Some quick questions/thoughts:

What are the dimensions of the spaces?

Does this remodel/reconfiguration include exterior doors & windows? If so, what about switching the sink/DW/window with the range? If you want windows on the south wall, you could flank the cooktop w/windows.

Do you have/want a pantry? Walk in? Step in? Cabinet style?

How many of you are there? Which way do guests and groceries come in?

I like the current range location's proximity to the fridge, but can see easier access to the main sink and dw for non-cooks (someone could set the table without getting in the cook's way) and more room for dish storage if the range and dw/sink were swapped.

I'd want to make sure the oven and the dw can both be open without crashing into each other's doors. It may be rare that they're both open, but might as well make sure it doesn't ever have to be a problem.

Thanks! Here are answers to the initial questions:

-New Kitchen is 10X14 (original kitchen is a weirdly configured roughly 10X8)
-There are four of us: my husband and me, two daughters ages 9&10, and our cocker spaniel. :)We have people over for dinner frequently--often 8-10 at our Sunday dinners.
-Switching the sink/dw with range isn't a great option--it will help to know: sink window is oriented to front of house=nice view, able to watch kids on bikes in street, wave to neighbors, etc. :) range wall is a mere 20 feet away from neighbors exterior brick wall where they keep their trash cans. we've got shrubs on our side to shield but needless to say, we don't want windows over there! :) I like the idea, if we did switch them, flanking the range with windows on that south wall--but have a hard time envisioning a sink wall without windows....and also think I'd rather have people sitting at the bar looking at my range than at my sink of dirty dishes ;)
-This new kitchen space is currently a typical "patio enclosure" --all sliding windows and doors....so yes, the exterior walls and windows will be all new so some definite flexibility on placement. To save money in the other spaces we are trying our best not to replace or change window and door locations except where absolutely necessary.
-Right now I have the mudroom at the back adjacent to my current kitchen. It has hooks for coats and aprons, dog bowls and food storage and is also my pantry space with wire shelving on the walls and curtains to hide them. It's actually pretty cute. The dog and coat storage will remain out there but the pantry stuff will have to come into the kitchen cabinets--even though I'd prefer a step in or walk-in I just don't see where it would go convenient to the kitchen. (mudroom is too far away).

-guests and groceries come in the front door in the dining room. That is the case now and will continue to be the case. The back door/mudroom is strictly a family entrance only when we're in the back yard...the nature of the lot, location of driveway and proximity of the other houses makes it an impossible entrance for guests or groceries (you'd essentially have to walk around 2/3 of the perimeter of the house to find the back door after parking and there's no clear way to indicate to anyone where to go.)This has always been somewhat awkward but the opening from dining to kitchen will at least allow me to throw the groceries over the bar onto the counter! :) It's still an improvement over my current situation--I come in the front door, maneuver around the living room furniture with my bags, zig right into the dining room and then zag left into the kitchen...then back for the next load. Ugh.

-I'm not going to put that little prep sink in that you see in the picture.

Other dimensions:
New dining room is 12X18 -we're making that space the dining room because as a living room (currently) furnishing it is nearly impossible because of all the doors and the...

I can see you have some severe limitations. It would be weird for me, though, to have bar seating in what is the entry to the house...But I guess it's advantages outweigh the negatives.

Why not having the prep sink? With a fairly small main sink, and family using a small kitchen, I could see it being helpful.

"severe limitations" is the understatement of the century! :) If money weren't an object, there indeed are solutions--namely moving this entire side of the house to the other side of the house where the bedrooms are--but this is out of the question because money IS an object...but don't think we didn't consider it! Indeed it IS weird to walk into the dining/bar area I think--and have spent some serious time noodling this. We are working with an architect who has assured me that we can make this "feel" right by paying attention to the details...
I have seen some magazine layouts since that show entries into a hearth/dining area --evokes a new englandy feel which would be appropriate with our style of home. The house is actually really, really cool-with lots of interesting details and nooks and crannies--but a lot to work around.

If we put a wet bar in the living area over where the existing kitchen sink is now, the prep sink seems like overkill-but maybe not. If we nix the bar idea the sink will stay.

I know that by all accounts much of my space seems quite small--but everything is relative for sure and given what we're working with now, we're on the road to solving a lot of the nitpicky problems I have with my current layout.

