Kitchen Remodel Layout Help
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Kitchen remodel layout help, please
Comments (19)Walking all the way around the corner to the pantry would be a non-starter for me. It wouldn't bother me to have the door to the pantry interrrupt the counter run, and it's an improvement to not have the entrance to the kitchen from the both mud room AND the pantry interrupt the counter run as it had been plotted on the first drawing. As a thought experiment think about the pathways food takes within your kitchen from storage position(s) to prep (often a sink) and almost always to a counter or stove to plating and delivery to table. And then the reverse when leftovers and dirty dishes return for more action at the end of the meal. In general the fewer times the food has to back track over where it's been in a previous stage, the better. Not to mention a less convoluted pathway for the cooks makes for easier meal prep. An example: in your latest drawing: you have your main clean-up sink in almost the farthest away point it can get from your dining room. Since most people like the convenience of storing the dishes near the DW that means that your dishes will have to cross a long way to go to the DR. And your DW is on the side of the sink that's almost within the main prep cooking aisle so your kids, if they're tasked with setting the table or belatedly emptying the DW, will be in the action area. Just moving the DW to the other side of the sink would be an improvement. (Or consider repositioning the sink.) I know most people first think about the look and features they want to achieve for their kitchen and then try to arrange the cooking elements within that vision. I am always plumping here to start by thinking of the food pathways, and the human pathways while doing the cooking, as a first step. Once you've got that down, then you can work out the visuals. I think even something like starting from the idea that you want an island with seating or an island cooking position is a step too far down the line until you have the pathway thing worked out. I'm not saying discard any attractive features at the start, but just don't start the plan focused on the features. A kitchen is primarily a room for storing, preparing, cooking and delivering your food to your family. Get that right and the rest is much easier. Where does your food come into the house: most likely the garage. It goes to fridge and pantry and maybe the cabs near the stove. Then it's collected from the storage places and taken to the sink or a counter and prepped and/or cooked. I think it would be fine to have the entry to pantry near the fridge, breaking through that counter run. A prep sink will separate the clean-up operations from the veggie washing and icky chicken-hands type of usage. But I'm not sure having the prep sink at the clean-up sink end of the island is best since that places it opposite the stove position. I'd consider moving it more towards the other end so you have a kind of zigzag between the fridge/pantry to island prep sink and back across to the range. Don't have the range and prep sink opposite each other unless you have really wide aisles (48-60"). Otherwise someone standing at the prep sink will be in danger of having their heels stepped on by someone at the stove who wants to step back a tad in order to peek in the broiler. (I confess that in my own plan I do have the island prep sink closer to the range than the ideal zigzag I am proposing. I pondered it a long time and decided I can live with it as we are an older two-adult, basically one-cook family; and my range is 48" long so I have lots of sideways room to stand aside, and my island is only 27" wide so another cook can actually use the sink for prep from the opposite side of the island.) Lots of people find it imperative to have the fridge on the DR edge of the kitchen so they can easily fetch stuff from the fridge during meals, so your present position of it may be a very good one. Moving the prep sink towards the DR will break up your island prep space somewhat so you may want to play around to get the best place for it. Moving it farther away from the main sink may add to your plumbing costs. Another option to play around is shifting the location of the range slightly to off-set the prep sink and range from each other. Meanwhile think about the next step when the food is being cooked - where are your pots stored and how did they get back there from the dishwashing operation? And then, where are the plates stored? Don't hesitate to have cabs in the island that don't all line up and face in the same direction. For instance, you could have a cab on the clean-up end of the island that opened toward the sink counter run, not toward the stove. You might consider even moving the clean up sink farther towards the bottom of the drawing and putting the DW opposite the end of the island with a dish cab opening towards it from the end of the island. That would make convenient storage for your dishes; convenient to unload - just open the DW and the drawers in that cab and transfer the stuff. It would also make for a convenient place from which to grab the plates when the food is ready to be dished. As I mentioned above the current position of the DW is a problem since it kind of herds the action into, not away from, the cooking aisle which should remain free of temptations for non-cooking people to enter it for any reason. When you think you have a good food-pathway driven plan then spend some time thinking through your present cooking activities and see how often, and where, the cooks cross paths during meal prep - those are potential collision spaces, perhaps some can be eliminated by further tweaking. Even though I am the only cook, I drew my own pathways on rough sketches so I could see how often I backtracked and find improved storage points and efficiencies for many of our commonest meals. At the earliest stages of kitchen design only the immutables like structural supports and unmoveable door and window positions should be givens - everything else should be on the table as you think about the food paths, IMO. You'll have less trouble getting to a good plan that's as fully populated with the most important-to-you features as possible because you'll be placing them within the best functional plan you can come up with. When you can't place any more, you're done! HTH L...See MoreKitchen Remodel Layout Help Please
