We are moving the kitchen in our 1950s trad 2-story. Architectural drawings below. Still at the planning stages. Moving everything (plumbing, electrical), taking down a wall, replacing a window and adding a patio door.

I came to this layout with much help from IKEAfans. But still nervous -- GWers - do you see any changes I should make to this layout?? Any major words of advice?? Right now we're still in the planning stages!

More background:

The new space is 14'9" x 10'10 with slightly vaulted ceilings and 2 skylights. It opens onto dining room and will open on to deck.

My must-have is seating in the kitchen. Husband's is lots of counter space. It's a 1.5 butt kitchen: he does most cooking, I prep & clean. I have bad feet so like to sit to prep. No baking. We entertain 1-2x per week, 2-10 people, and plan to have kids.

Function over form. Budget is medium-low - no double appliances, no stone, since we're wasting all our money on moving the darn room, but we are getting custom cabs (surprisingly cheaply) so are flexible with cab widths.

Couldn't figure out a way to squeeze an island in, so will likely have a u-shape, peninsula, breakfast bar. Raised bar because husband wants to hide mess. We're both biggish and clumsy so like nice wide aisles.

The one immovablish thing is the window over the sink -- it's visible from the street so want to have it centered on the exterior wall. Won't add windows to long exterior wall as it looks right down into neighbor's kitchen.

Current layout - living and kitchen face the street

New layout - kitchen moves to sun room, old kitchen becomes laundry

Sun room dimensions (had to do in excel - IKEA planner was down today!)

Proposed cab layout.

Some notes:

* Uppers will be about 40" and scribed to ceiling.

* Not sure about micro in pantry. We use about once a day. A little worried about being squeezed between fridge and wall to use micro. Husband wants OTR micro.

* I really want DW on same run as sink and will put up with sink cab off center to get it. This short run also means blind corner cabs on both corners - will fit out with half moon pullouts for bakeware and small appliances.

* Cab maker specced 13.5" glass front uppers to either side of window. I would keep glassware in them. Don't want to squeeze window too much but worry 13.5 is too small to be practical. Here I show 15" cabs.

* We will use laundry as sort of a butler's pantry as well, will have upright freezer in this room.

The prettier stuff --

I have moroccan tiles to go behind the stove. White shaker cabs. Talking to a fabricator about stainless counters for sink and stove runs (grey in photo). Maple butcher block counters on the bar and bottom leg of 'U' - surprisingly affordable from local craftsman. Wanted butcher block all over but we can't get Waterlox in Canada right now and I'm nervous of the sink area.

Bar will have 2 pendants, 2 pendants over sink as well -- although skylight is off centre to window which kind of worries me. I am vowing to ignore it. Under cab LED lighting and chandelier at peak of vaulted ceiling.

Awning window to countertop behind sink (our others are casements). Seeded glass cabs to either side of sink for glassware. Re: bar: there is enough room for 5' of bar PLUS post on the peninsula. The wall between the living and dining room will kind of "shelter" the bar stools so they aren't too in the way.

Why move the kitchen?? --

Old kitchen: isolated from rest of house, impossible to expand (hemmed in by mucho plumbing, fireplace, and stairs), has laundry in the kitchen and fridge in the hallway, no room for seating, structural post holding up second floor right in the middle of the room.

New kitchen is: accessible to dining and deck, larger, brighter, and not too horribly expensive to run stuff to because the ceilings in the basement are all open.

Thinking of resale down the road (WELL down the road) -- do you think buyers will be turned off by such a big room? Should I make part of it something else like little home office?

This is what it looks like now...we will add a wall near where the fridge is now.

1. W/ available space (in the middle), I would make the cabinets along the fridge wall extra deep, so that the standard depth fridge doesn't stick out too far.
Slide-in range or cooktop w/ oven under, so that a ?'normal' range w/ the high back doesn't look weird pulled out from the wall.
You will love the extra deep countertop. Some make extra deep uppers also.

2. I love love my big sink.
I would make the sink 36", shrinking the trash pull-out to 18" (can still fit 2 bins sideways), or w/ a 36" sink cab, can put the trash bins on 1 side of the sink. Which is what I did (but haven't move back into kitchen so haven't really seen it in action yet). I didn't have the space to dedicate to just trash, and I didn't want to waste the space under the sink.

3. Would definitely make the peninsula counter all 1 level. Your DH will LOVE that big span of countertop space!

4. is that little wall w/ the books required/load-bearing? if not, I would take it all the way back. It's your main way into kitchen/deck; 57" wide is better than 42" for traffic flow. (Before my reno, my main kitchen pathway = 28", so I now LOVE my 54" pathway!!!)

good luck,
Amanda

1. I could definitely get deeper lowers and uppers but worry about squeezing the sink run even more! I COULD just pull out the fridge and pantry...

2. I MAY be able to find 3" for the sink...that's what the cab designer had orig, but then he showed us this trash pullout that DH really liked that needed 21". Up in Nova Scotia we have 4 kinds of trash - garb, organics, recyclable, refundable, so we need a lot of containers.

3. I'm going to try to get him on board for 1 level!

4. Good point on the opening. We too LOVE big openings and we have lots of people milling around all the time! About 5" is needed for a post but the rest is free.

My dilemma is that I planned that cab as landing space for opening the door and going out on the deck with big trays of BBQ, which DH does on a regular basis! I don't want to interfere with the process of getting the BBQ to my plate.

