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redheadeddaughter

How to make it Unfitted - what to change?

Hi, We are getting ready to break ground shortly and I'm still having fits about my kitchen design. I'm wanting something more unfitted (or faux unfitted) and I can't seem to figure out what to do with the cabinets. The kitchen area is 19 x 15.

Has anyone done anything like a Plain English or deVol kitchen with a room this size before? I have a bunch of (very rough) sketches in my flickr stream and I would so appreciate any ideas about cabinet height, corner ideas (stopping the sink run short by 3' or so? Using a piece of furniture for the beverage center near the fridge? Get rid of upper cabinets entirely? Do the range wall windows seem centered weirdly to you?

The designer made a last minute ceiling height change with my pantry that required me to add a door, and it intersected my nice baking center hutch I had planned, which kind of broke up the room and made it feel more casual. Now I'm not sure what to do with those 2 skinny upper cabinets on the range wall or where to put the baking center (pantry?). I would just love any ideas apart from shrinking the island. It already shrunk quite a bit. ;)

I'm also thinking blue cabinets (FB pale powder?).. after that amazing cottage kitchen was just posted.

Counters will be either marble or soapstone and a butcher block island.

Ideas and comments are so welcome! We can't change the main appliance locations (range/fridge/dishwashers) but things like the MW (giving me fits, I don't even want one and I think I want to stick it in the pantry), dishwashers, and TC can move around a bit. Can I fit a small bench in somewhere (ha! I'm trying to fit a whole house in there).

Oh, and we are a family of 5 with lots of cousins and children visiting often, multiple cooks, eating 3 meals a day at home (homeschoolers0... so this will be a well loved kitchen.

Here is a link that might be useful: flickr kitchen sketch and inspiration photos

Comments (16)

  • redheadeddaughter
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Here is the fridge wall sketch - that little bit to the right of the fridge one of my trouble spots. I don't really want to MW to be eating into that storage... I want to use it for coffee and tea, etc.

    The island across the way will have a sink and a trash compactor... not much space for a MW.

    Maybe the cabinets to the ceiling are too formal?

  • laughablemoments
    9 years ago

    I really enjoyed peeking into your stream of sketches and photos. Your kitchen will be amazing!

    Would you rather forgo the door from the kitchen to the pantry all together, and just leave it as a cased opening, or even do a straight run of cabinets all the way from the kitchen into the pantry along the stove wall? It looks like the view into the pantry will be lovely. If the door will seldom be closed anyway, maybe it could be skipped.

    Are you interested in putting the mw under the counter all the way to the left of the stove, near the pantry entrance?

    Here is a link that might be useful: Here's an unfitted kitchen that came to mind when you mentioned looking for others in that style.

  • redheadeddaughter
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    laughable, so funny you mentioned the back wall all being open. That is exactly how I originally designed it, but the home planner had to drop the pantry ceiling by 12" at the last minute and I didn't wan't a big drywall soffit hanging down in the middle of my baking center hutch. But maybe that would still be a better option... Here is my original back wall drawing:

  • feisty68
    9 years ago

    Looks like you have some great ideas going, but I thought I'd show a kitchen that I really like. It has an unfitted feel but it isn't really.

    We're homeschoolers too, which is why the last decade of family life looks like it put 20 years on our small home!

  • redheadeddaughter
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Oh that faucet! It's my dream faucet. Are there any more photos?

  • feisty68
    9 years ago

    You might find more from the magazine where it comes from:
    http://boligmagasinet.dk/

    Sorry I don't have more info.

  • ajc71
    9 years ago

    Not much to add, but wanted to say that I love your drawings and inspiration pics....I am loving the english cabinet makers work these days, love the style!

  • farmhousebound
    9 years ago

    I had to smile at your pictures because they look so much like ones I drew when we first started planning our unfitted kitchen. Ours is almost completely unfitted other than a few lower cabinets on our sink wall...you can find pics in the finished kitchen blog (sorry, not sure how to link to it). I use pie safes and a baker's cabinets for storage; an old workbench as one of my islands and converted an entertainment center base into a second island; and we use shelves that DH built for my "uppers".

    Good luck with yours...can't wait to see pics :)

  • mom2samlibby
    9 years ago

    I think this is the faucet in the picture.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Faucet

  • allison0704
    9 years ago

    I have an unfitted kitchen that was built in England. Kitchen (not including breakfast room or hallway where black hutch is located) is 13 x 19. A local store (since closed) sold furniture from the cabinetmaker and he ordered several kitchens for around town. I took my ideas to him and basically had him do what I wanted. The pieces are furniture quality - the island base is one piece, the hutches are two pieces and finished on the ends (could be removed and used as furniture). Antique pine for island was purchased locally.

