Play Architect with our Kitchen…Please?
We’re renovating a kitchen in a detached BK house. Exciting and exhausting! We haven’t hit a design we’re happy with, so your ideas are desperately needed!! The goal is an open, comfortable layout to accommodate a small family and frequent guests. We want to open the house to the back yard as much as possible.In the current layout, the kitchen is the smallest and darkest room in the downstairs. Boo! So we want to open the kitchen to the dining room, and open up that little back sunroom. Feel free to read the following info…or not. :^). Constraints/Quirks – The windows in the kitchen (left side of the image) start about 2.5 feet off the floor, so they’re below the level of the counter. We don’t want to put counter straight across them, which would look awkward and lose light. So we’re open to ideas! Glass countertops? Drop-in butcher block? – I’d particularly like input from people who know how families use space. We haven’t got kids, but after this, we’re not planning on moving ANY time soon! – Will it feel natural to sit at the peninsula (top of the image)? Or will it feel too distant from the action in the kitchen? [having a little trouble uploading an image, so bear with me if this goes up and down a bit]
kimplicated
in Bath & Kitchen 12 years ago
9
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9 replies
johnv00 | 11 years and 1 month ago
It would be great to get some ideas from the other experienced members here but if you want to have it really good, I think you should seek help from [the professionals](http://www.averyhomeremodeling.com).
bkk | 12 years ago
I like the U-shape the best. I agree that it may feel like you have further to travel if you’re in the living room, but speaking specifically to the kitchen/dining/sunroom area it works very nicely. Another side benefit is the bathroom (or what I assume is the bathroom) will have a wall between it and the kitchen, which is alwasy nice. The stand-alone island is nice as well, I would be happy with both these designs I think. The “triangle” is a little iffy in this design but the trade-off is the easier access from living room. You’re getting close!
mruby36 | 12 years ago
Hidden bookshelf doors? What are we hiding… and remember, the NSA can see you… Bad politics aside, yes I have seen and been intrigued by hidden bookcase designs but have never built one. Being just a bit intrigued by these for some time, it seems clear that doing this well means looking at design and construction details separately at first, then combining the two. Construction parameters first, then work your design around what has to be incorporated so that the thing functions well AND is truly hidden. If it doesnt function well, it will stick out like a sore thumb and, well, not be truly hidden… Two key items are hinges and framing. Pivot hinges work far better than butt or piano hinges, and room for framing allows for sturdy construction so things stay where they are supposed to. The better ones are built so that no supporting wheel is needed on the far open end, causing an arc track on the floor or carpet, which of course, blows the hidden thing. Ok, side story: More years ago than I’ll admit to, I was doing restoration work on a large and historic old old house on the ocean in Mass. The place was a “summer” house which was amazing in itself and with all the cobwebs and creep factor adding to that. When exploring the inside of this place, you could tell there was dead space someplace, like one room didnt seem to line up with adjacent rooms so we went looking… We came across a hidden bookcase exposing a staircase leading to a part of the house none of us had the nerve to go explore. I’m not kidding. To my knowledge, none of the guys I was working with went down those stairs. Anyway, as nice as this one was, the marks on the floor was the give away although the supporting wheel was not original and my guess was that it was not needed for quite some time after this was built. That was sort of the inception of an idle fascination with these and I’ve looked at plans from time to time and have wanted to take a crack at building one ever since. So please do reach out if you want to build one and I haven’t bored you back to sleep. Oh, your kitchen. I struggled with the peninsula vs u-shaped once for similar reasons, went with the u-shape, and the concerns never materialized, I can send you some pics if you like and you may see similarities. With placing the fridge towards the open end of the U as you have, it becomes not as far as you might think to add ice to your beverage. The 3′ by 3′ space created by the inside corner of the U facing the seating, in my case I housed a wine cooler and have it facing out into the room. I don’t miss the space in the kitchen and it added a great look and functionality to the space and helps to pull the different spaces together. As for being more specific on the plan, I find the 3D rendering more difficult to get my head around the layout versus a plan drawing with dimensions and maybe some actual pictures of the space? I’d welcome doing a walk through with you on either of these projects so please reach out if that would work for you. Thanks again and hope this helps! Matt R www.nyc-hs.com
kimplicated | 12 years ago
Hi guys, Brokelin, BKK, and Matt–thanks a bunch for your feedback (and your affability!). I really wanted that layout to work, to make that sunroom as central as possible, but you guys had really excellent points. Your pennies and cents are clearly valuable. Two new new floorplan/rendering are attached, based on thinking after your comments. Whaddya think? Keep in mind, though, that the space is significantly smaller than it looks in these renderings (Homestyler.com is great, but not perfect). The U-shape version is nice because everything is very compact and accessible, and it maintains a great opening to the sunroom. It’d be great for cooking. But it feels kind of closed off, and lacks flow. If you were in the front of the house and wanted a drink of water, you’d have to walk for miles (in the snow! both ways!). The Island-version has better flow, but I’m concerned about the amount of counter space and the recessed fridge making the sunroom feel cut off. Counter seating is important to me, but agree that it’s not gonna work at the sunroom peninsula. If the sunroom is freed up, then Brokelin, your idea of putting shallow cabinets on that one solid wall is a very good one. And having the main sink face a wall kinda sucks, but it’s near the stove (should I swap with prep sink?). [Matt R, nice projects on your website. …got any experience with hidden bookshelf doors?]
