Suggestions on kitchen layout

last year

Looking for some feedback/advice/suggestions on kitchen layout. We are removing the wall between our kitchen and family room and also the wall between our kitchen and dining room and getting all new flooring, cabinets, counters, backsplash, sink, faucet, and lighting for the kitchen. We're seeking an open space where we can watch our kids (ages 2 and 3), entertain guests while preparing food and drinks, and both be in the kitchen without being in each others' way constantly. I love to cook and bake, and my husband loves his espresso machine and wine. This is our forever home.

Here is a link to a drawing of our first floor using SmartDraw. All kitchen, dining, and family room measurements are exact. The rest of the house (hallway, laundry, 1/2bath, living, office) I just eyeballed. https://cloud.smartdraw.com/share.aspx/?pubDocShare=28E5671478B2A9D4549A04B249BCE9FB9C5

I'm attaching a few pictures:

The entire first floor layout to provide a sense of flow and how the dining/kitchen/family room space relates to the rest of the first floor. This is a picture of the SmartDraw drawing taken with my phone in case the link above doesn't work. I know it's not the greatest picture, but hopefully it's enough to give you the overall flow.
Close of up of the dining/kitchen/family room with dimensions that hopefully you can zoom in and actually see the dimensions.
I came up with a layout using RoomSketcher. I'm only using RoomSketcher to play with cabinet, appliance, and furniture layout. I do not have a pro subscription, so I can't add dimensions to that image and I don't have access to all the different finishes. So disregard the colors here... just looking at layout.
Some 3D pics from RoomSketcher of what that layout looks like from a couple of angles.

A few thoughts on the layout:

I'm considering getting a double wall oven and 36" cooktop to replace our 30" slide in range. If I do that, where would I put the double wall ovens? Would a 36" cooktop feel cramped in the space where the range is placed now?
If we put the fridge and pantries in the dining room space, we probably need to move the dining table a bit off center so there's more space for traffic around the fridge. Will it look odd for the dining table to be off center? The dining table is 84"x42" and my uncle made it (including cutting down the tree and drying the wood, etc.) so replacing it with something smaller is not an option--I love the table dearly.

I'm eager to hear what you all think of this layout and what you would suggest changing. Please let me know if I can provide additional info or clarification on anything. And thank you in advance!

Featured Answer

F L

last year

Sarah add a cold water faucet w bar sink in coffee bar, or just a faucet… no different than putting faucet over stove.

I have a similar layout which works and flows like a dream. Sink is centered in island with double stove(wolf with small and large oven) across from sink( allow 5 ft between stove and sink. Dishwasher to left of sink. Trash to right of sink. Frig is on wall to left of island with a garage to house all your small appliances including microwave(many electric outs added inside garage). Close garage doors and goodbye coffee maker toaster etc. I put in all drawers for ease, no more dark corners. Under sink I did put doors with pullout tray.

Comments (19)

sheloveslayouts
last year
What is the distance between the garage wall and the backyard wall (blue)?