Open door - thanks so much for your ideas! Spices could also go on shelf to L or R of stove. Is this more convenient than drawer?

No lifts (no kitchen aid) but I was thinking of keeping the blender, cuisinart, etc. on the half moon pullouts by the dishwasher. We don't use them super often so they don't need to be right by the stove. We also have some VERY little used appliances (fondue pot anyone?) I'll keep in the laundry room.

I'm hoping to keep the coffee and tea stuff to the left of the sink as well along with the toaster.

Is it better to have a wider (48") doorway into the kitchen, or more drawer space?

I could take 3" off each drawer bank near dishwasher, shorten the peninsula, and widen the doorway?

24" drawers should still be sufficient to hold my dishes, which are now in a 21" upper...right? (I know technically no one can answer this question but me)

Bonus photo of future sink wall

I also think you should definitely make the new laundry room into something more...office sounds good.

I had never, ever considered extending the opening into the living room. The room is formal & small so couldn't support bar seating. Opening it up would really modernize the house but that's not a bad thing. Budget concerns might be another matter.

Here is a photo giving some impression of the relationship between living, dining and kitchen (from the realtor, not our stuff). The wall with the pocket doors is coming down and kitchen will be behind.

For us, because we have kind of big badonkadonks, I think clearances with an island would feel quite tight. We had a u-shaped kitchen with 5' interior aisle before and even found that too small for two (mind you, it was a tiny kitchen). Stupid 11 foot deep rooms! Too big for cab runs and just that bit too small for islands!

BUT -- you're making me think we might be able to get a butcher block on wheels to help the cook out when he's at the stove.

Your laundry area looks good. It might be handy to move the sink over and have a desk or craft area, under the window.

I did consider sink/dw on peninsula. The problem is the dining room is totally interior, very dark with no windows, so the "view" from the sink would be blah.

Now if I could take out the bit of the wall leading to the living room, that might be a different story! It has a huge window out to the street.

I feel my mortgage kicking in the womb right now, trying to grow bigger and bigger!

Three thing holding me back from opening into LR: 1) cost. 2) it's a formal living, we actually have a huge family room on the back of the house, so opening it up won't bring the kitchen that much more into the main living area. 3) It will really mess with the semi-trad thing the house has going on (arched doorways, rounded moldings, etc). But on the plus side it will really brighten up the dining room which trust me, it needs it!

Keep with the square? Arabesque? Plain subways? Should this be a new thread?

Another idea, if it's not too expensive, would be to place the dining area into the sun room. If you could move the powder room and laundry to the left side of your craft room, the kitchen could be in the entire space between the sun room and the family room.

You could have dish storage by the sun room dining space, rather like a butler's pantry. And then a galley style kitchen or maybe a long wall of appliances with sink on an island.

There is a doorway from dining to family so we are going to door off utility and keep it as sorta not public space - the other side of the house will have all the traffic.

As is. Beyond the arch, the wall is coming down.

Terrible photoshop, shows arch down. Will it make my tiny triangular formal living feel like a hallway?

Your plans are looking good!

I think you may be right about it feeling like a hallway. This would be your view from the front door, right?

- TBB

Miz - I wouldn't switch for three reasons - 1. DH wouldn't stand for it 2. the DR is even more open to the kitchen. 3. We use the LR quite a bit as it has a nice fireplace in it and is cozy for small groups.

When the people before us renovated, they took out the central hall. There is no hallway on the first floor, instead it is set up as a circle (very confusing for first time visitors).

So the living room is already a major throughfare. Which is fine with us - we have it set up with a clear passageway.

Below is an overview of the main floor plan. The kitchen is moving to the room marked "den" on the plan.

Have you seen this kitchen? I thought of this backsplash when I saw your tile.

I had a family member with a turn-of-the-last-century house with a grand entry hall with this gorgeous secretary (piece of furniture secretary.) It gave a wonderful sense of entry - put down the mail, plop into a comfy chair, and regroup. Greet several car-fuls at once. The parlor was pretty small, but the whole house had this expansive feel because of that big entry hall.
Also a vestibule, reminiscent of yours.

We just got our first quote for kit n' kaboodle. It was a bit of an eyepopper (more quotes to come, but this is someone we have worked with and we know he is more than fair). So suffice it to say things are going to stay on the simpler side, especially in the utility area. I'm already putting together my clawback list!

Also when I have too long to think about things I try to change it all. Today I tried to turn the peninsula into an island.

On the plus side, all my lighting is here and faucet is on the way. I learned in my last bathroom reno that if I want cute bargain stuff from the internet, order in plenty of time so my contractor doesn't get cranky.

Ikea vs low priced local?

A contractor friend recommended a local semi custom cab company that did his kitchen. Blum hinges, metabox drawers, no soft close, painted finish, limited selection colours (but includes white, cobalt, turquoise). Custom width cabs, can get lots of lovely glass. All made here in ns. They gave us a shockingly low quote....so low that For the same price, I can get an Ikea kitchen delivered and installed.

Here's the thing: I trust ikea quality more. I trust my contractors (all three of whom quoting me now love ikea) to install it.

Local cheap cab company is probably lower overall quality. I've seen their kitchens installed and they seem fine and owners are happy (did read one negative review online). The advantage of having custom sizes and easy reach uppers is really making my life easier compared to ikea's limited range of sizes. I mean, 33 inch sink cab totally makes my day.

WWYD?

What else is happening with your project?