Small awkward open layout, big usage needs... help!
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littlebug zone 5 Missouri
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Need Layout Help- Small Kitchen causing big problems
Comments (67)Newbieremodeler, This is my opinion but there are few things that are necessary in making a small home function well for a family for a LONG time, not temporarily until you buy a bigger house. But a well functioning home where you can raise a family. I am thinking about this alot lately because we are buying some rental properties and trying to make these homes "livable" for a family so they are easily rentable. These are things I am thinking about.... 1. Eat in kitchen is not necessary but a kitchen that is close and CONNECTED to an eating area is. (there is a difference) You can connect to an eating area with visual and physical connection. 2. Easy access to the nice green space in your backyard/sideyard that allows you to connect to the outdoors. This allows you to enjoy summer BBQs and perhaps entertain easily in the summer. (I would put sliding glass door from your dining room to make it happen easily in your house). You can't afford the linear foot without cabinets in the kitchen. So you have to put the slider in the dining. This is a typical small home solution. An easy way to make your house livable is to put a deck across the east side of the house (kitchen dining side if this give you a nice access to the yard and increasing the entertaining space without adding on to the house.) 2. Dining area that accomodates a larger group of people with rearrangement of furniture to host occasional parties, ie Thanksgiving, birthday parties, having another family over for dinner is ABSOLUTELY necessary for long term staying power of a small home. I think this is a more important criteria than actual eat-in kitchen. When the house cannot accomodate life's meaningful events in your own home, you feel that your house is not "good" or "big" enough. I think older home designs (pre-WWII) understood this well and gave generous spaces to the dining area even though they did not give enough to the kitchen. Imagine feeling that you can never host a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 at your house because there is no way to make it happen even with rearrangement of the furniture.... In your current kitchen, you can probably seat 6 to 8 adults in the dining and a card table with kids in the living room. Set the table close to the dining opening near the fireplace and have a nice Thanksgiving/holiday party at your home for 10 or more people. This allows you to create memories for your kids. In many of your plans, there is no way you can host the holidays at your home: ie the banquet kitchen and the kitchen eat in table.... These are great for larger homes where there are other areas to host a large party but not in a small home, IMHO. Do you forsee yourself hosting family parties? Dining rooms that are somewhat open to living room rearranges furniture easier for parties. There are people who never host sit down dinners (informal for families. I am not even taking FORMAL) at their homes because it is impossible. On the other hand, I have been in homes that are much smaller but the house makes holiday dinners happen. If you think having these life's events in your home is important to you, then you need to design for it. I think many of your designs show 36 inch opening between the dining and LR. I think this is smaller than what you already have. (58 inches, I am reading). I am not sure what the reason is behind this.... I would open up dining area as much you can given the load bearing condition. Figure out the house first then the kitchen. This is really important! This is not easy because you have to optimize everything and look ahead to the kind of family you will have. You need to have a reasonable plan for various phases of your family's life. For example, if you are a family that will watch TV in the basement, then you need to plan for the basement media room. More questions about the house: How will you use your basement as you have kids? Will you be satisfied with 1 bath on the main or wil need/want to add 1/2 or 1 bath on the main? Where is the nice part of the yard? How will you access that? Do you use the garage to park? If so, do you enter the house through the kitchen? Do you just use the garage as a storage and never enter the house that way? You can add storage in the garage easily to put overflow kitchen stuff in there IF you move the kitchen to where the dining is currently. (as is one of your ideas) In a small home, I actually prefer this type of arrangement than making a kitchen that is too big for the house... (there should be a balance of rooms in a given house) Do you have places for young toddlers/school aged kids to go and play on a rainy/cold day? Where will the toddlers eat? (I had a small toddler table next to my kitchen island for couple years until my kids were old enough to climb the stool easily. The booster chair streapped to the stool did not work for us as well.) Do you have places for teenagers to hangout and have some privacy? Do you have a place for adults to have a little quiet and solitute from one another. (Bedroom is fine for this if you design for it) Do you have a place for occasional overnight guests? How do you enter the house? Where to you drop your stuff as you enter? When I look at your LR, it looks underutilized to me. i would close that opening, and put a wall there so you can cluster the seating arrangement next to the FP. Then you move the kitchen where the DR is now. You create some storage in the garage that stores all your large occasional kitchen stuff. The dining room should have a large opening to the LR which makes the rearranging for large parties easy. You can see into the dining and you feel more connected to the family. (if you DH watches TV and he won't budge from that, then you need to be able to see the TV from the kitchen to feel connected to the family) The couch should face the FP and you can have a console behind the couch which will create a space near the front door a sense of entry. These are some ideas to get you started.... Good luck....See MoreSmall Awkward Kitchen Layout - Help!
Comments (17)Wright, I'm finding I'm guessing way too much what the context might be. Is the driveway running along outside the basement stairs, or does the dining bay look out on it? Is there garden outside that back door or garbage cans? Where are the sunshine and views to be treasured and used? Is the bay to the floor or does it stop short? Is there a relatively spacious living room that could easily provide space for dining for 2-6? Is the living room so small that it really needs the open dining area shown to keep it from feelling cramped? Could you shift the door to the basement to the bottom of the stairs and open the stairwell at the kitchen level to open up the space visually? Would that be a bad idea because you never go down there if you can possibly avoid it? Just imagining in lieu of a real picture that: You have a pretty back yard outside that back door, do use the basement enough to make opening up that wall a less than horrible prospect, and the living room would be pleasant and attractive without the dining area: In that situation I'm imagining shifting the kitchen to the wider living room side in a precision engineered U. Dining for two by a glass back door, and maybe a pretty window added to make it particularly to sit there. Perhaps the bay remounted on the back wall. Open banister to stair well on left, art, mirrors, whatever displayed on the wall beyond, traffic flowing unimpeded along the left from back door to living room. BTW, DH wanted to catch tarpon, so I'm in Florida right now in an old mobile home juust under 600 square feet, but the layout is so excellent I'm constantly amazed at how large it lives. Except the kitchen. It was designed for an unaugmented area and its 7x10 was supposed to hold the dining area too. I fantasize about what some tweaking within its footprint could do for it. Someday maybe--if a storm doesn't wash it out into the estuary first....See MoreHelp with small awkward open living area
Comments (10)The pics came through now. Both sets. Seems like they get stuck somewhere in cyberspace sometimes and take a while to show up. It is very hard to see the layout and possibilities available to you with all the stuff around. Spend time in removing the clutter first. Remove it from everywhere including all the horizontal and vertical surfaces. Once that is done, it will be easier to see where your furniture should go to maximize the breezes....See MoreAwkward Open Concept Living Room, Dining Room, and Kitchen Layout
Comments (4)I will look to see if I have a floor plan, but if not, how would i go about creating one for you. I know I sound like an idiot but obviously I am clueless as to this kind of stuff and wish my husband would just let me hire a decorator lol! However, he just now gave me another big fat NO to hiring one lol! So needless to say, I am going to have to learn how to do this on my own and asking for help, however annoying I may be, is the only thing I know to do! So I apologize in advance for my ignorance! I will look for the floor plan! Thanks for responding!...See MoreJT7abcz
last yearOlychick
last year
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