Kitchen cantilever bump out and expansion onto screened in porch
Looking to get some feedback, including potential cost, on expanding our kitchen footprint to include a 2 foot cantilever out the back and converting our screened in porch (currently poured foundation below frost line) to eat in area. We are a 2 cook family and have limited countertop space between the sink and cooktop and just generally not enough countertop surrounding this area for 2 people to work in easily. We also have limited space for our eat in area and I am practically sitting in the family room when we eat meals. Would also love a larger island, but not at the risk of losing the small eat in area we currently have as it is heavily used. I know that working within our current footprint would be less costly, but we don't really have any walls to remove. We live in Lancaster, PA.
Current floor plan is first picture, proposed changes second picture (a little off scale, but hopefully you get the idea)
Thanks for any thoughts! I realize this is preliminary and certainly a GC and an Architect will need to be consulted.
Comments (9)
millworkman
6 years ago
geoffrey_b
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoRelated Discussions
Screened Porch off great room dilemma... opinions please!
Comments (22)Hey! We have a covered terrace off of our family room. It faces east. I was petrified of the room being dark, so our builder suggested skylights even though he thought it would be fine without them. We had them installed, and I do think they make the porch more "sunshiny." :) However, I think several other factors contribute to our kitchen, breakfast room, great room being light-filled much moreso than the skylights. First, even though our ceiling in the kitchen/great room is a standard 10' ceiling (no vault) the foyer which leads into the family is 2 story. It has a large window at the top, and our double front doors are 3/4 glass. Sunlight pours into the great room in the afternoon from them. Also, the study and formal dining room have cased openings that open into the back of the house. Finally, we have large windows in the breakfast room, kitchen, and my little office. These are south facing windows (and west, my office has windows on 2 walls.) plus, 3 glass doors to terrace. I think, looking at your plan, you'd be ok. Personally, I'd move that fireplace out of that corner and onto that left wall, then put in another set of doors or windows, but that is just a balance thing for me, probably not necessary for light. If you do get skylights, we haven't had any problem with them. The window cleaning company we use just charges them as another window. We could also easily access them ourselves from upstairs windows onto the porch roof. They really weren't that expensive, maybe $600 each? (or total, I can't remember, we have 2.) here are some pics: Back of house, showing terrace and roof Here is one skylight. Oh, and we painted the tongue and groove ceiling blue, which helps, too....See MoreHow to do roof of bump-out?
Comments (6)Thanks for the responses! I thought about the gable roof idea but I was afraid the peak would interfere with the 2nd story window. Shadtree bob--I think it would be fairly expensive to reframe the entire shed roof. I'm only bumping out the solid area not the screen porch so I'm hoping to find a roofing solution for the bumpout area only. Not sure how reframing just that part would work.... The house pitch and the shed roof pitch are just about the same. Every contractor I've talked to has suggested the sistered/cantilevered joists with posts. I honestly would like to brick in the lower part so it looks just like the current house foundation rather than having it open underneath. Is there a better way to do this? The contractors have all suggested treating the bumpout more like a bay with its own separate roof but this requires the interior ceiling to drop down several inches and that is not the look I want. The bumpout will be windows that connect to more windows that look out into the screen in porch...creating an L of windows. Having the ceiling height change would look odd because it would occur in the middle of the run of windows that look to the screen porch....See MoreIs this bump out expensive?
Comments (19)To answer your questions maybe and yes. You can minimize the risk of drywall cracking from the cantilever if it is stiff enough and properly installed. But the rub is, I would think that the bumpout as a slab on grade or basement would be cheaper than a properly installed cantilever, and it would look better. Dumping a bit of concrete into a bumpout is almost nothing, and building the forms is not going to cost you that much. The additional costs of the pour are going to pale in comparison to the other costs of that bumpout. I looked at the architect's plan and I wonder if he ever built this house. I think many people here are concerned about price vs benefit of that particular element of the design. I mean you may love the bumpout, and you may love the porch, and you may love them indivdually enough to overlook the obvious problems and be happy with them, but when you are living in this house I promise you that you will notice it. The plan the architect drew has a bay bumpout onto a covered porch with doors to either side. That is a huge hunk of space that you can't really put furniture in because of limited space, huge windows into the house and walkways. You are basically just paying a big chunk of change to put a roof over sidewalk. If I was married to that plan, and needed the space in the eating area, I would shrink the covered porch to the door out of the great room and use the money you just saved to add two feet to the entire back of the house. After killing that much roof and that bump out you should be just about even. This post was edited by Bry911 on Sun, Feb 1, 15 at 2:25...See MoreCost to enclose part of existing screened porch?
Comments (3)I designed something sort of similar for a client years ago and their builder was around $55k (DC metro area). Region makes such a huge difference in cost though, Find a great HVAC company because they're going to be a critical component of bringing this into the building envelope....See More
lisa_a
6 years agojocelynpalmer
6 years agoGood question about the porch, I will call our local municipality and see if they can set me up with someone to answer that.
Here are our original house drawings if that helps. Still kind of small sorry, I'm new at this. Our sink is not in the corner, however, it's kind of where the dishwasher is and we have about a foot of counter to the left of the range.
I've read lots of discussions and I know you guys are awesome at giving advice. So thank you for your thoughts. I just keep coming back to push out the back and taking over our unused screened in porch as the best option (although costly I'm sure!)
lisa_a
6 years agoIt looks like your kitchen is about 17' side to side. I see that the current kitchen is 15' 3/4" top to bottom. So once you bump it out it will be 17' 3/4". Is that correct? That's a generous space to work with.
Is the curved shape outside the kitchen your patio? Can you extend it 2' or 3' to the left? That would allow you to move the existing screen door to the back and eliminate the door into your kitchen.
If so, then this is a possibility. Measurements are estimates since I don't know the exact measurements of the space.
I extended the patio to the left, moved the door from the side to the back and changed the entry between kitchen and new eating area towards back wall. You no longer need a second door in the kitchen, which means the counter can be extended all across the back wall with room for DW, sink, 36" cook top and ample counter space and storage.
I moved the fridge to the side wall so that there isn't a barrier between it and the sink (your current island is a barrier island since it blocks the direct path between fridge and sink). I created a "wall of tall" on this wall: fridge, wall ovens and 2 pantries.
The bottom wall can be more pantry storage, a beverage bar, breakfast bar, command center, etc to suit your needs.
The island is a generous size with room for 4 seats and not lined up as if it's a lunch counter.
I'd add a prep sink and/or a bar sink, depending on your needs.
The above will work if extending into the screened porch proves to be too costly. You'll use your DR more since it will be your only table seating.
I'll play with your existing footprint later to see if there's a better lay-out that doesn't require expansion and that action's higher price tag.
lisa_a
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoSame footprint as current kitchen but with more counter space.
I moved the screened porch door to the top wall. I replaced the sliding doors with windows 36" above the floor and created a banquette breakfast nook. Add drawers to the benches for additional storage.
It would be similar to this but with benches on only 2 sides:
St. Paul Whole Home Renovation · More InfoYou'll have room for 4: 1 on each end and 2 on the bench. In a pinch, you could add 2 chairs in the aisle between table and island. We used to have only 40" between our table and island for our main aisle and it worked fine but I like having a wider aisle now (it's 43", 1" less than the minimum recommended minimum of 44" for a seating aisle).
Moving your table seating and the screened in porch door to the back wall routes traffic in and our of the porch along the back side of the island, not through your kitchen. That's a plus, IMO.
I didn't add counter seating. There isn't room between island and table (recommended minimum is 60" for back to back seating) but if you really want a counter seat, you could add 1 stool at the family room end of the island. You might also be able to add 1 or 2 at the far left end, facing the sink wall. I didn't do the math to determine that.
The cook top is approximately where it currently is so you should be able to use your existing venting and, if you have gas, the gas line may not need to move or move much. That will save you some $$. There's room for a 36" drawer base on each side of the cook top. Two people can work at the cook top now.
This plan calls for a counter depth (CD) fridge. If you want or need a full depth, see if you can recess it into the wall behind it. You'll also need to reduce the depth of the cabinets on the back side of the island a little bit to increase the aisle between clean-up sink run and island. See the plan I posted earlier for aisle width recommendations. Remember, a full size fridge is about 7-8" deeper than the adjacent counter. That means that a 45" aisle between island and sink run is only 37"-38" between fridge and island. That's not adequate.
Clean-up sink against the wall could look something like this:
Renovation to a Maine Seaside Home · More Info
Island View · More Info
White Transitional Kitchen in San Clemente · More InfoI put a prep sink on the island. You'll be able to look out the windows towards your garden while you prep. It's long enough for 2 or more people to work at the island.
There's a run of shallow (11" deep) cabinets along the back side of the island. Here's my island, same depth as I'm recommending.
Front side:
Back side:
11" deep cabinet storage:
What kind of cabinets do you have in the pantry area? If they aren't roll-out pantries, consider replacing them so that you can max out your pantry storage.
You can have a KD fine tune this for you, either an independent KD or one associated with a cabinet company. IMO, you want a kitchen designer's expertise, not just a cabinet designer.
IMO, you can have a much improved kitchen without going to the expense of converting the porch and adding on. It's just a matter of re-working the space.
jocelynpalmer
6 years agolisa_a
6 years ago
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