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Basements Kitchens

Help with kitchen layout

last year

My new home is in construction and it's time to select the kitchen layout and cupboards. This is what I have so far however because I cannot afford any mistakes so I am coming to you the experts for help. Can you please provide some feedback. There is the main along with a kitchenette in the basement. The one in the basement will get the most usage.

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Comments (3)

cupofkindnessgw
last year
last modified: last year
Looks great! Do you have a trash pullout in the main kitchen? Also, is that angled corner cabinet dated? IDK but they sure do hold alot but I don't see them in most of the kitchens these days. Is that a lazy susan cupboard underneath the corner upper? Where does the microwave go in the main kitchen?

From an aesthetic standpoint in the main kitchen, I'd put glass-front cabinets on either side of the sink (with seed glass) if you are able. Glass front cabs (with glass shelving and lights) really elevate a run of cabinets. Also, your cabinets should end at crown molding which is attached to the ceiling. No dusting cabinet tops! Lucky you to have two kitchens!
lharpie
last year
I am confused about why the kitchenette will be used more? that one has a too small prep space and DW is in prep space. fine if not used much but not a kitchen i would want to be my main kitchen…
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I'm offering the following as a devil's advocate. Both positions for your kitchen are viable choices with nice reasons to go each way. That's why you need to draw up all possibilities to consider. If the middle is right for you guys, this will end up reinforcing that decision. Versatility and size? That 15x30 room is looking very, very nice as it is, but the far end is prize square footage with all those exterior walls (light/views in up to 3 directions), and right now you plan to actually dine there very little--pretty but underused. If you put the kitchen down there, that addition would be used as intensively as it deserves to be. The living area for furniture placement would be the same, but it would be more strongly defined. Nevertheless the whole should still appear very spacious because it would still be part of a 15x30 room with kitchen on end and still be open to the north, which would extend additional living activities that direction, instead of east. The dining room might well end up used more for various activities in the middle of the house. In considering this alternative layout, how about a pretty door to the outside from a middle/dining room, French perhaps? And for that matter, are you sure you wouldn't have a door directly out from the kitchen? You have an entry in that end that looks as if it would need some reconfiguring too. Would it enter the middle/dining room? Last night I also thought of one other -- possible -- advantage to switching the kitchen and dining room: the step down. This could be a design asset for a dining room, setting it off as special as viewed from the living room. Since you don't plan to eat there a lot, even with young children you could have a nice rug under the table if you wanted it. You'd take that step mostly on the way back to the children's rooms--longer journeys. For the kitchen, you guys'd be making all the many, many little daily journeys between the living room and kitchen on a level floor. Morning sun in kids' hallway? Have sunshine everywhere and you eliminate the pleasure of entering a sunny room. A dim hallway is often a design asset because it makes the rooms opening off it all the more inviting. I can't see what that cabinet in the hall is, but with a little attention to attractiveness and interest, the hall looks pretty good to me. The only way I could imagine to improve it would be to extend it to come back around on itself -- children love to run in circles. :) As it is now, though, the hall enters a sunny middle room in the mornings, setting that room off really nicely, however it's used.
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What do you all think of this idea? I think you're stuck on your idea even if it's not the most efficient because you'll be crossing zones and also because you have too many narrow lower cabinets. What you have to decide is if you're a person who favors function over design or design over function. I personally would never pick design over function but that's me. I am not a fan of cooking (although I am a good cook because I like eating good food), so want the most efficient kitchen possible. YMMV. Will it look odd to have a relatively narrow oven stack sticking up all by itself? Yes and it will feel like an afterthought as well as blocking some of that light between kitchen and dining area. I notice in your latest versions you also give up seating at the island. Again if you both cook together, you want 48" from what sticks out the furthest to what sticks out the furthest. And here is another version, with the fridge between the dining room and kitchen. That is better since you now have the proper work flow and additionally now the fridge is closer to the dining room. However you still seem to be favoring narrower lower cabinets versus less cabinets but wider ones. Trust me you can get a lot more in a wider cabinet and very little in narrow ones. Also you have the dishwasher and trash on the wrong side of the sink. Dishwasher you want out of your prep zone which is BETWEEN sink and cooktop and trash bins in the prep zone. A super susan is basically useless. Better to widen the drawers on either side of the corner for better storage and make the corner a dead corner. The other issue I see in your last version is where do you store pots and pans? Ideally they should be stored on either side of your cooktop so you're not having to turn around or walk anywhere anytime you need a pot or pan. And why do you want an island that is so deep? Anyways, I meant too wide because a dish drawer may get too heavy when beyond a certain size. I am not sure. It won't. You can get heavy blum runners so it's not an issue. Do yourself a favor and with the last version you have, first figure out how all your dishes, pots, pans, etc will fit in those drawers. Use masking tape to tape out the different size drawers (on the floor) and then try stacking your actual stuff in them. Then in your mind walk yourself through all the baking and cooking you do both daily and for holidays and entertaining. How many steps back and forth carrying pots, pans, etc do you have to do with your layout?
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We don't have a great one, sadly--right now we use a large 1.75 gallon Oxo bin that fits the green waste bags and seems to hold about a day's worth of food waste for our family, so we take that out to the big bin each night. It just sits on the counter next to the sink and people scrape into it throughout the day. We've tried a few countertop bins over the years and I like this one better than most, partly because it's large enough to get us through a full day. We go through periods of also having a backyard compost, which adds a layer of complication since then we have to separate green waste that can go into that from all the other food waste, but the last couple of years we haven't really been maintaining that so that simplifies things. Because we take the food waste out daily, we typically empty the main trash once a week, unless there's something plastic with food waste on it (and even then I sometimes bag that separately and throw it in the big trash bin instead of putting it in the pullout so that I don't have to empty the whole thing). If you do go the under sink route and aren't doing the plumbing yourself, make sure your plumber knows you plan to do that--we needed a sink with a center drain to make that work (or an offset drain on the opposite side would have been fine too) and our plumber was careful to route the pipes so that we'd have room for the double bins. Our dishwasher's flexible drain does route behind the trash, so it is clipped to the back of the cabinet to make sure it stays clear of the bins.
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Buehl
last year
First off, we need more information. See below. Second, why will the basement get more use? Is the "upstairs" Kitchen only a "show" Kitchen and never used? By far the first/top one is more functional.

