Hi, well, here we go again. We are ready to proceed with our kitchen plans and I would like to hear some input/ideas on the possibilities we have for our kitchen.

DH and I are empty nesters now, and this is our forever home. We will be replacing everything: floor, cabinets, counters, appliances, and lighting. We have gotten 3 estimates from cabinet places using a general plan (1, a custom cabinet maker, one other uses Huntsman cabinets, and the last uses Medallion cabinets). DH is leaning towards the custom guy, and honestly, I am too. His cabinets look great, his pricing is comparable, we have friends that have used him and speak highly of his work, plus DH kind of clicked with him).

I am the main cook but he helps out when asked. We have so little storage or countertop space currently that I would love to increase that (actually I also store some appliances and other dishes in a cupboard in the garage, would like to get them into the kitchen if at all possible). The kitchen is also a passageway to the back yard, family room, and garage.

We will be our own GC (DH is really handy and has remodeled his own mom's house). He has added recessed lights to our kitchen this summer.
We are keeping the soffits and would prefer to not take down walls or move doorways. One window over the sink faces east. Don't want to move that either. Wow, this sounds pretty adamant, but we have been thinking about this for a while now and know our limitations, financial and other kinds. Also, our home is on the small side, and we feel that a 'great room, open concept' would be out of place for our little ranch. (We would end up with 3 bedrooms, a great room/kitchen, and a family room).

Wish List:
1. We have pretty much decided that we want to move our refrigerator to where our pantry currently is in order to get more counter space to the left of the range. (We will have to lose a few inches from the living room to do that). The pantry holds a lot now, so I am hoping that we will not lose storage with this move. The cabinets that will go where the frig is now will be used for pantry storage.
1a. One estimate designer suggested that (since we have a wider pantry than the refrigerator will need) to put a skinny pull out for canned goods next to it
1b. Another estimate designer suggested that we adjust the current nook wall and put in an 18" pantry next to the frig and banquette.
2. We will be moving the range a bit to the left (as you look at it) to get room for a lazy susan of some sort, and get rid of the blind corner cabinet. I am too old to crawl into the cabinet now to retrieve something from the very back of it! Also want to get rid of the blind corner upper cabinet.
3. We think we would like to have a small banquette in the nook area (we currently have a 36" x 48" table with chairs there)- we do have a dining room but do not want to eat every meal for the rest of our lives there.

Well, I have written a novel. If you are still with me, you deserve a prize! I am including a layout of the current space.

I will post a sample layout with a few questions since it seems that I can only post one picture at a time.
Thanks so much for your time!

Is there really room for the banquette or should we just resign ourselves to having a small table?
Any ideas or thoughts for arranging/rearranging based on our restraints?
Is there a better use of this admittedly awkward space?
Are there any obvious things I am forgetting??

Here is one of the layouts that has been suggested to us.
Thanks so much!

In the first one, there is 36" aisle in front of a 26" deep pantry. In the second one, there is a 42" aisle in front of a counter depth ref that needs about 28-30" of depth (includes the doors but not the handles).

I would move the ref away from the doorway by reversing the pantry and ref. Either ref location has some issues with the dishwasher location. The freezer door/drawer and the dw door can run into each other. The other issue being that using one precludes using the other. The door of a modern dw sticks out into the aisle about 28". The doors of a french door will not open to 180 degrees so you need to account for a the person standing in front of the unit(about 16") and that they will need to get out of the way when opening/closing - so in total, allow something like 21" to use the french door part and about the same for the freezer drawer.

I would consider moving the DW TOWARDS the entrance door one cabinet's worth and raising it. In combination with moving the ref further into the kitchen proper, it should get rid of possible contention and also be good for everyone's back. Tall tubs are nice when you need them, but not so great when bending over.

Other trades I might make - finding a way to rotate the ref so it points towards the range, using a booth instead of a banquette + table and chairs, opening the wall at the dining room so I could have more counters and more storage but still have a good connection to an eating space <-- against the rules, but still worth thinking through.

Maybe more like this:

I have not given any consideration to having a raised DW since it would cut my 'spread out on the counter' space even more. Hmm. Something to think about for sure.

