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Remodeling Design Dilemma Kitchens

Help critique my kitchen! And add appliance garage?

4 years ago

Hi all! I so love this community and reading through all of your helpful feedback and discussions.

We have a small 1940 bungalow and have been working to design our kitchen with the Ikea tool. Our kitchen will be open to the living room, so what you see will be on display! It is a small space (about 10xx11) and we have no other pantry, etc and no further room to expand in any direction.

Please ignore some of the small mistakes with spacing, fillers, and corners that are poorly modeled; I'm still working out the tool. We've thought a lot about what we have and where we would put everything. We love the idea of the entire peninsula being open for multi-person prep, baking, and serving. But we would love any feedback on overall design!!!

I'm also looking at potentially hiding the toaster oven and blender in an appliance garage, but I don't think it would look that great. I don't love everyone gathering in the living room to be staring at an ugly toaster oven on the counter, either...

Some sample corner appliance garages:

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Comments (8)

PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
4 years ago
IMO this is a kitchen and above all else it needs to function get a nice looking toaster oven and blender and leave them where you use them I hate appliance garages they take up useful counter space and you do have a pantry so use it to hide those if you want when you entertain. Personally I do not mind seeing stuff that is used daily out on the counter , I do however hate clutter on my counter so if it is not used daily it is put away. I think it is not good to have blind corners in a kitchen especially a small one . I also do not like open shelves they are a dust and grease magnet and unless you are super tidy they always look messy, that would bug me more than the appliances on the counter for sure.
wiscokid
4 years ago
I wouldn't put a toaster oven in an appliance garage - sooner or later, someone is going to just use it in there instead of pulling it out, which is a fire waiting to happen....
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Late in replying, but I think 30" is a big improvement on either side of the range. Thirty inches allows for room for activity plus simultaneous landing room for hot pots (24" leaves you pretty much one or the other, unless you crowd things in.) You have also finagled a perfectly balanced/symmetrical arrangement (extra points!), but to get at least one 30" run I would have been willing to steal that extra 6" from one side and add it to the other even if it meant less-desirable lack of symmetry. I think you will be able to create the mudroom-function across from the coat closet.. Especially if you train the family that coats go in the closet, but there's cubbies for shoes, bookbags, skates, mittens/hats, etc. in the "mud room" space. It's up to you whether you use classical operant conditioning techniques, clicker-traning, guilt-trips or daily nagging for the behavior modification part. (There may be another Forum with good advice for that.) I would consider a bench seat (cubbies for shoes below) to make it easier to change shoes and boots. With shelves, hooks or baskets somehow worked in here and there to contain stuff. For the structural part of building this space (with fluid depth-theft within the wall assembly to accomodate this origami of a wall) you may need to study and learn how to draw up these plans, unless you happen to find a gifted carpenter who can think out of the box. Keep in mind, too, that for the uses on the kitchen side of this space, you can get away with non-standard depth cabs in this portion of that counter run. If they come out flush to the regular cabs with the rangetop, who's to know if they don't go back quite as far, giving you extra depth on the backside for the mudroom. (Think of the mental fun future owners will have when they're trying to figure out their own reno plans and it finally dawns on them that the space allocation in that wall is much more complicated than it looks!) A mental picture I would have in thinking about this space is a very thick wall with a wide opening framed under a header (like an extra wide dorway ). You can divide the internal space how you like as long as it comes out even (flush) on both sides. Looked at from side (imagine you are a mouse in the wall) the horizontal spaces (running from side to side) may not have to run straight down vertically from the ceiling, except on each end where the header is supported. I think you could have various depths, depending on the uses you plan. Example: underneath the bench the shoe-stashing area probably doesn't have to be too deep. Who is going to fish out shoes from a really deep space - and who wants to stoop down to vacuum clean deep under there?. But on the kitchen side it might be highly useful to have extra deep drawers or ROTS there for deep pantry storage. Or conversely, maybe you want to have deep shoe drawers that protrude a bit into the kitchen side and less deep storage in the pantry-side. Pantry pull outs can also have shelves of different depths, too, (with careful planning) to get around protuberances from the other side. Sounds like a really fun challenge, and I think it will give you tremendous satisfaction in working it out and liviing with it. Think of this space like boat designers do: leave no wasted capacity. HTH L.
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Here it is inline. Yes, it looks strange to me -- why are you "turning the corner" there, rather than just going straight? It doesn't look like you're getting much functionality, since the counter around the corner is not usable length and corner cabinets often have accessibility issues. I don't know what size these boxes are, but how about a 24 inch pantry cabinet with roll-outs instead of the corner cabinets? You get a lot of storage that way, and the roll-outs provide easy access. Is there a Kitchen Aid or other heavy appliance you need to store in that garage, where pulling it straight out on the counter is important? They do make straight versus corner garages as well.
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Tara
4 years ago
I had one in a house one time. I loved it. I could put the toaster and blender away when not in use. Mine was like a roll top desk. It did not take up counter space, as it was placed under the upper cabinets, where they would have gone anyway. They just had a cover over them. Make sure you get an outlet inside the garage. If you place one in a blind corner, at least you're getting some good use out that space, where usually you couldn't reach anything in there.
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tozmo1
4 years ago
I agree, appliance garages seem like a good idea but take a lot of counter space. Get good looking appliances from a company like Recolte and show them off. Something like a toaster, blender or toaster oven has to be taken out of the garage to be used and then put away. If you really don't want it on the counter, have a deep drawer where you put them away after cool down and use.
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Louise Smith
4 years ago
Leave out the ones you use everyday.
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mama goose_gw zn6OH
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
Get one with a roll-out tray, which must be pulled out to expose the toast slots. I keep a collage of appliance garage pics on my desk top. The top left pic is of GW member huango's kitchen. The bottom row is Ikea:

If your DW is in the corner of the peninsula, be aware that when the door is open you won't be able to pull out the trash/recycling bins, and probably won't be able to reach the shelves to the right--if that's where you plan to keep dishes.

It's difficult to critique a kitchen and offer alternatives without a measured overhead view. What is beyond the door by the fridge? If that's just garage/mudroom entry I'd want the fridge closer to the dining and living areas, so no one has to walk through the work zones to access it.
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Jennifer K
4 years ago
A couple questions:

- is the door at the back of your kitchen commonly used? If it is, you'd do better to move your peninsula to the stove side of the room so the traffic can go in a straight line.

- where will you be eating? If it's just outside your kitchen, then put the fridge towards the eating side of the room so that the cook doesn't trip over people looking for a drink.

In my opinion, a space this small would be better as a galley kitchen with maybe a shallow pantry. This is how I'd lay it out. Yes, you'll have less storage than you originally planned. But that storage will work better and be where you use it.
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j9olson
4 years ago
will toaster oven fit in pantry? I added pantry to nook where I think washer and dryer were at some point and did have an outlet. Can you have an outlet put in pantry? I love having my toaster oven and coffee pot and grinder out of sight.
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