And the "island"...

If you've noticed that I only have one upper cabinet shown, that's correct. There will be shelving in a couple of spots.

Thanks again.

What is 137" about the sink base in the first plan?

How wide is the counter behind the sink? It doesn't look wide enough for 3 chairs. [Comparing it to the banquette, it seems to be not much above 5' wide.]

Does the HVAC next to the dishwasher run to the ceiling or only to counter-height?

Hi missing. It's just me double and triple checking my measurements. It's the distance from the back of the wall behind the pantries to the red wall.

There's also a random blue square chair in the second drawing beneath the table. Just ignore it.

The area behind the sink is all counter, so the 36" base and dw are 24" deep and there's a decorative end panel behind them in what would be the seating area of the peninsula or island. Seating depths are 18" in the peninsula drawing, and 21" in the island as shown, and the width is 66".

The HVAC in the red walls feed the second floor, so yes, they are full height.

Thanks for taking a look.

This post was edited by EAM44 on Sun, Oct 5, 14 at 14:42

First, like you I think the first layout seems scrunched, and I prefer the second one also because of the ability to enter the sunroom without going around the other end of the U.

I would personally not do seating - first, it's the sink, and who wants to sit facing the sink, and second, your banquette is right there. If you want to throw a stool or two under an overhang, fine, but it would seems to me you'd be better off having cabinets on the back of the island rather than seating.

I would combine the two pantries into one big one, and move the refrigerator and ovens to accommodate that.

Sj, combining the pantries would make for a monster pantry! I should think about that. I like the idea of cabs where I have seating in the island. Thanks!

Can you eliminate the HVAC on the left side of the plan, next to the dishwasher?

Hi lavender! The HVAC near the DW is the only heat/AC supply for the bathroom above. The register is tiled into the wall upstairs, and there's nowhere else to put it really. The orange dot is the waste stack from that bathroom, and the bathtub is also on that wall. The red wall used to be the outside wall of the house.

Awkward, huh. Thanks for putting your brain on this.

I think trying to incorporate the sunroom sides of those walls into the kitchen is awkward, in both layouts.

How about having pantries facing the sunroom? A wall of tall cabinets there would look more intentional. Or make the corner where you show one upper a coffee or snack station, cut down the pantries on the fridge wall, and add counter space and uppers next to the fridge. That gives you more room for drawers.

I also like the the idea of cabinets facing the banquette.

Annkh, I had considered putting the pantry there. It's just not practical for work flow in the actual kitchen to have your pantry in the next room. I was thinking of making the area above the trash drawer a coffee bar, or an actual bar with shelves for liquor. I just don't drink that much. Who knows - that may change....

I have also considered moving the dining table in front of the bay window thereby making the whole area kitchen. I really like the sun room though. I'd like to keep it in some form. My hope was to steal a little space for much needed prep space.

Darn. I was thinking if you could move that HVAC (or combine it with the one on the right) you could turn the sink and dishwasher, so they overlook the sunroom. Then maybe a small island opposite (between sink and fridge wall) with stools facing the sink/sunroom.

I'll keep playing with this. I know the island version is more accessible for the sunroom, but I really like the 'separate' area of the sunroom and the kitchen feels less like a hallway.

I do like the banquette (of course) and a separate sunroom! What a great combination :)

Oh lavender, I've struggled with this and I totally get what you're thinking. The only way I can get the sink to overlook the sun room is to have the DW on the island, which is just wonky. Either that or pull it all back into the kitchen where it is now and lose the depth I've been trying to gain. Doing that, reverting to the current layout, the sink and cooktop are uncomfortably close. I sort of just can't win, if you know what I mean. Ah well. It's just a kitchen. I'd like it to be as nice as it can be, but it's just a kitchen.

How about this?

I tried absolutely everything to get you a table with comfortable clearances all around, but there are only two places where that is possible. And one of them is the top right of this floor plan, which is in the middle of a zillion walkways. The other is the sun room.

You seem to have two entrances to the family room, so I closed one of them. The french doors are replaced with a window (this is a very simple/relatively inexpensive change if you keep the same dimensions or make them smaller). The bay window is switch out for one with a door so you can still get to the garden.

I don't know what style bay you have currently, but here are some examples:

Another option. The table is smaller, you'd have to reconfigure the doors to the garden, and there is one of the red wall sections that isn't hidden. The peninsula counter just wraps around it. You could hang art or shelves on it.

The other two red wall sections are hidden in the paneling/trim around the ovens and fridge.

Other alternatives...

The 3 layouts below are basically the same with a few "tweaks" - they keep the Sunroom and are a "U" shape - with 60" (5') b/w the two legs of the "U". This much space b/w the legs eliminates the "crowded" factor b/c there's plenty of room b/w the legs. In addition, the Sunroom is open to the kitchen with a view "into" that room as well as a "pass-thru" b/w the Kitchen and Sunroom. This also eliminates the "corridor" feel the island layout gave you and keeps through-traffic out of the Kitchen work area that contains the Prep & Cooking Zones (the most used Zones).

Layout #1 has the table, but no pantries, no seating at the peninsula, a 30" sink, under-counter wall oven, and a 30" cooktop w/36" hood

Layout #2 has no table, but has seating at the peninsula, two 24" pantries, a "bar" area b/w the pantries, a 30" sink, under-counter wall oven, and a 36" cooktop w/42" hood

Layout #3 has no table, seating at the peninsula, two 24" pantries, a "bar" area b/w the pantries, a 30" sink, and a 36" range w/42" hood (no wall oven needed)

If you could shorten up that wall segment in the middle of the room, you would gain valuable space for the Prep Zone - do you need more than a 24" wide wall? (Our HVAC to an upstairs bedroom fits in a 24" wide wall.) Right now, you have a 30" wide wall - if you can reduce it to 24", you would gain another 6" for the Prep Zone - priceless! :-)

Why did I show different cooktop/range/wall oven configurations? When you have limited space, a cooktop + wall oven can be an issue b/c of the amount of space they take up. Mounting the oven under-the-counter like you seemed to have and that I repeated (even though I'm not a fan of wall ovens installed under the counter), helps - but, if you're going to mount it under the counter, then why not get a range? The oven in a range is higher off the floor than a wall oven under the counter. However, some people swear it's not an issue to lean farther down to access the under counter wall oven, so it's up to you.

I also showed two sizes for the cooktop/range - 30" and 36". Do you really need a 36" cooktop? For most people, it's a "want', not a "need". Again, with the limited space you have, those 6" extra space you gain w/a 30" cooktop (or range) are valuable. 15" on either side of a cooktop/range is really too little space - even 18" when it's on both sides is too small - but those walls you cannot remove force the smaller space.

I reduced the sink to a single-bowl, 30" wide sink base (you should be able to fit a 27" to 29" sink in the sink base). Again, I did this to add valuable space in the Cleanup Zone. In your layouts, you have no landing space at all on one side of the sink and only 24" of space overall for the Cleanup Zone.

Finally, note that I moved the Cleanup Zone to the wall opposite the base of the "U" - this separates the Cleanup Zone from the Prep & Cooking Zone and gives you more space for both the Cleanup Zone in general as well as puts dish storage in a convenient location for unloading the dishes as well as for setting the table and/or doing some cleanup while meal prep is going on. To give you an idea how it works, we have the same type of setup with 46" b/w the DW and the peninsula leg and it's plenty of space- you have 48". Ours is also a "through" path b/w the DR and FR, again, like yours and it's not problem having the Cleanup Zone on that wall.

Layout #1...

Layout #1 - Zone map...

Layout #2...

Layout #3...

I'm still trying to figure out how the HVAC 'walls' will look, may work it up in sketchup later. What are the full space dimensions, please?

I'm excited for you and already scoping out areas for tile:)

Oh - meant to ask - have you planned out your zones yet?

Best, oldbat2be

Jillius, I should mention that this is the house I grew up in, and one of the most valuable things about posting is that eyes, like yours, that haven't been in the space for so long can really see it differently. Thank you for your efforts! There are a couple of practical limitations that would make it hard to have the sink in the window zone. That area is part of an addition and it is built on a concrete slab. Getting plumbing to that zone is going to be a challenge - doable, but prohibitively expensive. Still, how fun to see the space used so well. I will cogitate on it...

Buehl, cool. I have had sketches with a prep sink on that wall, and I liked that idea a lot, but it seemed silly to have it so near the main sink. It never occurred to me to have a clean up zone at the base of the U. Your options place my fridge in the corner, it's original placement that I've always hated, but I can probably get over that. I'm open to different sink sizes. I can go to a 30" cooktop. I already have the 36" wide fridge, and stainless 27" double ovens in perfect working condition, so I can't do the under the counter oven, but other than that, there's much to consider here... Thank you for using your talents on my kitchen.