    Our builder and my husband thought we were going to end up without a kitchen since I wasn't willing to compromise my vision. If I had more time, I would have sought out antique hutches. Next house.

    Microwave and toaster are in walk-in pantry on a potty bench style table I had the trim carpenter build.

    While not English kitchens, take a look at The Workshop of David T Smith for ideas.

    Good luck with your build and kitchen. I look forward to seeing it take shape.

    Here is a link that might be useful: French Gray Island kitchen

  • mtnrdredux_gw
    9 years ago

    What charming renderings! I prefer older homes and I especially like unfitted kitchens! But I never understand exactly what people mean by that term.

    For example, in our home here in CT, we used furniture feet, a mix of painted cabs, tiger maple icebox, an oak general store counter, a painted chippy zinc topped pastry table. Our countertops are cherry, pewter and marble. Our hardware is nickel and brass and antique bronze. We have a totally freestanding european range. We have no backsplash, except for stonework that is the back of a fireplace in another room. We have uppers only in the dish storage area, and those are glass cabs that sit on the counter. The kitchen is 31x15, with an adjoining breakfast room on one end that is 12x15, and then a small pantry on the other end.

    We are renovating a 1902 beachhouse and also going unfitted there. The kitchen is 20x15, plus a Butler's Pantry. The fridge and range are totally freestanding. There are no upper cabinets. The sink is a vintage double drainboard. The "countertops" are a custom table on casters with shelving, and a piece of butcher block on top of a D/W drawer with a faux front. There is no island, only an 8 foot long table. The only "built in" and upper cabs are a preexisting hutch, and then everything that is in the butler's pantry. This plan fits my idea of "unfitted"?

    So, to me unfitted means utilizing furniture pieces where ever you can. To me, a standard kitchen is a mix of cabinets, upper and lower, backsplash, and continuous countertops. I don't think of what you have shown as unfitted, really. For example, an island with a breakfast bar and a sink is the opposite of the unfitted feel. It seems modern, to me. Is there anyway you'd consider an old fashioned kitchen table? IMHO, that'd be the start to an unfitted kitchen.

    Or, perhaps you means something else by unfitted?

  • redheadeddaughter
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Sigh. Yes the trash compactor and the prep sink (let alone the microwave) kind of throw a wrench into my unfitted dreams. What you described sounds so lovely. In our plan, having another sink on that side of the kitchen will be so useful, I figure I need to compromise looks for functionality. I have seen a few unfitted "type" kitchens (I guess I'm thinking Plain English or de Vol) where a prep sink is in the island. But they usually have a lot less storage and taller feet - to make it "read" more like a table. So within the limitations of the kitchen "zone" design... I'd like to make the few cabinetry areas appear a little more unfitted. I don't think I'll be able to get there entirely. Right now I'm wrestling with cabinet heights, glass or no glass (or fabric?), countertop mixing, metals mixing, and upper cabinets that sit on top of the lowers... I'd like to break up the symmetry a little and still make it pleasing to the eye. And I'm sure I'm not making any sense. ;) Faux unfitted is a great way to describe it.

    And a plate rack is on my must have list LL! It completely slipped my brain... I need to find a good place for that.

    Lots of great ideas an pictures everyone... thank you for sharing!

  • allison0704
    9 years ago

    You're welcome. I originally wanted a free standing table style island with slatted bottom shelf after seeing one at a shop in Sedona, but it just wasn't practical.

    You're making sense. That's basically what I did. Chicken wire (as in my pine hutch, large doors, and black hutch, small lift up doors) is an option. I went over with the cabinet glaze to knock the sliver from it. Or any of the woven metal sheets that can be purchased, with or without fabric.

  • edeevee
    9 years ago

    "For example, in our home here in CT, we used furniture feet, a mix of painted cabs, tiger maple icebox, an oak general store counter, a painted chippy zinc topped pastry table. Our countertops are cherry, pewter and marble. Our hardware is nickel and brass and antique bronze. We have a totally freestanding european range. We have no backsplash, except for stonework that is the back of a fireplace in another room. We have uppers only in the dish storage area, and those are glass cabs that sit on the counter. The kitchen is 31x15, with an adjoining breakfast room on one end that is 12x15, and then a small pantry on the other end."

    mtn - Have you ever posted pictures of this kitchen? I'd love to see it.

  • oldbat2be
    9 years ago

    Love your drawing! Here are some great island ideas to make the island look unfitted (from peony4's recent 'eye candy' post).

    Here is a link that might be useful: Peony4's link to island eye candy