That is beautiful as well as practical! Love the built-in china cabinet and phone alcove. Thanks for the link.

I'd love to see this kitchen---without signing up with BHG. The first picture looked nice. I really wanted to see what they did with the phone as we're currently debating that for our small kitchen. Maybe someone could just describe it for me.

An 11'x13' kitchen is considered small? It's not huge by any means, but I wouldn't exactly call that compact.

Quibble aside, there are some nice ideas in that link.

That is an exceptionally smart and beautiful kitchen. Thanks for sharing with us. I do have a question: the article refers to the counters as granite. But they looked like soapstone to me. What do others think? If they are granite, what is that lovely granite that looks so much like soapstone?

{{!gwi}}

Here is the phone picture from the article.

{{!gwi}}

suzannes1, just click on 'Continue to your page.' It will show all the pictures, but you know they have to try and sell us something! :)

I thought they looked like soapstone, too :)

Oh I'm sorry to those of you who can't see the slideshow. I thought you would be able to see it through the link. If you do have to sign up though, it's not too bad. They only send out a newsletter/blog once a week and they are full of pictures and ideas.

I, too, thought the stone was soapstone, especially with all that green. Maybe the writer got that wrong. Guess maybe 11 x 14 is not all that small, but there sure is a lot packed into that space!

Although I can just imagine the following scenario:
cook: "Get me some ice please."
guest: "Where is it?"
cook: "Over there under the fridge....There beside of the shoe drawer."

NCamy, thanks for sharing this very lovely kitchen with us! Bluekitten, my own kitchen is 11' x 14.' Although I wouldn't call it teeny, I definitely think its on the small side.

I don't think that kitchen is small. Mine is 9x11 and I don't consider it small at all, just small in comparison to what is often shown on this site.

Beautiful kitchen.
The granite looks just like mine, which the granite yard called Green Ocean. It does resemble soapstone, only with the sheen of granite. It's nearly indestructible. I've had my granite for 5 years now and we've never had to seal it.

Dear Tam, Thanks for the useful info about the granite. I'm glad to hear that you have liked Ocean Green so well. ( I found the comments section on the Better Homes and Gardens site which featured the story completely useless about the actual details of the kitchen. All the comments were snarky/sulky comments about the size of the kitchen. As always, GW is so much more useful for getting practical information.

No problem. If you go to www.marble.com and type in Green Ocean in the search box, you'll see some photos of the slab and also used in various kitchens.

If you can get the first photo up, you will notice the end of the address says something like "page 1". I manually changed each page number and then refreshed and got to see it all....

I loved it all but the coat closet size would be a deal killer for us. With NY winters, we need more than twice that space per person. If it was just for guests, then, never mind....

I love their attention to detail and that phone niche is sweet!

A few more pictures from the Better Homes and Garden article:

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Thanks to all who explained how to see those pictures. Francoise, thanks for posting the phone one yesterday. I think we'll do something similar. Loved the turquoise accents.

Did anyone else notice the two-level, i.e. really bad, seam at the sink in #12? Am I mistaken?

Dianalo, I laughed about the coat space and NY winters. I did wonder if someone would take off their soggy Seattle footwear and drop it in a drawer. If I'm taking my shoes off at the door, it's usually because they're mucky or wet. Or this time of year, I just like bare feet. I might like a place to park the sun hat instead of dropping it on the counter though.

I think what you are seeing at the sink is a drain board. Instead of runnels, it's just a flat section slanted toward the sink.

Tam- Do you have any pictures of your granite? It looks so much like soapstone, in these pictures...is it more green or black, in real life? I also like that it's so durable AND you haven't had to seal it :)

Thanks, Ncamy, I love a whole lot of things about that kitchen. I agree, though, that this is not my idea of a specifically small kitchen. This forum keeps me imagining the kitchen-culture shock that must occur constantly as people from widely different locales stumble on it.

Lavender - my counters definitely read green and not black.

Lavender - my counters definitely read green and not black.

I don't mind that they called it a small kitchen. The main work space is a small area. The other areas are shoehorned into the available space.

My kitchen occupies about half the square footage that this kitchen does. Mine only has two doors (or openings), at opposite ends of a galley walkthrough. So, my space can fit a lot in, because two straight runs make for an efficient space.

Tam -- thank you, thank you for posting the pictures of your gorgeous granite. Do you have finished pictures of your whole kitchen?

I can't believe it--that kitchen is almost the same size and layout as my future kitchen! The fridge is in the same weird place, and there will be slide-out pantries beside it. The stove and sink are on the same walls, but we'll have more room between them because we don't have a doorway on the sink wall, so the sink, instead of being squished into the corner, will start about 15" out from the corner (more than shown in the layout below). And after much reflection, we've finally semi-decided to go with warm white cabinets (I was originally thinking wood below and white above, but colorwise that would just be too busy, since our stove is red and our sink is butter yellow).

There will be differences, of course, but this post really helps to visualize our future space! Thank you, Ncamy, for posting!

For those who care, our layout will be basically like this, except that this layout was done several months ago, before we found out it would cost $10,000 to remove the load-bearing wall between kitchen and dining room (top right)...

So instead of doing that we'll just leave the kitchen/DR wall in place, with a normal-depth counter there and upper cabs on that wall (and the MW/toaster will go over there). Instead of the powder room we'll have a little breakfast nook there (L-shaped bench with table). Also our counter ends won't be round like this, because I want room to move the DW down closer to the end so there's room to stand between it and the corner when putting dishes away.

We're designing the kitchen in such a way that a powder room could be easily added later, if we or future owners want to--no need to move the peninsula; it'll be exactly where it would need to be if a powder room were installed, and the plumbing is in place already because there are bathrooms above and below that area. So it'll be easy to add but by not doing it now, we'll save about $10k for the wall removal and the $5k-ish it would cost to put a powder room in.

But anyway, as you can see, with a peninsula there instead of a wall, our kitchen will be almost exactly the same layout as the one posted! How cool!

Oops, sorry about the double post. How did that happen?
Here are pics of my finished kitchen: