large wall of windows. At least with the current layout random foot traffic won’t cross your cooking zone to get to the refrigerator while you’re working!

Someone else might have a better idea about fridge placement? The island doesn’t look large enough to handle a sink, but this brings us back to the longer island as shown in the u shaped kitchen that bio came up with.

Can you lengthen the island to accomodate a sink and shift your fridge down toward the dead zone? You can make the window wall an entire wall of 12” deep storage and shift the seating down to that end of the island. Take the food out of fridge, prep on island, cook at range, serve at island. You’re zigzagging the aisle, but everything is in a straight line. The dishes/glasses would be in the shallow storage right next to the seating area. And clean up would be quite easy on the island. That aisle is not a main walkway and you already mentioned that you prefer a narrower aisle anyway. 12” deep storage accomodates everything from groceries to dinner plates and nothing gets lost in it. This layout would allow you to face inward instead of the wall for most of your tasks.

Threelittlelights great ideas so play around with thanks!

You have a kirchen with posts OPPOSITE a living and dining space . There are only so many options. Go reverse the furniture!! Now picture you can SIT at a table close to he kitcen but not in it . Make an island at counter height with seating on two sides. Done. Don't attach anything but drywall to the posts.

At some point it's wheel reinvention AND brain surgery !!

Does anyone have an idea of how much it would cost to take out those two posts at a later date? Ballpark number? We're in Washington state in the greater Seattle area.

A fortune later. They are embedded in concrete, You need a buried carrying beam , extra large in the way bridges are spanned. Call an engineer in your area FIRST.

However!! It is not the posts holding you back. The front door entry bisects kitchen and whatever you want to call the opposite side of your home near the study. Unless you move the front door or move you to a different home

I really don't understand what the problem is with the entry location. It doesn't prevent the space from being open-concept. The kitchen is open to the living room, which is open to the dining room. There are no walls separating them. The entry enters right into the middle of it, which seems like a great place for it to be. You don't walk right into the kitchen and the entry has a bit of privacy, which is nice.

There you go. The absolute heart of the matter. Relocate the front door and solve innumerable problems with the house.

To sit at an island you need an overhang for our knees to go underneath -- something which the blue cabinet shown does not have.

Wheels intended for heavy tool boxes can hold the weight of a heavy table. Depending upon how many people you want the island to serve, you might be better off choosing that option.

Jan is right about flipping the living and dining. It takes the pressure off fitting so many seats at the island and just makes sense.

If removing the posts are part of this project the cost would be far lower because you already have a crew onsite and the walls are open. Removing the posts at a later date is exponentially more expensive because it is a major construction project that involves dust, mess, patching, painting and it all has to be done well because it is open to everything.

Have you actually spoken to a structural engineer? Before making major changes like this it would be well worth paying someone to come take a look.

Moving the front door seems outside of the scope of what you want to do and the powder room would have to be reworked to take advantage of the extra space for the kitchen.

There is an ideal, and then there is the reality of what it makes sense to spend. This is the push and pull on nearly every project, from the one with the tiniest budget right up to the largest budget. I do think you can achieve a comfortable living space for your family even with the two posts. It’s only two posts across a rather large opening.

Thanks again Three little lights! You gave me encouragement and peace in my decision for the layout.

Thanks all!

As Jan said " A fortune later. They are embedded in concrete, You need a buried carrying beam , extra large in the way bridges are spanned. Call an engineer in your area FIRST."

I'm pretty sure this is why we didn't remove the posts, however we were able to remove a post in the living room and a structural wall in the kitchen. I think what Jan said my Designer understood and why they remained and were not incorporated into the plans (this plan all started NOV 2016). We had a structural engineer draw these plans and then were approved by the county. Which was a bear of a process.

If you succeed in flipping the LR and DR, you could turn the gap between the posts into something pretty and functional, like a pass through base cabinet (doors on each side) and counter with open shelves above for a bar/coffee bar. Or a floor to ceiling bookshelf/game cupboard, opening on the dining side and finished on the kitchen side.

Years ago, I designed a combo island/table. Not sure how this would fit in your space, but it's a very custom look.

Craftsman Kitchen · More Info

I do plan to switch the living room and dining room. (Because this brings table seating closer to the kitchen and would be much more functional.) Im wondering if anyone has an idea of a good placement for the funiture? Note there is a wood stove in the corner that we are planning to keep there and wouldnt want any furniture to close to it. The main need for placement is a couch, loveseat, TV, and dinning room table. Thanks!

I dont understand why people are bothered by my front door?

Here is a mockup of an idea for your dining room and living room flip. Obviously, the final placement of the various pieces would depend on their size and necessary clearances/aisles, but this is the basic idea. You only really have two walls where the TV could go, so there aren't a whole lot of options. The orientation I chose makes the wood-burning stove a focus point, which I think is nice. I added a large coffee table between couch and loveseat, assumed a flat screen TV on the wall and added a rectangle in the new dining area to indicate a piece of furniture that could be anything, really (china cabinet, sideboard, bookcase, etc.).