What is the distance from the sliding glass door to the range wall?
Sarah
Original Author
last year
14 feet exactly
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I think she is saying to put the sink where the stove is and the stove on the wall opposite the peninsula (where all the cabinets are.) This would still give you a view, only better because you would be able to see out both windows. This would also help break up that wall of cabinets at that end. In my house our kitchen is open to the dining room and I would never expect someone to sit at the island and eat instead of taking three or four more steps to the dining room table and you would essentially have that same setup with your peninsula and dining room. My first thought was that the end where all the cabinets are is a great place for a banquette, but I had not gotten further than that to the cooking space layout. Can you share a link of your layout? There should be a way to email yourself, and the email will contain a link you can share here with us and we can play around with it. :o) But not destroy your original design, of course.
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Why not put the oven wiring on the baking run? If you move the DW and sink to the right, you can have clean-up on that end, then prep in a nice triangle between pantry, fridge, and range/cooktop. Dishes can be kept in a dish hutch, which will balance the fridge, and on the other side of the fridge you could have a coffee station in a full height cabinet. Or put the MW in the cabinet beside the fridge, with the coffee maker below. I drew a shallow open shelf above the the baking counter, with an 18" sink for rinsing hands, and secondary prep. A bar sink will be too small/shallow to be much good there. Even though the baking counter is now smaller, you have plenty of space for mixing, and you can turn and use the short side of the island for lining up baking sheets or rolling dough. My favorite pace to roll dough and make noodles is the short side of my 3' x 5' island. I drew a hood 6" wider than the cooktop--important if there are no upper cabinets to help contain the plume of steam and grease. New to Kitchens? Read me first.
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The fridge is too far from the cooktop. You might consider making the cooktop and hood the focal point of the back wall, with windows on each side. This plan puts the sink and DW on the island, and uses herbflavor's suggestion: In the following plan, clean-up is obscured from view by the ovens, with prep on the island. In both plans, a helper can unload the DW or gather dishes to set the table, without interfering in prep and cooking. In the second plan, you'd have a second prep area between the clean-up sink and the cooktop.
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Hood/MW...If you don't need a MW, then definitely get a real hood! OTR MWs are, at best, mediocre hoods and MWs and, at worst, lousy hoods (still OK MWs, not the best, though). I think a hood is definitely worth the money! What type of cooking do you do? If you don't do much high-heat cooking, stir-frying, etc., you won't need an extra powerful hood. Sink...I understand what you prefer, but a large sink base will rob you of much needed storage. If you think about it, a single-basin 24" will be as big as or bigger than any one of the bowls in a 2-basin sink. I really think this is one place where you should re-consider. If you add another foot to the sink basin to shoehorn in a double-basin sink, you will need to reduce cabinet storage by 12", and that's a lot of storage to lose in a small Kitchen, whether you realize it or not, especially base cabinet storage. Another consideration is that with a large sink basin, you will be crowding the range on one side and/or the seating on the other side. If you expand to the right, you will now have no workspace b/w the sink and range and you will be standing in front of the range while working at the sink. You will also need to be careful about leaving enough room so you don't interfere with the range on one side and the sink basin's doors on the other. If you expand to the left, you will be pushing the DW toward the table and the seating. DW...it's an 18" DW. With just the two of you, I think you will find that an 18" DW will be enough. In the layouts, I was trying to maximize both storage and counterspace. Corners...Regarding the corners, I should have explained. I voided out the corners, there are no corner cabinets. Why? Base corners...IKEA corner susan cabinets use up 38" on each wall, leaving you with almost no other cabinetry between the range and sink. What there would be, would be pretty useless. Upper corners...IKEA only offers a corner cabinet with a diagonal front, which I find surprising as it's such an outdated look and not very functional. (IKEA is usually more "current".) Those corner uppers are almost useless as they are so deep with a relatively small door. If they offered an "easy reach", I would have recommended that instead of voiding, but they don't Blind corner cabinets, both upper and lower, are probably the worst solution to a corner and I would never recommend them. (I've dealt with them in apartments and my MIL has both in her apartment -- things are always getting lost in them.) Even with a(n) (expensive) swing out, they waste a lot of space and you run the risk of something falling off when opening/closing the swing out. Unlike today's corner susans that have walls that follow the contour of the shelves so nothing could possibly fall off, blind corners are wide open. If something does fall off, you cannot close them without retrieving the item...and it's difficult for an adult to do so. You need a small child around to retrieve the fallen item! The best option for storage for this small a Kitchen, IMO, is to void the corners, add the bit of needed filler and use the 11" or so left over to the cabinets on each side of the corner - drawer base for the 24" and pullout or shelves for the 12". Between the studs pantry...the depth would depend on how much space you have between the walls and how "finished" you want it to be. The 6-inch depth you say you have is actually deeper than most such pantries as they use the smaller depth normally between walls (usually 3 inches or so). 6" of depth can be very useful. If you open up the wall behind the ironing board, you may gain another 3" to have 9" deep shelves -- definitely useful! The "sweet spot" for pantry shelves is 12", and you would have close to that. In fact, I might even recommend putting this type of pantry in a couple of locations. You could even make a "between the studs" utility "closet" for broom, mop, etc. In other locations you would only get the 3" or so, but that's still deep enough for can storage, spices, cleaning supplies, broom, etc. Let me see if I can find some pictures to show you.
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Sarah
Original Author
last year
Sorry, just reread your question.
Garage wall to backyard wall( blue) is 14 feet. Slider edge to range wall is 18’3”. And to be specific, currently it’s a big window that we plan to put in a sliding door or French doors, haven’t decided which yet. Thanks!
sheloveslayouts
last year
Do you have a drawing of the current layout?
Sarah
Original Author
last year
Sure, I just edited the layout pic with my phone quickly. The red lines are walls we plan to remove. The blue areas are counters. F=fridge, M=microwave, S=stove, T=small table with 2 chairs. There’s currently nothing in the dining room except a large table and chairs and a round side table with a lamp in the corner.
Sarah
Original Author
last year
Pic
marylut
last year
Definitely sliding doors that may look like french doors - real french doors take up too much valuable floor space when open. Would this kitchen layout meet your needs? Fridge, pantry (with snacks) and MW are close to Fam Rm and patio to keep foot traffic out of your cooking and baking areas.
Sarah
Original Author
last year
Marylut, thank you for your suggestions! Good point about the French door taking up space, I’ll keep that in mind.

I like how you put the fridge out of the way over there which is where we bring in groceries from the garage. And I like that there’s a designated baking center by the ovens which is separate from the cooktop area. It feels like there’s a bit less counter space with this design, but maybe I don’t need it anyway, especially if I can move my husbands espresso machine to the dining room. But will it be annoying that it’s so far from the sink?

