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lucie22

small, awkward kitchen floor plan

lucie22
12 years ago

We are going to do a budget remodel of our kitchen. The house was built in 1909 and was last remodeled in the 1970s. We have 4 doorways and a wall of windows in this small space. Most of our storage is in a small pantry. Part of the plan is to tear down most of the wall separating the kitchen from the large dining room and moving the range to a new peninsula. I've spent hours on the IKEA site trying to figure out how best to lay this out. We'll probably use IKEA cabs. Let me know what you think.

Here is a link that might be useful: floor plan

Comments (14)

  • lucie22
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    another view

    Here is a link that might be useful: 3D view

  • davidro1
    12 years ago

    In the plan posted, I cannot see the 4 doorways.

  • bmorepanic
    12 years ago

    Walking around from the window clockwise,
    -- Is there any way to reshape the door opening by making the big side towards the window wall and the little side towards where you placed two cabinets?
    -- Where does the next doorway go?
    -- The little post between that door and the open wall really doesn't line up with the other larger rectangle on the other side of the room?
    -- The next door is at about where the 41-3/4 is shown beside the ref?
    -- I take it the 4th door was to the dining room?
    -- Can you post a sketch of the surrounding areas? Just to better figure out what goes on with traffic...

    The following is not criticism - I don't know enough about y'all or your house to have any. Looking at the drawing, I have some concerns.

    • the long hike from the range to the sink with a pot of boiling hot pasta in water
    • person at sink has to move away in order for someone to open the ref
    • the cave formed by the ref with dish storage?
    • the aisle neckdown between cabinets 15 and 16 to effectively 24"


    Other than removing cabinets 16 and 17 and replacing with a single wider cabinet facing the other direction, I'm not sure what to suggest.

  • Stacey Collins
    12 years ago

    Here's her plan for others to see more easily:

  • Stacey Collins
    12 years ago

    Could you post a hand-drawn plan of the EXISTING space, with doors, existing walls, windows, and measurements?

  • jalsy6
    12 years ago

    I'm not a layout wizard, but I can commiserate with you at least. Our 1935 house had 5 doorways and a wall of windows in an 11X13 kitchen. Horrible. Our best option was to block off one of the doors to create an L of cabinetry. We sacrificed that access to the (jack and jill) staircase, but gained a functional kitchen, so it was worth it. Not sure if that can be considered in your case...hard to tell where the doorways are and where they lead to. You'll surely get some great suggestions on this forum - Good luck!

  • lucie22
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Here is an architectural drawing of our kitchen. There are no doors between the kitchen, entry, or basement, just openings. I can add pictures if that would be helpful.

    Here is a link that might be useful: current floorplan

  • lisa_a
    12 years ago

    Here's the plan lucie22 linked to.

    lucie, it's easier for forum members to see and comment on your plan when you imbed the images in the thread. It's cumbersome to go back and forth, which is what we need to do when you link to an image, not imbed it. It's easy to do. Click on "share" then go to "grab HTML code", copy it and paste it in the thread.

  • lisa_a
    12 years ago

    I agree with bmore - that's a long walk from range to sink with a pot of boiling water.

    If you'd like our help coming up with a plan for your space, tell us more about you, your family, your kitchen needs and wants, etc. We also need more information about the dimensions of your space. I tried to match the dimensions of the IKEA plan to the above drawing but I got confused. Assign a measurement for each letter in the drawing below:

    Hmmm, I thought I'd made that image larger. Hopefully you can read it. Basically we need to know measurements for the total length of each wall, including doors and windows and then for each individual section of wall, window and doorway. The latter should add up to the former.

  • lucie22
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Thanks Lisa a, I tried but was repeatedly flummoxed...
    Here goes!

  • lucie22
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    We are a family of four, my husband (who likes to cook), two teenage boys (16 and 13) who like to eat, and me. We have two dogs we like to keep in the kitchen while we're gone. None of us are gourmet cooks, so we don't need anything fancy ;)
    Right now we do not have enough storage and have very limited counter space. We do have a moveable butcher block island jutting out between the pantry and back porch.
    Our house was built in 1909 and we have a huge dining room that is underutilized. That's why I'm hoping to open the wall between the two rooms.

  • davidro1
    12 years ago

    first things first: forget about the window while you are moving things around in simulations. The sink can be anywhere. A couple other things are far more important.

  • lisa_a
    12 years ago

    Thanks, but I can't read all of your numbers, even when I hit control + to enlarge the image.

    Your IKEA plan leads me to believe that the window wall is 141 11/16" long but when I add up the numbers of your above drawing - the ones that I can read, that is - I get a smaller total, closer to 130": 14", 31" window, 6" wall, 31" window, 6" wall and ? (11"?). Please tell me this total span.

    Also, it looks like you have 152.5" from window wall to DR wall, according to the measurements you provide for the bottom wall (79" wall, 41" stairway doorway, 8-1/2" wall, 24" wall) but I can't get that to match the numbers you give for the top wall (18" wall, 29" pantry doorway, 54" wall, and 31" back porch doorway. You don't provide a measurement for the narrow wall between back porch doorway and DR wall). The second set of numbers adds up to 132", a difference of 20 1/2". Is that narrow wall between back porch doorway and DR wall that wide? If not, either I'm misunderstanding your measurements or you've made an error in your measurements. It's important to get it right but especially so in a small space. Please provide the measurement for the span between window wall and DR wall.

    I missed the part about removing the DR wall the first time. Oops. So I didn't need the individual sections, sorry about that.

    Can any doors be moved? I know you wrote that this will be a budget remodel but are you allowing for any other changes other than the DR wall removal? For instance, if you can tweak the pantry door opening so that you can have full depth cabs to its left, that would give you much needed counter and storage space.

    Are you planning on purchasing - or do you already own - a CD fridge? I think you really need to go with this type. I was looking at your IKEA plan with the fridge on the stairway wall and I think you'll have enough clearance for the fridge doors to open without the door and handle banging on the adjacent counter. My KA CD 36" wide fridge is 29" deep, body, doors & required air space behind it but without handles. I measured yesterday and found that the doors with handles swing almost 13" to each side from the body. You need to make sure you will have at least that much clearance so that your fridge door/handle does not bang against the counter, damaging fridge and/or counter.

    How wide is your DR? I'm assuming from the window configuration that the DR table is centered in the space. Which direction does your DR table run (top to bottom or side to side on your plan)? What size is your DR table?

  • lucie22
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I'm going to repost this with better measurements, etc.
    Thanks!