Should I lose the kitchen window? Pic heavy

13 years ago

To paraphrase pickles2, sometimes you obsess over things for so long, you forget everyone else isn't obsessing with you.

Here goes, it's long, I'm sorry in advance. My kitchen layout has a peninsula, which I hate. I've got no problems with them in general. Mine however is a great example of poor planning. The diswasher is smack in the middle of the prep zone. I'm the cook (a messy one to be honest), DH, the cleaner. We can't do both at the same time. SO we're taking it out. Here it is:

And I had a pantry that completely blocked off the family room from the kitchen. Including light from the west facing windows.

So, we already took it out.

The old cooktop was immediately right of the windows. It's 30", electric and downdraft. My worst nightmare.

I bought this vintage Chambers range to restore. Her name is LuAnn and she was born around '52 or '53.

And then we have another problem area. The oven and fridge. The oven is right in the doorway. That thick 11" space right of the oven is the HVAC intake and it has to stay.

The usable space in the new main "L" area will be 10'1" on the fridge wall and between 13 and 14 feet on the window wall. This area encroaches on the dining area, so I can go about 14' if the last cabinet is shallow. I hope that makes sense.

So far I've had only two ideas that I want to keep. The first is to put in base cabinets in that old pantry area. They'll be shallower than 24" and be a storage place for all my small appliances. The two load bearing pillars will be paneled and shelves created on the insides for cookbooks and a few display items. The measurement from the inside pillars measures about 4'5". On the family room side I want to have an overhang and barstools. About where the orange stool is.

I also want an island ~24" deep running parallel to the window/cooktop wall. I can't afford to extend wet utilities into it. So this will be prep and storage.

Whew! About now you're probably wondering what my point is. Well, now what should I do with all the rest of the appliances, pantry and sink that all have to live on the 2 walls? The new range is 37 1/2" wide and the fridge is 36. Gas is accessible from the corner of the "L", so potentially can go on either wall. Water and waste are located under the window. I'd love to give the range some "breathing"...

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Comments (2)

countrygirl217
13 years ago
I am planning to get rid of a window. My architect suggested instead of trying to actually take the entire window out, to black it out from the inside. I haven't gotten the entire details, but he suggested this because the house is brick and will always look like it used to be a window, but by blacking it out, we can configure the kitchen how we want and from the outside it will look like a window with coverings on it, but on the inside you won't know its there. He said commercial remodels do that all the time.

I have no need for the window in our kitchen and am in desperate need of wall storage cabinets and prefer my cooktop to be where the window is, rather than the sink. And my window looks onto the side of our detached garage. We also have three other large floor to ceiling windows in the kitchen, so light isn't an issue.

I don't think there is anything wrong with taking out a window, just think about how to frame it back and fix the outside of the house, or black it out. And make sure you have some light coming in the kitchen or you will end up with a drab dark kitchen and you may regret it.

This is our kitchen at night.
From House inspiration

And this is the front windows
From House inspiration
countrygirl217
13 years ago
I am planning to get rid of a window. My architect suggested instead of trying to actually take the entire window out, to black it out from the inside. I haven't gotten the entire details, but he suggested this because the house is brick and will always look like it used to be a window, but by blacking it out, we can configure the kitchen how we want and from the outside it will look like a window with coverings on it, but on the inside you won't know its there. He said commercial remodels do that all the time.

I have no need for the window in our kitchen and am in desperate need of wall storage cabinets and prefer my cooktop to be where the window is, rather than the sink. And my window looks onto the side of our detached garage. We also have three other large floor to ceiling windows in the kitchen, so light isn't an issue.

I don't think there is anything wrong with taking out a window, just think about how to frame it back and fix the outside of the house, or black it out. And make sure you have some light coming in the kitchen or you will end up with a drab dark kitchen and you may regret it.

This is our kitchen at night.
From House inspiration

And this is the front windows
From House inspiration
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