As for the kitchen, I went back to the open plan for this drawing. As you can see, having the dining area in the new location makes the seating in the kitchen somewhat redundant, although with kids I'm sure it will be useful. However, I agree with 3littlelights and others that this "open" plan still has you facing away from the open space for most of your kitchen tasks and is therefore not really accomplishing what you want it to accomplish.

The layout of the sink, stove and fridge is also extremely awkward. What are the exact measurements of the wall with the sink on it? I know you said the windows were 72x36, but how much wall space is there between them and how much wall at either end? If there is no way to put the fridge on the same wall as the sink, then perhaps something like the plan below would work. It doesn't disguise the posts in any way, but it does give you a vastly better workflow and lets you face the open room while you are working at the sink (you'd want to move the dishwasher to the other side of the sink so it wasn't directly across from the oven).

Cut the office back two feet , move the door. to the office closer to your foyer entry door.. . Then EITHER move the darn laundry to the floor with the bedrooms...........or get a view blocking/ light filtering window treatment or a plantation shutter and put the laundry IN the office space and find another spot to work on laptop etc. and store the paper clutter.

Get the darn appendage off your stair wall........and use it for shallow tall pantry no more than 18 inches depth. ...make the island what you want in length.

that will give you room for a console serving piece in the NEW table dining spot............and will allow you to get the dining table out of foyer traffic a bit more as well.

Thank you biodanonima!!! Yes to the sink on the island!! And flipping the living/dining room!!! These layouts show this space functioning properly as an open concept.

biondanonima you are very skilled in the way you evaluate space and placement. Thank you for your design. Also I haven't quite learned how you cut and copy parts of the picture and then replace them in the same pic. But it's pretty cool! Thanks again!

I might have to put the TV on the other wall because it maybe to close to the wood stove. And I might be able to convince my husband to have a smaller window put in the corner to make more space.

There is currently only 30ish" for were you would like to put the fridge. However I image the current placement of the fridge just being a little awkward but not bad. I like having them spread out a bit rather then a smaller triangle work space. I feel if I have 4.5 feet between the island and range it will give more room to move around.

Jan my husband said his office is off limits. LOL. But I love your ideas!!

The problem with the current placement of the appliances is not their spacing, it is the order in which they flow from one to the next. You may have seen people talking about ice-water-stone-fire here, and what that means is that the natural work flow in a kitchen goes from fridge to sink to prep surface to stove.

Having your stove between your fridge and sink not only means you have to cross through that work zone to move between the other two, it also means the longest leg of your triangle is between sink and fridge, when you really want that to be the shortest leg. My kitchen is laid out this way now, with the sink and fridge on opposite sides of the room, and it's incredibly annoying. You have a huge space to work with and the freedom to create a great layout from scratch - don't settle for a layout that is only okay or worse!

The exact measurements of the wall where the sink is currently would still be very helpful. There are a lot of possibilities that haven't yet been explored since we don't know the exact spacing of the windows.

Biodanonima, OP started another thread looking for organization solutions for one of the original layouts with the funky appliance layout. I don’t think we’re getting though on how to design an efficient open kitchen. If the underlying layout isn’t good, it doesn’t matter where the cutlery drawer!!

Cali, I hope this kitchen achieves your personal goals! You have the potential to reimagine your living space and change the way your house serves your family’s needs. Make sure you take advantage of that opportunity!

There is a lot of great professional and anecdotal advice on this thread and I hope it will help provide help to other people planning their open concept space!! Love it or hate it, a well planned open concept space is not a closed plan with some walls removed!

I contemplated moving the fridge to the other corner but we would have to move both the windows. Or make a one Windows smaller. And I really don't want the kitchen sink on my Island. I'm not trying to accomplish all the goals of an open-concept, however I do like being able to turn around and see my kids playing. And feeling like people can just walk on into the kitchen. I am really appreciative to all your help and wish I would have started posting on here during more of the early stages. we are much further along and eager to wrap things up. Sincerely though I think I will be very happy even though i do not having ice water fire stone in order won't affect me greatly. To their fault or not both my KD and cabinet guy didn't seemed to be concerned about their currebt placement. I think it's a great system to aim for however not everyone fits the mold . and not every kitchen fits a mold.

This is a classic posting of WHY an interior designer, KD, Contractor, Cabinet Guy......work in concert start to finish.

The Interior Designer is often "lead dog", as it is also often that she is the same person considering the entire available space, how it will function, flow and live comfortably PER the needs of the client, and inclusive of the kitchen. Meaning this whole EAT and how/where/what height thing would have been resolved very early on in process

Next are KD and Contractor,, together. Particularly if walls and structural changes are involved. They fine tune and make possible ........the now firm concept to the extent all of it is possible

The cabinet guy builds to the kitchen and appliance plan per the fine tuned plan from the KD

The Designer then makes certain , in conjunction with client and KD, that all the selections go to the final desired feel of not only kitchen but the adjacent areas

The rest is execution , timing , and control of the plan, demo to lights lit by all involved.

It's a concert....resulting in a final concerto, and rendering this type of post? Unnecessary : ) hand wringing, no matter how much fun the hand wringing may be.