mruby36 | 12 years ago
To my count, there were two condescending remarks and I agree with the assessment of the net effect of that type of response hurting the value of the site. As for your kitchen plan, it does seem just a bit chopped up, I agree the seating seems at a distance and might be better more incorporated, and I’m not sure I’d put the sink way out there as shown. Among other things, its tough to vent it well and, it seems far away from the flow of work. Brokelin mentioned the work triangle. Really good and important point to pay attention to. The way you have it, stuff that comes out of the fridge to be prepped at and along side the sink, is a long walk from the fridge and then way on over to the stove and then really way on over to where the meal is consumed. If you like to cook, envision _how you_ go about cooking, _thats your personal work triangle._ There are some of us (such as myself) that will spend a reasonable amount of time to sit down and work through a few designs with you and, well, not charge for it. Its a risk of time some are willing to take, as unprofessional as that may seem… Best of luck and hope two more cents helps! Matt R www.nyc-hs.com
bkk | 12 years ago
I’m not sure what necessitated the condescending remark from bedstuy, these kind of replies make people apprehensive to post on this site at all, which in my opinion hurts the value of this site… Anyway, I agree with Brokelin’s points, the counter with stools should definitely be on the main island, not off the far wall. You seem to have a lot of room in the center of the area (between dining room and far wall of kitchen), so you may have room for a wider (non-L-shaped) island. That’s my two cents – or I guess zero pennies according to some… 🙂
nycdesignerr | 12 years ago
Free is advice is worth every penny you pay for it. Engage the services of a professional.
brokelin | 12 years ago
Ok, I’ll bite. Yes, sitting at your peninsula will always seem awkward, mainly because it is an peninsula jutting out from the wall, and it is a rather bad use of that lovely sunroom area. Rather than putting a part of your kitchen cabinetry in the sunroom, leave that peninsula off altogether, and put a small round breakfast table on one side or the other of the sunroom – furnish that room with furniture, not the peninsula. If you need extra kitchen stuff storage space in there, you can put something (perhaps tall cabinets with glass doors on top – they don’t have to be counter-depth deep, narrower depth would be nice), along that one solid wall in the sunroom, the one you have the peninsula sticking out of. That’d make a nice focal point for that room, besides the view of the outdoors on the back side obviously. The space in front of your windows is fine. Leave them as is – no need to fill them. I don’t like your kitchen triangle at all. The sink seems far to removed from the stove for efficient cooking. Why not flip the location of the fridge and range? Then the sink and range would be closer to one another, and access to the fridge to get something out of it when coming and going from the dining table won’t take that person into the center of the cooking action in the kitchen, but can be off to the side, as it is in an efficient layout. I’m not sure why you have the corner of the island sticking out even further into the dining room area than need be – seems like it just creates more counter space to have to walk around without adding anything. In fact, I’m not sure why you have the island an L-shape that turns a corner at all. I’d do one long island there, not turning the corner, perhaps with the sink off center at one end of it, facing the dining area obviously, with seating at the island, if you feel you need that in addition to the dining table and breakfast table, at that island. Then the seating at the island is part of the action between both the kitchen and the dining room – that’s a better place for it. Your dining room is not so narrow that seating there would be too crowded – you have a nice wide dining room with the bay window. If I was putting an overhang for seating at the island (which I probably woudln’t, but most people seem to want it), I’d make the island deeper, extending further into the kitchen space than it currently does. In any event, I would situate the island so it wasn’t entirely in the (former) dining room space, as it is now, but rather sitting smack on the line (however deep you make it) of the former wall between the kitchen and dining room – it seems at too far a remove from the rest of the kitchen for an efficient kitchen triangle, and it seems to be crowding the dining room a bit as well, and just seems like an awkward use of space being entirely in the dining room area. I think it would join the two rooms into one better (the former dining room and the kitchen) if it were on the line where the wall was, and I do think that is the aim here.
bedstuytownhouse | 12 years ago
No one understands what you are asking for. Glass counter tops…what? Try Home Depot or Lowes for free advice from their kitchen designers.