I’m curious about the doorway from the hallway to the kitchen, did you move it so that we’re not walking into the island? Or so the baking pantry can be right next to the ovens?

Thanks again, I appreciate your input!
sheloveslayouts
last year
last modified: last year
Do you know if either of those walls are load bearing?

have you considered moving the laundry upstairs?
Sarah
Original Author
last year
FL-your kitchen is beautiful! And I love your hidden small appliances and things. I hate seeing “stuff” on the counters. I like how you’ve reduced upper cabinets so there aren’t dark spaces, it looks so open. I’ll have to consider that. Thank you for sharing!

@sheloveslayouts— the wall between kitchen and dining is not load bearing. Wall between kitchen and family room is load bearing but our contractor says he can fully tuck the beam so it’ll be seamless. I have definitely thought about moving laundry upstairs but I assume it would cost $$$ since the only space for it would be in the front of the house, whereas our bathrooms are in the back of the house—so no nearby plumbing to tap into. And while this is our forever home and I’m inclined to make whatever changes are best for the long term, even if it costs a bit extra up front, we don’t have unlimited funds. So I’d say it’s unlikely we would move laundry at this point unless it cost under 3k. Curious to hear your ideas! Thanks again for your time and consideration :)
emilyam819
last year
Lots of good ideas above. I’d move the fridge as suggested and make the other space a drink/snack bar. Wall ovens there if you decide to go that route.
emilyam819
last year
Oops, here
marylut
last year
@Sarah, you have a great eye for detail. Yes, I shortened the dining/hall wall to be even with the opposite DR wall in order to give you room for Baking pantry and keep an easy way to get to LR. If you put expresso machine on DR wall where I suggested, yes it would be a little walk to the sink for water and I don’t know cost of running new plumbing pipes over to there. Moving plumbing eats up a budget, so I kept sink where is is now.
F L
last year
Thanks Sarah, I had fun designing everything. In regards to the laundry room, I built mine next to the kitchen. I spend my day on first floor, so very convenient to fiddle w washing and drying. Not to mention, if it springs a leak it’s contained to first floor. Love my laundry layout; raised washer and dryer❤️with pullout shelves and drawers underneath, rolling clothes hamper (tucked under counter to store), bench seating with coat hooks above, broom closet(cleaning supplies ).

Just a thought in regards to sinks (plumbing) being moved. You are obviously into a larger and expensive redo. I was there during my construction with balancing costs and my heart goes out to you. Now that I am through the other side, I have no regrets spending more to achieve a better work flow and functionality or beauty to our home. Yes it hurt initially but I chose to cut corners where it didn’t matter or could be added later. Best of luck!
Sarah
Original Author
last year
@marylut, thanks for that. Yeah, I agree it makes sense to move that doorway so traffic flows better. Meeting with contractor Friday, will see what kind of extra cost that would be and whether it’s feasible. It also occurred to me to eliminate the doorway altogether so there’s more space, but DH REALLY hated that idea so I don’t see that happening without an exceptional justification, lol.
Sarah
Original Author
last year
@FL, thanks for your perspective, I appreciate you sharing that. This is my first remodeling project and there’s so much to consider and trying to balance cost and desires, it’s a bit overwhelming. So I really appreciate folks on this site sharing opinions and perspectives, it really helps.
I kinda wish I had chosen a bathroom for my first project. But …when our dishwasher flooded the kitchen subfloor, which wasn’t visible until it had been soaked for weeks and warped our cabinets… the project kind of selected itself, ha! We always planned to eventually remove those walls and open things up. And apparently “eventually” has arrived. Cheers!
coray
last year
Good luck with your project, Sarah! We went through the same thing this summer, albeit w/o wall removal, as everything was already open; it’s still a big job! I like Marylut’s and F L’s suggestions, but if you’re concerned about the distance between coffee bar and sink, maybe you could put sink, DW and trash in your island…? We usually only make coffee once/day nowadays (unless we have guests) and find it no big bother to walk a few extra steps to fill up the coffee maker. I even very deliberately decided against the oh-so-fashionable pot filler because my sink is nearby, and I still have to travel that distance to EMPTY a pot into the sink, so I felt it was (for me) superfluous. (I also cook a lot and knew the pot filler would get dirty.) I also like emilyam819’s idea of a combined wine/coffee bar…in this case you could keep some coffee cream in the wine cooler so you won’t have to walk all the way to the fridge near the family room. Just food for thought….you do you!
F L
last year
Sarah, looking at your layout, I see two doors off kitchen and dining area. Closing off the door(not expensive or hard to do) in the kitchen area opens a whole new world for storage/coffee bar etc. I’m assuming on the other side of wall is all laundry room. If so, how many doors does a laundry room need? Having the one laundry door near the dining area/back door area would also dampen the sound of the washer and dryer. Needless to say, you gain wall area in laundry room. Just a thought.

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