Ob2b - thanks for taking a look! The dimensions are the numbers in blue on the original posts. The space is 212" from left to right, 248" from basement door (top) to French doors (bottom), and the depth of the fridge/pantry area is 26.5". I haven't really mapped out zones. Everything is so close to everything else I didn't see the point, and again, I was born in this house, so everything seems like it's where it's supposed to be. Hard to shake that, but you all are helping!

This post was edited by EAM44 on Mon, Oct 6, 14 at 9:46

Ob2b, I'd love to see it in Sketchup, but here's what I was able to come up with on my own as a pseudo-elevation of the U layout.

This post was edited by EAM44 on Mon, Oct 6, 14 at 11:48

Where does the slab addition stop?

Aside from wanting more light in the kitchen, the most attractive thing to me about moving the kitchen into the bottom half of this floor plan was that the top half has so much unusable space due to having so many doors and doorways that need walkways in front of them.

Are any of those doors/doorways things that can be moved? Could you post a floor plan for all the surrounding rooms too so that we can suggest how traffic patterns might be changed so some of those doors/doorways can be closed off in the kitchen?

Jill, I show the addition below in green. It goes on to the right, into the DR. It's part of the reason the wall between the DR and Sun Room is 2.5" thicker than the wall between the DR and the Kitchen. That wall supports the roof on the addition. The back of the house used to be L shaped. Now it is a rectangle.

This post was edited by EAM44 on Mon, Oct 6, 14 at 13:02

Another question...what's behind the wall with the cooktop? Is that a built in for the dining room? Or could we move that french door down, towards the sunroom?

I don't know if it would be an improvement, but it would allow us more flexibility with the plan :)

Lavender, not a built-in, it's the DR that is long and narrow (I've edited the post above to show the entire first floor). I'd have to give some thought to whether I could lose width there. It has a wallpaper I love that has been discontinued. My mother barely found enough to finish the room. I'd hate to lose it but I could get over it.

I have given a lot of thought to whether or not I need a table in the kitchen when I have a huge, unused formal DR, but the plan is consistent with the homes in the neighborhood, and I would diminish the value of the house, I think, if I were to do away with it. Plus, I like a kitchen table, and I need one at holiday time...

This post was edited by EAM44 on Mon, Oct 6, 14 at 13:05

I think the banquette would be a great choice for your type of house. Since you have the big, formal dining room...I would definitely want a kitchen table.

Beautiful wallpaper? Forget about moving the door (LOL) Seriously, I would preserve as much as you can of the old house.

All things considered, I would choose Buehl's first plan, with the banquette seating and the prep sink by the cooktop. This gives you a great work area, without people walking through it.

The one thing I would change....flip the back wall, so the fridge is closer to the banquette and work area over the ovens. This will give you the clean up area closer to the cooktop, but also keep the fridge from opening into the dining room doorway. Been there, done that...and it can be a real pain, especially during the holidays!

I LOVE your sunroom and think it's an amazing part of the house. Having it close to the kitchen, but separate, will probably look more 'period appropriate' but also keep people from cutting through your work space to go into the sunroom.

Stools would be nice, but maybe you can re-examine that idea, once you layout the plan on your floor. Since you already live in the space, you can see if 4' or 5' is best, between the cooktop and ovens :)

A few modifications to Buehl's very nice plan... {{gwi:1962711}}From Kitchen plans

What struck me most about the plans you've created is that you're fighting the wall constrictions instead of embracing them and making them work for the space. So here's what I've come up with:

and

There are only slight changes between the two plans. Here's what I did in both:

I moved the banquette table to the sun room with an L-bench. I can't imagine a more lovely place to eat breakfast and have my morning coffee than a banquette in a sun room. The L-bench will also provide a nice place to lounge to read, visit, etc. You're losing the sun room seating you had but not necessarily the function.

Moving the table to the sun room meant that I could expand the U portion of the kitchen.

I widened one wall and moved the cook top in front of it. That gives you a place for a tile backsplash and a hood. I wasn't quite sure of the distance between far right wall and the expanded HVAC wall, which is why there's a ? after the 34" drawer base next to the cook top. The other measurements for that area are based on my guesstimate.

