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Feedback on IKEA kitchen design

4 years ago

Hello, everyone! Would anyone be willing to give me some feedback on a proposed kitchen design for my condo? I worked on this with a kitchen planner at IKEA, inspired by one of the showroom kitchens.

The left wall is actually open to the living room, and the bottom wall has a sliding door. There are no windows/doors/openings in the 3 walls of cabinets.

I can post floor plans of the kitchen and whole condo if anyone’s interested. Thank you!

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Comments (3)

Jaykaym
4 years ago
Is the area behind the sink also open to the living room or is the sink up against a wall? i.e., is the sink on an island? If yes, I think you'll want a larger counter area on the backside of that bank of cabinets so that you don't feel like the sink is actually IN the living room.

I know that in a condo plumbing isn't very movable but I imagine you an move the the sink slightly so that you have your sink a bit more centered within the cabinets. I would find having a 15 inch counter top next to the sink to be very limiting. I'd prefer to move the sink a bit to the right and have the 24 inch cabinet paired with the 15 in trash cabinet instead of with the dishwasher (24 inch cabinet, 15 inch trash, 30 inch sink cabinet, 24 inch dishwasher). That gives you 24 or more inches of usable space surrounding the sink. Moving the sink connections that little bit will not be a problem even in a condo as it will all be done inside the sink cabinet or within the wall, not the plumbing stack.
damiarain
4 years ago
When you say the left wall is open, do you mean also where the cabinets are or just the walkway at the bottom?

more layout info would be helpful - it’s always nice to see the larger context of the space. What is the goal of your reno? How many people generally work in there at once?
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Dear Rosebloom2, Having not interviewed you I have no idea what you’re trying to accomplish. I have reviewed your kitchen design with this in mind. A kitchen’s purpose is to provide food and beverage service. If you design your kitchen well it should last 50 years and remain current and valuable regardless of changes in design trends. Being a simple machine with the only moving part being whoever is working in it. It should perform its purpose as efficiently as possible and look great while doing it forever (50 years). I believe you should buy your kitchen once, use it, enjoy it, and reap the benefits of owning a kitchen that doesn’t need to be replaced in 8 to 12 years when your appliances start to fail. If it’s designed to meet the latest trendy, new, and wow, and most are. The Impact You Expect your kitchen project to have could be extremely short lived. And you’ll quickly find you own a kitchen much like the one you so desperately wanted to replace. My Review: You have no pantry (could be a huge problem). Having all the mass (weight) of the refrigerator and broom closet on the one short wall makes your kitchen composition unbalanced (lopsided). Having the broom closet doors open to the left make the sides of those cabinets, in context, look out of place adjacent to your refrigerator enclosure. The inside corner wall cabinet is a waste (in my opinion). Sure you can fill it with lots of stuff but you can’t reach the back of that cabinet from the bottom shelf of it, and as you go higher it gets even less accessible. You could install a wall lazy susan but the results aren’t great because it leaves a lot of cabinet space unusable. What is in the front you see and what is behind that consider it lost because you’ll have to take everything in front out to get to it. continued....
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I consider a chrome faucet a neutral and IMHO goes with most everything. Same with your glass door hardware. I would do chrome rather than ORB. I’ve shown you pics of the house I did for my daughter previously but don’t have a good one of the faucet together with the black Ikea Bagganas hardware we installed. We initially bought chrome cup pulls but switched to a simple black. Are you considering the black cup pulls in the kitchen you like? I do not think that the white quartz would make it look like a huge monolithic expanse at all. It may be a better choice if you are seriously considering the turquoise tile. I think either black or brass would look great. Not sure about mixing. I found it extremely helpful to snap a picture of my room and then paste the lights and hardware I’m considering using MS Paint. Helps to see it all together. It would also be a good idea to start a new thread in Kitchens and Home Decorating related to finishes so possibly some of the pros can chime in. They can give better advice than me about mixing metals. I have chrome on my main floor and just added antique brass to my pink powder and laundry.
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Mama goose, I like many of the ideas for the upper cabinets. Thank you. I have gone back and forth on one island or two, but having the eat in bar separate from the work-island is a huge plus for how involved the kids are with cooking and prep. Not a huge fan of having the dining table out in the middle. I don’t think the distance from dining area to clean up station will be a problem. As for bedrooms, the plan doesn’t reflect all details. We do plan for the secondary bedrooms to be shared for two kids each. We have future expansion in mind with the stairs to upstairs for additional two bedrooms. Currently, the kids are younger and prefer for them to be downstairs. Thx everyone for feedback and ideas. Enjoy the holiday weekend.
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parasol1
Original Author
4 years ago
Jaykaym and damiarain, thank you so much for your replies. I’m extremely grateful for your help!

Jaykaym, the area behind the sink/cabinets does have a wall, and we could move the plumbing along that wall, if needed. I see what you mean about only 15” on one side of the sink being limiting. I really wanted an 18” trash pullout but there just doesn’t seem to be room without making the dining area even tinier. Originally, I was thinking that having the trash closer to the dining area would make it easier for people to throw things away without actually entering the kitchen and possibly disturbing me in my prep zone. I also thought it would be good to have the 24” cabinet next to the dishwasher to make it easy to put silverware/plates/mugs in the drawers. On the other hand, setting the table would be easier if that cabinet was next to the table. I’ll switch things around in the IKEA planner to try out your idea.

Damiarain, just the walkway at the bottom is open. Actually, there was an angled half wall where the proposed sink/trash pullout are, there but we’re in the process of removing the half wall and rebuilding a full height wall behind the proposed cabinetry.

The goal of the reno is to modernize the kitchen and have better storage (base cabinets with drawers, pantry wall). And to have a cool looking kitchen ;)

Generally it’s just me in the kitchen, but occasionally I have a child helping me. I do cook dinner from scratch every night and want to teach my two kids how to cook as they get older.

Here are some more pics. I hope the numbers are readable. The length of wall 4 in the hand drawn plans may be different from the IKEA plan in the first post, because we haven’t finished building that wall yet! Also, the half wall isn’t shown in the full unit floor plan.

Thank you!

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