Layout in Brownstone Kitchen Renovation?
I’m interested in feedback on potential kitchen layouts in a relatively small kitchen/dining room renovation. We’re torn between having an island, a peninsula, or a U-shaped kitchen – and if we do a U-shaped kitchen, whether the sink should be in the peninsula part or the bottom of the “U” facing out the rear window. If we go with the island, we are torn between a better triangle with the sink in the island, or one line of appliances and cabinets with an open-countertop island. We definitely want room for stools as part of the island or peninsula as we want a very open, social kitchen/dining room. Some of the layout problems stem from our plan to add a door to the back yard off either the kitchen or dining room. If the door is off the dining room and we have an island, there’s good flow but less countertop/storage space. If there’s a peninsula, it will be harder to get from the kitchen out to the back yard without going around the peninsula. But if we put the door off the kitchen, and have a peninsula, people will be coming in and out of the kitchen workspace and probably driving us crazy. So our options seem to be having an island (which means door location is less of an issue), a peninsula with door off the dining room, or U-shaped with door off the dining room. I’m concerned the U-shaped kitchen will feel claustrophobic in such a small space and possibly take up too much dining room space for the U, but it would create a nice kitchen work area if done well. The house is a 100+ year old brownstone where kitchens were hidden in the back behind closed doors, so to realize any of this we need to pull down a wall and have a header/post situation around the island/peninsula. If done well it should look pretty nice, but the layout is really tough. For now we are bidding out the peninsula/dining room door option since it seems like a good one. Our architect, who is awesome, suggested that we get to the demolition stage, with the contractor we end up picking, and then make quick decisions based on that and then order cabinets at that point. I’d love to know what other people do in this situation, and also would be interested in any layout suggestions.
jeanmarine2
in Bath & Kitchen 12 years and 3 months ago
5
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jeanmarine2 | 12 years and 3 months ago
http://cdn.brownstoner.com/512225f31be7b-processed-islandrenovation.jpg
http://cdn.brownstoner.com/512225b9accc2-processed-peninsulaushapedrenovation.jpg
http://cdn.brownstoner.com/512225726b36c-processed-bidpackagepeninsulanourenovation.jpg
http://cdn.brownstoner.com/5122253d1556b-processed-wallintactrenovation.jpg
Here’s the possible U-shaped kitchen w/peninsula as part of the U, then the possible island layout, then the planned layout drawing with a peninsula with no u-shape (like an island but coming out of the wall, or a galley kitchen with the peninsula as one side of the galley). After that I uploaded the current layout (with the wall intact). We could put the door to the outside off the kitchen or the dining room.
jeanmarine2 | 12 years and 3 months ago
anyone know how to upload a photo to this website as part of a reply? original poster here – wanting to upload our renovation drawings for comparison purposes and not sure how
BSDOD | 12 years and 3 months ago
The peninsula works for me. I value the storage more than anything else. Sink under the window is nice, lazy Susan under the bend in the peninsula, and counter seating, with exit to the backyard in the dining room. My choice was based on the half bath we stuck in on the parlor floor, which reduced the kitchen size a bit.
nf85 | 12 years and 3 months ago
I second a lot of what Brokelin said. We are in the midst of planning a similarly constrained kitchen reno (also really separate from the rest of the house), and I really made myself crazy early on with all the options and “shoulds”. Once I looked at it as simply a bunch of individual options, each with its own pros and cons (rather than a single perfect endpoint), I was better able to prioritize them. At one point, in choosing between two layouts I literally made a grid with pros and cons for each. It helped me really understand what I was choosing between–it wasn’t always what I’d thought going in. I also recommend taping out your different layouts if you find it hard to visualize. While cooking now, I’ve been mimicking how I’d do it in the new layout, and it has been really helpful.
brokelin | 12 years and 3 months ago
My two cents on layout. They all work, it depends on what YOU want as your main priorities. If you want a lot of light in the kitchen, go for a full-length glass door there. Yes, traffic then sucks. That’s the flip side. If you want to prioritize ease of traffic movement in and around your kitchen, put the door in the dining room, and also put in an island, rather than a peninsula, so people can enter and exit the kitchen at each end of the island (I would do this, as I prioritize ease of traffic flow.) If you want to have the most storage and counter area, go for the peninsula/U (I think these are one and the same, unless you mean the peninsula to be else where) – but I’d rather find storage high, elsewhere, or in nooks like a pantry at the end of the kitchen opposite the window than make the floor hard to walk around. I also don’t like working in a U-shaped kitchen – I feel corralled, penned-in. As to what’s on that island: if you want to sit there a lot, and don’t have room for a deep island with an eating space clearly demarcated from the cooktop or sink on the island, then leave the island free of appliances, and put them on the other wall – though depending on your layout, there is sometimes room for the wall oven or refrigerator to be on the short wall across from the window, as opposed to on the long wall with the other applicances, giving you effectively an L-shape plus clear island. I think I personally don’t prefer sitting at the island on stools, or having others sit there, so I would put the sink and dishwasher in the island – but not if I intended to sit opposite them (or have others sit opposite them) on stools. Keep looking at kitchens you see online and see what appeals to YOU most.