I have been reading and digesting much of Sarah Susanka's stuff on small space design...trying to make up what I lack in space with thoughtful detail.

thanks again!
B

Mostly what buel said - do not like where dw is nor dw to range interferance - not sure both can have doors open.

Same size windows less but less uppers.
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That's a really nice redo of the main living areas.

bmorepanic,
thank you for the ideas and thanks for the compliment!
I'm going to give the swap some serious thought.
You are right, the flow in the kitchen is definitely better in this version--I just need to digest the difference in exterior view --this is the front of the house--(two flanking windows vs. central sink windows)

Any ideas from anyone regarding visual interest on the sink wall if there are no windows there? I don't think I'd want a solid bank of cabinets...although the storage is certainly attractive! (as a reminder the view on that side is not pretty, actually the opposite of pretty ;), so windows are not desirable...although high transoms might be an option???)

Thanks again,
B

Would a stained glass window work over the sink if you put the sink on the side with the ugly view? It could add some light and visual interest without forcing you to look at the neighbor's garbage. We have used some stained glass this way, and we love it.

I love Holligator's idea of a stained glass window!

Is it possible to extend the kitchen so the west wall extends to the same ending point as the Refrigerator & small wall to the left? It would give you room for much needed storage. If you look at what I've posted below, you'll see that I put in a pantry cabinet across from the refrigerator w/a MW shelf to...

• Give you a lot more storage...you may even be able to fit 2 cabinets there. I don't know the exact dimensions of the pass through, etc., so I'm not sure how much room you have there.
• Bring the MW down to chest level and more easily accessed (no reaching across counters)
• Keep it on the perimeter for snackers but still easily accessed from the kitchen for cooking
• It's not in the way of the DW
• It's still near a water source
• It's directly across from the refrigerator & freezer where most food for the MW comes from
• I put a lazy susan in each corner b/c you can fit a lot in those things! I fit all my pots & pans in a 36" lazy susan in my old kitchen.
• 18" or 15" traxh pullout to the right of the sink...makes it accessible from main/cleanup sink & range

As to the prep sink...I think you should keep it b/c w/the size of your kitchen I think it will help to keep others out of the cooking, prepping, and cleanup zones.

Something to think about: 30" deep base cabinets & counters. Your kitchen is 10' (120") wide:

• Center of kitchen: Deeper cabinets/counters...31.25" + 31.25" = 62.5" so there is still a 57.5-inch aisle (4'9")

• South wall: 60" left & right counters + 36" range = 96", which gives you 12" on either side of the range, for the lazy susans;

  If you have a 48" range, you would have 6" on either side, but that wouldn't allow you to have the lazy susans since you need at least 9".

So, working from Bmorepanic's drawing...here are three suggestions...

The first one leaves your refrigerator as-is and puts the pantry on the DR wall.

The second switches the refrigerator & pantry cabinets b/c it would allow you to get a cabinet-depth refrigerator and recess it into the "new" wall.

The third one fills in that area b/w the small wall to the left of the upper kitchen all the way to the kitchen to give you a walk-in/step-in pantry...not sure which since I don't know the dimensions of that area. If it's at least 3', you could fit a walk-in w/door; if it's only 2', it will probably be only a step-in accessed from the LR (sorry about that...but at least it's closer than the mudroom!)

Layout #1...refrigerator on outside wall

Layout #2...refrigerator on DR wall

Layout #3...Walk-in Pantry (Note; If a step-in instead w/access from LR via bi-fold or other doors, then the shelves would go on the other long wall and you may be able to have short...

Yes indeed-LOVE holligator's idea about the window...so simple but sometimes you're thinking about so many details it's the simple things that get by you, yes?

Holy Smoke buehl! You are awesome!

Thank you so much for the investment of time--so many great ideas. I am going to print and pore over the details.

My architect is coming back to me this week with some more detailed drawings and this is EXACTLY the kind of feedback I needed to make my time with him productive.(and at the price per hour we're paying that's worth a lot!) You may well have solved my "pantry dilemma"

Just can't thank you enough.

Will come back to the board with the updates in a few days!