So you propose keeping the frig and the pantry where they currently are....We had planned to get a side by side frig, regular depth, and sink it farther back into the living room if we reverse the pantry and frig. Reversing those two could also give us a bit more counter space (right now I only have about 9 inches to the left of the range. We are accustomed to being patient and waiting our turns when in the kitchen (currently for instance, if the refrigerator door is open, and someone else comes in from the garage, they cannot pass through the kitchen via that walkway since the table/chairs are there).

There is no way we could put anything where you have placed the rectangle that is labeled counter height furniture as that is the doorway to the family room and another one to the garage. Not moving those, sorry to say.

You've given me something to think about re the DW, I will have to think about moving it over and raising it- thanks!

I know you don't want to, but the other thing to consider might be to open to the family room from the garage hall and then step into the kitchen. IF I have the order of the doors correct, that would let you have more room at the range.

Any ideas on maximizing storage space as far as cabinet layout???
Should we forget a banquette-type arrangement and just keep a table in the nook area?

I would really appreciate any other ideas anyone may have for optimizing the layout of my kitchen!

Ranges and ovens stick out in front of the counter. The more you spend on one, generally speaking the less it sticks out, but you can plan on a range sticking out 3" to 5" and sometimes more by the time the oven door handles are included. Usually, the entire oven door and handles are completely in front of the cabinet line.

SO, all and every kind of corner unit or blind corner unit has issues when you have your exact layout - with a corner unit next to a range - they are all going to be a pita and some you can't do at all in that situation.

A corner unit with doors that opened to each side would reduce your ability to access the corner probably quite a bit - you'd have to avoid the 12" door sticking straight out. If you did a blind unit, you'd still have to care about the other side of the corner because things like drawers will run into the range. If you did do something like the corner drawers, they would need to be fairly skinny to avoid the side of the range when they opened. And something like a magic corner unit may need some extra filler to get it to avoid the range. If the doors are hinged in the middle, they'll pile up on one side and together with the range, reduce the available space to reach into the corner.

Things like blind corner pull outs need 15-24" of space on the opening side, so the benefit would be in however you'd use the other side of the corner - are you thinking it could combine with another cabinet to make something larger? You'd loose inches from your 30" base on the other side of the range. And I'm pretty sure you'd loose inches from the sink side as you'd need to add in a pretty chunky filler. The way those mechanisms work, you'd have to check the exact clearances to make sure you could place it next to a deeper object like the range.

I'm pretty sure you can't use corner drawers either - they'd also get stopped by the range.

So - just talking out loud, but I'd really consider an angled base. With an angled base, you can use the corner for prep work. With a regular corner, you can't - this is primarily because the countertop stops your hips! Even tho its more expensive, I'd pop for one where the door was attached to the susan and rotated into the cabinet so I'd never need to fuss with it.

Now that I have lived with it for a couple of months, it really has not been a problem. The door swings toward the range, and the cab guys are supposedly reversing that, which requires building a new door, but even as it is, I have not slammed the door into the oven handle yet!

My lazy susans are big, and I have about 13" of vertical storage on either side, so I put some dividers in for cutting boards and cookie sheets. My oil bottles also live there, so I do open that cabinet a lot!

HTH!!

Nancy

Bmore, yes, sorry I did not draw any of the appliance handles on the first drawing, that is what our kitchen currently is. When we replaced the range many years ago, we had to shave down a drawer perpendicular to the range so that it could open, so I know what you're talking about!

So in reference to the 'designer drawing'-- I was sort of thinking if we move the range down a bit like it shows, and had a blind corner cab, we might be able to squeeze in a tall skinny cab for cookie sheets/cutting boards between the range and the blind corner cab. If we stick with the corner cab/lazy susan, we will have room for an 18" drawer stack. Don't know if I would have room for dividers like Nancy referred to.

Other ideas for improving on layout most welcomed!

My cabinets are inset, so there is not enough space to add small cabs for the vertical stuff. I have not permanently attatched anything for dividers yet, but I am testing somethings to see what works the best!

Nancy