We plan to renovate our kitchen and need some help laying out the design. I have an embarrassing number of questions and am so, so glad to have recently found this forum. I am trying to get a good working layout so that I can begin to price cabinets and figure out if what I want is attainable (the how-to-pick-cabinets post is brewing and is similarly a novel).
I apologize for the length of this post and thank you in advance for any guidance you can provide.
My husband and I both cook regularly, often together. We have 2 small children. Our current kitchen is original to the house (1940) and is dramatically underserved in terms of storage and functionality. I will include some photos of the current kitchen layout. (Excuse the mess. It was dinnertime but it hardly gets much better. The lack of storage means pantry and other items are out all the time. Drives me crazy).
There is no option to enlarge the width of the kitchen. The exterior elevation is basically at the property line and the interior elevation abuts a staircase that cannot be moved.
We are planning to add an approximately 14' x 12' extension onto the back of the kitchen (which got cut off from my floor plan). We will use that as a family room. The current back of the kitchen is a small eat in nook, which we plan to incorporate into the extension, hopefully keeping space for a table or some eat-in option. We currently have a door into the dining room, basically right next to the door shown on my plan. We plan to close this door off and make a wider opening from the dining room into the kitchen nook area, which will allow better access into the new family room.
The refrigerator is currently at the far corner of the kitchen, across from the sink. This is the narrowest past of the kitchen and space there is very tight (the stove, sink, DW and fridge are all basically on top of each other). My idea is to move the refrigerator to the space where the current entry to the DR is and relocate the stove to an unused wall space across from the relocated fridge. I like having the window in front of the sink but have been reading a bit here about not being so tied to the sink in front of the window idea. I am thinking about it, but not totally sold yet. I have also read Marcolo's recent post about Ice, Water, Stone and Fire. I feel like my plan may violate that rule, but I am really not sure I totally understand that concept.
I am thinking of doing 15" deep (or 12" or less?) storage across from the sink area. The benefit of doing this is that it significantly widens the narrowest part of the kitchen and allows me to widen that exit out of the kitchen. I want to use this space for dinnerware storage, a full height pantry and some additional counter space.
I have only just begun to think about the size of drawers/uppers. I know I want nearly all drawers on the lowers. I am concerned about the lack of symmetry (side to side and top/bottom). Are my proposed uppers too small? Is a 36" lower drawer too large? Do I have too little or too much space between the sink and the stove? Any suggestions are welcome.
I like to bake and would like to have enough storage for pans/ muffin tins and all the appliances that come with baking/cooking. We would like to have an area dedicated for coffee/tea. I was thinking that would be next to the fridge, though space there is very tight. We also have a toaster oven we use frequently but I am not sure where I would put it in this plan. Although we are gaining a lot of storage and counter space compared to what we have now, it still seems quite limited.
And to explain a few things about my floor plan:
* I have blocked some space around the window above the sink. This is because I do not want to crowd the window. Right now, the cabinets overlap the window molding. They block the light and are claustrophobic. And I really like the idea of continuing the backsplash tile around the window. Like this: https://www.houzz.com/photos/san-jose-res-2-traditional-kitchen-san-francisco-phvw-vp~45350
* I forgot to note that the opening on the long interior wall leads to the living room/stairs.
* The two sides of the kitchen don't end in the same place. This is because I had originally thought the opening to the dining room would be 72". However, a 72" opening did not give me enough space around the refrigerator. I changed it to 60" but did not adjust the cabinets on the other wall. It now seems like a waste of space not to use those 15". In any event, we have some wiggle room, if needed, to extend the kitchen on either wall.
Here is a link that might be useful: My idea of a dream kitchen
lavender_lass
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