Comments (6)I don't care for the fridge stuck perpendicular on the end of that run. You're creating a cave with unusable space in the corner, top and bottom. Top could be an appliance garage, but you're not really gaining anything. I'd put the pantry to the right, then the fridge. As for the bump-out, I think it's too deep to put a whole row of cabinets in front of the bump-out. If you are raising the window anyway, how do you feel about setting the sink and DW into the bay, then having a diagonal counter for prep space between the sink and range? The trash pull-out could be set on the diagonal, too, with voided space behind the cabinet faces. You might even have space for a narrow slot for cutting boards beside the range. The sink is off-center to the window, so the faucet is centered to help disguise the asymmetry. A couple of other issues: With no upper cabinets adjacent to the range hood, it should be 6" wider than the cooktop, to provide a wider capture area for steam and grease. Secondly, the passage between the island and stub wall should be at least 36". I redrew the island a few inches narrower, with the 5th seat on the short side--8' will be sufficient for 4 seats. The aisle between the island and perimeter should be a minimum of 42", so setting the sink run back into the bay will help with that. You have extra space in front of the fridge run, so that counter could be made extra-deep to match the depth of a standard fridge box (30"). NKBA guidelines New to Kitchens? Read me first. Discussions--Extra-deep counters Discussions--all drawer bases Discussions--dishes in drawers...See MoreKitchen remodel layout help
Comments (14)Thanks for all the feedback; it didn't feel right and I'm glad I wasn't wrong in thinking that. We rarely use our formal dining room (5-6 times a year) and wanted to enlarge the kitchen because it can be tight at times from a family of 5. Additionally, we thought if the kitchen was immediately adjacent to the living room we'd use it more too; currently we rarely ever use that room either. Our goal was to increase the functional living space. I took some pictures of the house currently before I left for work (sorry if lighting is off) and updated the plan with labels. Thank you again for the help. Walking into the house from the front door to show the opening in the stairwell that opens into current dining room. We are updating the stair railing also. Dining room entry from living room showing the wall that is coming down. View of dining room from kitchen entry. Kitchen into dining room entry way. Kitchen from dining entry, I am standing near pantry door while taking this picture. Kitchen from living/family area. Kitchen/dining area from hallway entry. You can see some carpet in living area, we are taking that out and extending the hardwood floor into that room. Kitchen from dining area, you can see the hallway entry to left and the pantry door to the right of the fridge....See MoreKitchen remodel layout help?
Comments (1)More information: I cook from scratch at least 5 days a week, with the intention of making leftovers for lunch and the 2 days I don’t cook. At least 3 of those dinners are elaborate. I use both the oven and the range top equally, as well as a microwave, toaster, coffee machine, indoor smoker, crock pot, and instant pot. There is currently no pantry storage that isn't upper cabinets, and one is awkwardly located over the peninsula corner. There is no where else in the house that works for pantry storage- the original “formal” dining area and original kitchen area (which is now a throughway to the extension and the basement, as you can see on the layout) are quite narrow. I dislike the two awkward/useless corners the peninsula creates and want to get the microwave off of the counter (but not over the oven!!). I think the glass cabinets are crowding the window. I’d love to give it more breathing room. I would like to have a place to hide the microwave and other less attractive appliances. The current fridge cutout no longer houses a standard size fridge, and is too small for a 36” counter depth fridge, which is a must for me. The cabinets are builder grade late 90’s oak doors with plywood interior. I’ve seen worse quality, but I’ve also seen much better. The countertop is hideous - I hate the wood edge, the faux marble laminate really shows how far digital printing has come since the 90’s, and I hate the knocked out corner. Very time stamped, but at least the cabinets have a classic shape that isn’t completely out of place in an old home. A U shaped kitchen with an island would remove one of the corners, but the island would be impossible to center to the window & sink unless everything on the exterior right wall was 9-10” deep (floor to ceiling pantry storage?? But then where does the oven go?) A U shaped kitchen with a dining table instead of an island?? Just a U shape? Keep the stupid peninsula and shell out extra countertops? It’s currently 58sf of countertop, and the shape makes using remnants impossible. If we were buying new cabinets, there is opportunity to change the layout. We have considered painting the current cabinets, removing the cabinets that flank the window, making the current fridge hole into a covered appliance garage/pantry area, moving a 36” counter depth fridge to the new wall on the left with floor to ceiling pantry cabinets surrounding (with doors that match the current ones), and adding a new countertop, but are worried it would be throwing good money after bad. Thanks for your time and interest!...See MoreRelated Professionals
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