I added a peninsula with a prep sink with a trash pull-out.

With the cook top moved, there was room to move the wall ovens to the top portion of the U along the DR wall with storage to create a baking zone.

I moved the fridge to the left and moved the DW and clean-up sink next to them. That puts glasses storage next to the fridge, something my hubby insists on so that he doesn't have to walk across the kitchen to get a glass before filling it with water from the fridge. Anyhoo, we find that a convenient placement.

The counter area facing the sun room can have multiple purposes. I listed possibilities for you.

Okay, the differences:
Plan A has a 12" deep pantry along the wall opposite the peninsula.

Plan B has a wider U and a 38" wide pantry facing the banquette. It's not in the primary work area of the kitchen but the pass-through makes it less of a pain. You still have to walk around but you wouldn't need to make multiple trips carrying items; you can use the pass-through instead.

I added 2 counter seats to the bottom side of the peninsula so that people can sit and visit with you while you prep.

Can the wall I removed here come down?

(This is a very rough sketch without much thought given to the kitchen layout -- I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it if that wall couldn't come down. It is a horizontal wall, so I don't think it's structural.)

This layout addresses several issues:

1) You get a kitchen with a workable, roomy layout.
2) You now have an exterior wall in your kitchen, so now you can have natural light and vent the range hood more easily. It really is very odd not to have at least one exterior wall in a kitchen for those reasons. The original house clearly had that feature -- the addition changed it.
3) The kitchen table fits without issue and is open to the kitchen. I'd add as many windows to that area as structure and budget allows.
4) You keep the sun room as-is, which you wanted.
5) The kitchen and dining are more proportional now. Before, you had the most enormous dining room and a very large living room -- you could host an army -- but you had such a tiny kitchen in which to cook for said army. And we all know guests all end up in the kitchen anyway. A house with big entertainment spaces needs a roomier kitchen.
6) The kitchen sink plumbing does not have to go through the slab.

One thing I am not totally clear on is why you have so many living rooms. You have a formal one (living room), informal (family room), and informal again (den). (And that's not counting the sun room, which also serves a very similar purpose.) How do you use these rooms? With the layout I just posted, it'll change how you use them since now the kitchen and formal dining are open to the same room. That room will end up functioning as both a family and living room. It is a nice layout for entertaining and living to be sure, but it leaves two other living rooms needing a purpose. The smallest could be rebranded as an office or an exercise room, and the other would make a good den/movie/kids sleepovers room, since it is more closed off from the rest of the house (quieter) and cozy (smaller than the new living/family room and has a fireplace).

EAM- I forgot to ask you...how do you use the living room, den and family room? I can't remember if you are married, have kids, live with extended family, etc.

The reason I ask...you probably need all those rooms, but if you could incorporate the TV and family areas into the den and living room...that family room with fireplace would make a most excellent kitchen!

You know how I love a fireplace in the kitchen, with room for a table and a few comfy reading chairs by the fire! LOL Just an idea...and the current kitchen would make a wonderful butler's pantry and possibly small office area, with access to the very nice sunroom :)

Hi all. I'm not going to branch into other rooms, but thanks for all the work you've put into those ideas. Those rooms are finished and furnished, and I don't want to rebuild the whole first floor. Jillius, yep, it's load bearing, like all the horizontal walls used to be. That changed in the back so the outside wall of the house could be removed. While I'd love to have a fireplace in the kitchen, I'm not going to have that room plumbed and wired. I'd sooner keep the current layout.

Thanks for applying your collective brilliance here. There really is no elegant solution. Buehls doesn't work - I have double ovens, and I don't want to open the dw into the walkway. Lisa, I had drawings like yours about a year ago. It was pointed out to me that having to walk around the kitchen to get something from the fridge is a pita - and I lose the Sun Room.

Really, thanks for trying. I'll let you know what I pick.

Have you considered just having counter seating in the kitchen and eating nearly all your meals in the DR surrounded by the wallpaper you love? That would allow you to go with a lay-out similar to what I drew with a more direct route from table to fridge (which frankly, I'd sooner put up with than having my work areas cramped by walls but it's your kitchen). You'd also get to keep your sun room seating.

Sorry if I'm suggesting something that was already considered and discarded.