Kindly,
B

9.5 ft width on the living room might be even worse than what you are dealing with now in your living room. It seems like you'd have to line everybody up sitting there. Not very good flow for conversations. I realize none of it is ideal, but just make sure you can get a good layout out of the living room with that narrow width. A standard sofa length is generally 8ft as a reference and ~3ft deep. A small upholstered chair 3ft wide. So it seems like for seating in the living room you could get a sofa and a chair at an angle to it and have 3ft left over to walk by. The opening to the kitchen and to the dining means you can't put anything along that side so all have to be against the window sides. Maybe this will work better for your family, but I see it being more limiting than the multiple doorways you have going on in the existing living. Yes people have to walk through it, but at least you can sit and converse and see people across from you than sitting along a line to try to converse.

Just another view point and you do what works best for your family. You could still do an opening into the living area to talk to people while cooking and also have it open to the dining area with bar seating into that area, since you won't need 21ft for dining.

Berf, has your architect mentioned how much he or she thinks it will cost to do such a major change? The sticker shock could be huge (take it from someone who knows) as architects have this nasty habit of over-designing or whatever you want to call it. I'm not knocking architects or saying that I regret having hired one, only that an awful lot of them don't know costs, don't want to say what they are, feel that cost is out of their range of expertise (it's not supposed to be), hope you have more money to spend than you do, etc.

It would be a huge drag to really get invested in this approach and then not be able to afford it.

I think lyfia brings up some good points about space in the living vs dining areas. With 8-10 people dining on a regular basis, a long, narrow farm table could work beautifully in that space, but it would be hard for more than two or three people to sit and talk in living room furniture in that same area.

Also, I have always found bar seating that backs up to table seating to be a bit awkward. Some have made it work beautifully, but in most settings, it just seems weird to me. So, to address this problem, and possibly the other one (limited LR seating space), here's one possible solution. It needs a lot of tweaking, but would something like this be worth considering for your needs?

I like the Holligators' plan because at least now there is an entrance from the kitchen to the DR. I'm kind of surprised that the architect was happy with the opening for the bar seating as the only "contact" with the DR. I think if you leave it this way you're going to be doing alot of walking to get from DR to kitchen and back with food and dirty dishes, particularly since this is your only dining space.

I also think it would be nicer to have the casual "bar seating" in the living space rather than in the dining space.

Isn't that 'walk-in pantry' about 2 ft wide and with a shelf on the side? I'm confused about how that could work.

I had a pass-through and a long walk around to the dining room in our last house. I guess looking at a plan I'd think it was crazy, but it really wasn't bad at all...Of course, I was never short on people to help from one side while I was on the other. But with your larger area to set things as a pass-through, I think it could work fine if you prefer the rest of your plan that way.

Here is a picture of our old kitchen. We had to come out and around the bfast bar to get to the dining room you can see in the background. The pass through was where the old window was over the sink, and it only had a wide sill for setting things.

All this input is so helpful--as you've all realized this project is a series of trade offs...
One of the reasons we're using the architect is to make sure that we can mitigate some of the trade offs with thoughtfulness and details that might have gotten by us otherwise. We are thrilled with his team so far. It's not a design build firm, but rather an architect/builder --a highly regarded architect who has partnered with his preferred builder. The benefit so far, is that the preliminary cost estimates are run by the builder from the get-go. We're early in this, but I'm optimistic that this will work in our favor and we can feel much improved for our budget.

So the numbers are this--we've got 200K to spend--which seems like a lot but considering we are not only doing what you all have been working on here, but also a master suite on the other end of the house...well...let's just say we're already getting very creative with our choices. And we're in the DC metro area so that doesn't help in terms of expense. The good news is that we don't have extravagent desires (other than soapstone of course!) but really want a thoughtful renovation...especially of the kitchen/dining area because life centers around that for us.

Some more info--
you all are very right about the tight squeeze in the living room. I'm used to it to the extend that our current "couch" is actually a love seat that is only 5' long and I have two living room chairs opposite with a coffee table in the middle. This is the only configuration that works in the current living room and will likely be the only configuration that works in the new one. But I rarely wish for more and bigger living room furn. --I mainly wish for better flow in and around the furn. When I get a chance to scan the whole house plan in for you I will do so--in addition to the front door and door to the dining area, in the current living room there is also the opening to the stairway leading upstairs and another door to the first floor bedrooms--specifically, I have a doorway in each of the four corners of the room.
My neighbor has the mirror image house and for 10 years she and I have noshed over our various attempts at living room arrangements--in the end we've both squeezed all our furniture in the middle so everyone can get around without zig zagging and tripping!