From the Featured Answer of the "New to Kitchens? Read Me First!" thread:

.

Please post a fully-measured layout of the space under consideration and a sketch of the entire floor. Both can be either hand-drawn, computer generated, or drawn up with computer/app tools.

By "fully-measured", we mean a layout with the widths of each wall/window/door/doorway and the distances between each wall/window/door/doorway labeled. See a sample below. If something cannot be moved or changed, label it precisely on your layout (see post in sample) and tell us why it cannot be moved/changed -- we may have some ideas for you.

The sketch of the entire floor lets us see how the Kitchen relates to the rest of the home. It doesn't have to be to-scale, but it should accurately show how the rooms relate to each other and should include all interior & exterior doors. In addition, it will help us see how traffic flows in, around, and through the Kitchen. Label the front entry and family entry. The family entry is usually a garage or side entry, but it might not be. It's helpful to know which door you use to bring in groceries.

Regardless of how you draw it up (by hand, computer, etc.), please be sure all measurements are labeled. (Note: Computer generated layouts often lack key measurements and, sometimes, measure to/from things like the middle of a wall or the middle of a window. Neither are useful. Measure each item and the distances between each item.)

Other questions...
- Tell us about you and your family and how you plan to use your Kitchen. All-adults? Empty Nesters? Children (now or in the future)?
- What appliances (& their sizes) do you plan to have?
- Where are you flexible? Can walls/windows/doors/doorways change (move, change size, add, delete)?
Also see...
- Ice.Water.Stone.Fire, a humorous discussion of Kitchen design: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2699918/looking-for-layout-help-memorize-this-first
- Work Zones, What Are They?: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5500762/faq-kitchen-work-zones-what-are-they
- Aisles Widths, Seating Overhangs, etc.: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5500771/faq-aisle-widths-walkways-seating-overhangs-work-landing-space-etc
- Storage Planning: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5500787/faq-how-do-i-plan-for-storage

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