Is "C" your back door and boot room? Front door by fridge/ hall near "D" ? Is the chimney brick exposed on the kitchen side?

Hi Dilly-ny, I have updated the sketch and my above post based on your notes, thank you very much ! The front door is in the kitchen (wall C) and the chimney is only partially exposed.

My first thought is that the pantry seems quite far away from the action.

How wide is your aisle? Family traffic will frequently move through the kitchen to the rest of the house, correct? How to you plan to use the island? Prep only, any seating?

Hi Sochi,
You are right about traffic.
We plan to keep the space between the island and the counter 50-52 inches, and also keep a 3-4 foot area between the back of the island and the kitchen table and chairs. Hopefully this will be enough!
We were planning to have two stools on the backside of the island, and potentially one stool under a lip at the side (front door side).
Thanks!

This post was edited by jenottawa on Fri, Jun 7, 13 at 22:32

Is/was the chimney used by the water heater and/or furnace? Would be nice to remove it if neither are still using it. Newer furnaces typically vent through the wall and an electric water heater doesn't need to vent ... but a lot of work and expense.

Leaving the chimney in place, can you at least expose all 4 sides of it? Capitalize on the character I'm sure it adds.

As drawn, the top-right window only 11" of the wall makes wall cabs along the top wall problematic due to depth. To get as much storage as possible, I would modify the window molding to accommodate 2 wall cabs there. Additionally, you might want to consider either a counterdepth fridge (pricey) or recessing the fridge you have into the wall if possible. Changing the front door to open outwards would also help keep floorspace undisturbed.

Going off of the measurements above, I dropped them into a to scale floorplan that you can use, each square is a foot. I got a bit confused what was going on around D, so I'm sure it is wrong. Also, a few draft renders of the space with your current design to help you and everyone else picture things.

Seattle, I just have to say that you are amazing!!! I looked at the floor plan and thought, how can this work? Your rendering makes a beautiful kitchen.

One thing occurs to me, since you say you have a busy kitchen. What about trying to direct traffic flow not through the kitchen, but to the left, between the island and kitchen table? Your 52" kitchen isle is good for traffic, but it still won't be great if someone is working in the kitchen, fridge or dishwasher are open, and a couple of kids coming running through. Plus 52" is a bit wide to use the island as prep. Could you consider narrowing your kitchen isle to 42" by shifting the island toward the window wall, giving you a wide traffic aisle between the table and island? You would probably lose your island setting with thus plan, but the kitchen might be a bit more efficient.

Your window wall would like great with no uppers if you can swing it. You seem to have a fair amount of storage.

Great drawings Seattle!

Some questions:

1. Does the sink have to be under the window?

2. If under the window, does it have to be centered?

3. How flexible are you regarding location of everything? You sound pretty flexible, but I wanted to check....

4. Can windows or doorways/doors (interior and exterior) be moved or changed?

5. From your comments, it sounds like you would be willing to put your Cleanup Zone in the island (sink + DW)...is that correct?

6. Are you on a slab or do you have a basement or crawl space?

7. Does cleanup and prepping or cooking ever go on at the same time?

8. Do you have a layout of the entire first floor? For example, it would be helpful to know how far the island will be from the DR table. It also helps to visualize the flow of family activities through the house and kitchen.

9. Could you tell us a little more about you and your family - # of children, age ranges ("young" can be anything!), other adults (e.g., grandparents - the possible need to accommodate aging in place), etc.

10. How you plan to use the kitchen (eating, entertaining, baking/cooking projects with the children, homework, etc.)?

11. Do you plan to teach your children how to cook and cleanup in the kitchen (i.e., will there be more than one of you working in the kitchen)?

12. Do you and your DH work together in the kitchen today?

13. How long do you plan to be in this home?

Seattle, Thanks very much for the drawings- they look great!

Sochi: Thanks for the notes about the island. We are considering between 42-50 inches, leaning more towards 42 now though. We love your idea of no uppers, would bring so much more light into the kitchen.

buehl: Great questions that brought up some good discussion. Here is more info.

1. The sink does not have to be under the window and does not have to be centered. We strongly considered putting it and the dishwasher in the island, but were worried it would mean we would want a wider island and it would be less walking space between the island and kitchen table. At this point we are still up for other considerations though!

2. We are very flexible, although my husband only wants to move the plumbing to one location (not split the sink and dishwasher between the island and window for example).

3. Sink in island: We were a little concerned that the sink may seem too close to the open front door under the window, however there is quite a bit of clearance.

4. Unfortunately our budget does not permit us to put in headers and make more window's. We are doing this all ourselves. We just replaced window 2 so a counter will fit underneath it.

5. Yes to considering sink in island!

6. Basement underneath the kitchen is unfinished. We would have to run plumbing through a small finished bathroom in the basement though. My husband thinks it is feasible for both the under window 2 location and also in the island.

7. Cooking, cleaning, parenting... everything happens at the same time in our kitchen!! We discussed having two sinks, however have decided that we want a little more counter space and also less plumbing work.

8. That is a great idea to put a layout. I will sketch one and attach it. Thanks!

9. Our family: Two preschoolers, I am a stay at home mom (for a couple more years at least), we are very active, cook most of our meals from scratch.

10. The kids are always in the kitchen with us. They love to stand on chairs and "help". We expect to use the island seating for homework when they get older. So I would say all of the above for kitchen use! eating, entertaining, baking/cooking projects with the children, homework

11., 12. Yes, we are almost always in the kitchen together. Dinner prep we are often two (myself and DH)

13. We are re-doing the kitchen for ourselves! We plan to be here 5+ years.

Thanks to all for the feedback so far. Excellent things to consider.

A mishmash of suggested revisions incorporated to help you weigh options:
ÃÂ ÃÂ ÃÂ 42" kitchen isle
ÃÂ ÃÂ ÃÂ sink+dw in island
ÃÂ ÃÂ ÃÂ range centered between windows
ÃÂ ÃÂ ÃÂ pulled wall cabs from range wall

The narrowed isle makes the front door/island increasingly precarious. I'd again suggest looking at opening it outward.

I'd move the front door to the left on wall C or another wall over on the dining side. Once the door is removed/either turn that corner with wall cabinets or make a larger squarish island.Front home entry directly into kitchen is not at all desirable even tho your justification about where boots etc end up is stated.This whole space can work for you differently....You are devoting 202 in length to dining table?...I'd get a longer term plan for some other purposing whether it's addition of laundry/pantry of walkin variety/or more of coat closet/entry zone or maybe add a seating area to this part of the home. Improvements that really improve can be done in stages.