EAM44, you might get a quote for what plumbing in the slab would cost. I just looked it up out of curiosity, and apparently the easiest (read: least expensive) way to do it is to plumb a fixture that is against an outside wall, as I had your sink in my first two suggestions. They apparently can go under the slab and just drill a hole through the slab to meet it (if I'm understanding correctly) instead of the whole process of digging trenches through the slab for plumbing that needs to be farther inside the house. So it might not actually be prohibitively expensive.

Just had a quick thought. If you were to go with this layout, here are two tweaks/options:

1) I made the walkway in front of the fridge wider.

2) I added a pass-through to the family room. You had seemed interested in bar seating somewhere, you could have it in the family room at the pass through. Plus it'd be in front of your main prep space, so it'll be nice to have something to look at while you're working -- chat with people or watch TV.

Like this:

Now, don't give up...we just wanted to think outside the box for a moment :)

Here's one other idea. I have to use Buehl's drawing because Paint isn't working on the original ones, for some reason. Probably a button I'm supposed to push or something (LOL) but here is a slight change in your island plan. {{gwi:1962717}}From Kitchen plans

While it does allow people to 'cut through' the work area, there probably won't be that many people moving from the dining room to the sunroom, but rather from the family room and banquette to the sunroom...when you're entertaining.

I put the pantries on the other side of the HVAC, because it seems to make more sense with a wall dividing those spaces. The bookcase facing the sunroom was your idea, but I like it!

Disclaimer...I know the ovens are closer to the dining room doorway, but I have that now and it's never been a big deal, whereas the fridge was a huge pain! Guests don't tend to 'hang out' in front of the open oven...hope this helps :)

This is very rough, but here is another suggestion:

Is there another door to the garden somewhere in the house? Or a tall window you could easily turn into a door? If so, you can turn the garden door in the kitchen into a window and put more counter underneath it. This would allow you to move the sink/DW down under the new window, lengthening your main prep space between the sink and cooktop to a very handsome size. It also means the prep space would be under the bay window. This would both be very pretty and mean that counter would be extra-deep in the bay window bump-out, which would be very handy.

One more idea.

Here is a link to a finished kitchen with a similar layout in case it's hard to picture: http://www.thekitchn.com/maureens-maximized-upgraded-kitchen-small-cool-kitchens-2012-174024

1) This puts the sink is almost exactly where your plumbing already is.

2) There would be a decent amount of natural light in both key parts of the kitchen -- the pass through would let in some where the sink is, and the garden door would light up where the cook top is since that area is pretty close to that door.

3) No stretch of counter is less than 24", your main prep area is over 5 feet wide (and 30" deep), and you have a bonus 9 feet of counter space at the buffet. For me the main failing of a lot of other plans being considered is how the counter space is so chopped up, and this addresses that.

4) I'm envisioning the buffet as an uninterrupted stretch of uppers, lowers, and counter -- like this:

The buffet counter is a bit far away from the major kitchen work zones, so I envision its being used more for large cooling racks or setting out a buffet for people eating in the formal dining room to use. You might consider adding a bar sink to the buffet (you have plenty of room) for drinks when entertaining and so the buffet can act as an extra prep area when you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Or maybe it could be good a baking station? It's nice to roll out pie crust far away from the heat of the ovens.

5) I widened the doorway to the dining room. It's a vertical piece of the original portion of the house, and it's my understanding from other parts of the thread that that should mean it's not structural? A widened doorway does two things:

a) It makes it possible for people to walk by the cooks easily.
b) It makes the kitchen more open to the dining room, which means it would be natural to eat informal meals at the dining room table instead of needing a kitchen table.

6) This plan also has a lot of flexibility.
a) You can add a bar sink to the buffet to make it a work zone.
b) You could add an overhang at the pass through and put bar seating there.
c) You can leave the sun room as a sun room and just use the dining table for eating (since now it's a bit more open to the kitchen).
d) You can add a free-standing kitchen table in the center of the sunroom -- the kitchen is open enough/near enough to that area that I think a kitchen table there wouldn't seem odd.
e) As a compromise between keeping the sun room vs. having a kitchen table, you could put a banquette in the bay window like this:

This should leave you some room in between the banquette and the pass through for you to put some of your original sun room furniture (I'm guessing it's just comfy chairs?) and retain some of that sun room function you wanted to keep while still having the banquette as your kitchen table.

Here is a link that might be useful: Similar kitchen

This post was edited by Jillius on Wed, Oct 8, 14 at 5:13