My guidance to the architect is that I don't want the kitchen to be a throughway but I do want "some" connection to the living and dining areas. I'm mainly tired of bumping around everyone in the kitchen while I work and we socialize--or alternatively being alone in there while everyone has fun out in the dining/living rooms.

Most of our guests end up around the dining table, even after dinner--probably because we have such dinky living room furniture, LOL!

My husband and I are both wondering though whether to swap out living and dining room and your continued thoughts on this issue are much appreciated. We've gone so far as...

Berf, you do realize you probably won't be able to do that same arrangement in your new living room. There won't be space to walk through it. sofa depth + chair depth ~ 6 ft which leaves you 3.5 ft if you put a coffe table that is 1ft wide you will be able to walk by barely on each side, but anything larger and you won't. You might want to play around with the furniture in a mapped out area of that width to see how it will work for you.

Have you put some thought into what could be done to improve the flow of traffic in the existing living. Could move the entry door to the right to remove a traffic path into the middle of your existing room and allow you to put a longer sofa on that wall in the existing living room? You could probably extend the front area to make it work with the house too. It might not be in the budget, but just another thing to consider.

It is tricky--I've sketched the living room furniture into the new space--with love seat along right hand wall with remainder of grouping facing it. Playing around with other ideas for the left hand side of the room. I, like you and others, am still not thoroughly convinced that living and dining areas should be switched as they are drawn...
Buehl's pantry would put some additional squeeze on that rear living area--if I add that pantry I almost certainly need to keep the living room out front if we are to have any room at all for furniture...and put a long narrow table in dining in rear. That little bit of space the architect drew in on one side of the kitchen opposite the fridge (where buehl put the pantry) makes just enough elbow room for getting around furniture and through doors without feeling like you're running an obstacle course...I'm sure he did that intentionally given the narrowness of the new living room.

We had several preliminary options for moving the front door way over to the right or left to solve the flow issues in the front room. Bottom line--it would eat up so much of the budget we'd have to nix our other priorities (in a big way, not an amount easily made up in surfacing and applicance choices). With two teenage daughters in our future we NEED a master suite (we're all currently living in two bedrooms upstairs and sharing one bathroom that is less than 8feet square!)...my husband's sanity depends on it! :) And when I say master suite, we're talking again of a modestly sized bedroom of 12x15 feet or so and a bathroom of 10x10...

Did I mention I've become "one with" Sara Susanka's books on small space architecture and living?? :)

The drawings you're looking at have a preliminary cost estimate(including the master suite you don't see) of around 220-250K so yes over budget--once we have a design we'll be working on how to cut back or phase things to make them fit what we can afford.And we all know that the estimate and the actual are going to differ anyway--so we really need the estimate to come in at 200K or less.

We actually love our house and its quirks--and we are very very blessed indeed to have bought it when we did (11 years ago) and to be in the position to afford and execute this renovation. I thank God every day, in the current market, and the with the expense of living here in DC, that we have this luxury. And I am now thankful to have you all to bounce my ideas against!

Time to quit for the night----how do you sleep at night through this stuff? (did I mention we're thinking of a wet bar on that left side of the living room ;) )

Kindly,
B

Boy do I hear you about costs in the DC metro area...we also live in the area and experienced sticker shock when we first began last spring! I had looked around three or four years before, but was not prepared for the skyrocketing prices b/w then and now! We thought we had plenty of $$ in the budget for our kitchen, mudroom addition, and overall first floor upgrades (wood floors, built-ins, etc.). We had to lower our expectations dramatically...wood floors, mudroom, etc. will have to wait, our priority is the Kitchen & Powder Room!

Like you, we were blessed to buy in 1995, before the big spike in housing costs, so we can afford to do this as well. But, with 2 children nearing college age (12 & 13), we don't want to go "all out," we need to save some for college!

Okay --here's a completely new take on things--sorry for the rough nature of the sketch--
This is born of not only a lot of comments here but also my thoughts on budget--we would save by keeping much of the existing kitchen in place---and still manage to solve some of kitchen flaws but I think achieve better flow all around--

haven't gotten my feedback from the architect on this yet (just emailed it a few minutes ago) but am interested in your preliminary thoughts. he needs to weigh in with regard to that funky wall/column thing that's part of the structure--assuming that works out I think I might be onto something here. Plus lots of extra great light coming from that converted sunroom--without moving my kitchen there I would have space and money for a lot more glass (at least on the part with the view :) )

B

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