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sweet_tea_

Floor plan review- help with kitchen

sweet_tea_
10 years ago

We are trying to finalize our plans and I would appreciate some feedback on the floor plan. We will be building on the top of a ridge on 11.5 acres. It is all hardwoods, the best views are to the rear of the house. The front of the house will face south. The main issue we are having is with the kitchen. Our original sketch had a peninsula bar off the small wall with the wall ovens. I wasn't sure I liked it so we changed it to the island, which I don't like either. The rest of the house we're satisfied with overall, with just a few minor tweaks. This is our first completely custom build, and I would appreciate any suggestions or comments.

This post was edited by sweet-tea on Wed, May 1, 13 at 21:44

Comments (13)

  • zone4newby
    10 years ago

    There's a kitchen forum here where you would get lots of advice. I'd try there.

    My thoughts: if the best views are to the back of the house, I'd want the screen porch to face that way- I'd want to make it wider. Also, I think the pantry is inconvenient.

    I'd be tempted to swap the safe room and pantry-- extending the now-safe room, then-pantry so you could access it from the kitchen corner. You could put in one of those angled corner pantry closets,and have it connect to the larger space. It would be like a secret room.

    Is the safe room to keep things safe, or people? If it's for people, I'd want to be able to access it from within the house.

  • sweet_tea_
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks for your comments. I did post in the kitchen forum as well. We are having a deck across the entire back of the house to enjoy the views. I would love to make the screen porch larger, but our building site is tricky and this size is about our max footprint. As far as the pantry/safe room switch, I'll think that over. The safe room is a tornado/storm shelter space for people. It would be nice if it was a little more convenient, but it was originally just storage space and changing it to be storm proof was an afterthought.

  • kas4
    10 years ago

    I'm no expert, but I think a tornado shelter would be much safer if placed nearer the center of the house instead of on an outside wall. Switching the pantry and safe room as mentioned above would accomplish that. I like the idea of a corner pantry door that looks like it goes into a pantry cabinet but instead opens into an entire room. We saw this in an open house once and it was a great feature.

  • sweet_tea_
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks kas4. I'll continue to explore that possibility. I don't know if it would work because there is a window to the right of the sink. I'm not sure if there would be enough space for a door to access the pantry(safe room) area from there. But I'll measure it out. Are there any other suggestions for the rest of the house? I'm pretty content with it, but always worried that I'm missing something. :)
    Thanks again!

  • carsonheim
    10 years ago

    A doorway to the left of your stove could lead to a nice under-stair pantry space....

  • bird_lover6
    10 years ago

    Just a thought -

    You could make a nice-sized pantry under the stairs, move your laundry room to where your current pantry is (a window in the laundry room is nice), and have your safe room where your current laundry room is. (An interior space is ideal for this purpose.) You can use the present safe room space to enlarge the pantry under the stairs, or for garage storage or porch storage (or both).

    Overall, I really love this plan. I love that the bedrooms are all clustered together, and yet the master is still private.

  • zone4newby
    10 years ago

    I love your layout too. It's flows really well.

    Other dinky little things I might change if it were my house:
    I'd put two sinks in the kid's bathroom.

    I'd use reach-in closets instead of walk-ins in the kids' bedrooms, and put them on the shared wall between the bedrooms at the end of the hall. That would let you put a second window on the corner bedroom, which would make it a much more pleasant room.

    A downside of that is that it would make the corner bedroom noticeably larger than the other two, which might be an issue among your kids.

  • sweet_tea_
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks for the comments!!
    bird_lover 6- I see your point about having a window in the laundry room, but having the laundry next to the bedrooms was on my wish list. I hate having to carry laundry back and forth across the house, I really wanted it located next to the bathrooms and bedrooms.
    zone4newby- I thought about two sinks, but I think we'll be better served with more storage, the more drawers the better. :) We've thought about adding another window to the kids rooms, even with the closets as is. Just trying to decide if it would hinder furniture placement too much.
    Thanks for the suggestions!

  • jimandanne_mi
    10 years ago

    I'd want a powder room as you come in from the garage.

    Anne

  • jimandanne_mi
    10 years ago

    I'd want a powder room as you come in from the garage.

    Anne

  • lyfia
    10 years ago

    I think I'd want to move the door to the deck from the master to the other end of the same wall. This way you have at least one area to place the bed and night stands that is out of a walking area and not having to walk around the bed as I'm assuming you will be placing the head of the bed against the great room as I don't really see another wall that has the space.

    I'd also want to make sure I got the wall between the great room and the master sound proofed.

    I assume your stairs are going down so you might be able to use some of the space at the end of them to cover and use as a pantry.

    I'd also enlarge the mudroom area so you actually can be more than one person in that space. The way the door opens there it makes for an odd and tight space for use by more than one person at a time.

    As others mentioned post the kitchen on the kitchen forum with better dimensions.

    I would also do an excercise of how you plan to place furniture in your plan to make sure you have enough space for what you want and to catch any walking paths and flow issues such as door swings, window placements, enough clearances to walk past without having to take a detour. For example how will you place furniture in the great room and also be able to have somebody walk through it to get to the kitchen etc. without walking in front of somebody watching TV or walking in between a group having a conversation. You'll need some sort of hallways created by furniture arrangement and you'll want to make sure they work as you intend them to.

  • sweet_tea_
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks Lyfia for the comments. I had not thought about moving the door in the master bedroom closer to the bathroom, but I'll check that out. That's a good idea! The walls between master and living will be well insulated. :) The stairs actually go up. I don't think I can use the under stair space as a pantry, because the kitchen windows go almost all the way to the corner. (I don't think I could fit a door there.) My husband works from home and he will have an office upstairs over the north-east end (screen porch/ dining area) and we will have a game/tv room over the south-east end(garage) and the rest of the upstairs will be unfinished storage. I originally had a larger mudroom planned but I nixed the idea, we typically are not coming in through the garage, so it would not really serve it's purpose. I have thought about furniture placement, but it is so hard to tell if what works on paper will work in real life! Thanks for the suggestions!

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