Hi, you've done such a nice sketch, and good pix, but having not labelled the booth area in the sketch (parallel to stairs?) or shown that open door in it, I'm a bit unsure of what's actually where. I am sure it's all blatantly obvious to you :0), but being slighty spatially challenged, I don't want to make assumptions re what to do before knowing what's what there.

Good point... I had to figure out how to label, but I think it makes more sense now. That open door leads from the kitchen to a small mud room. I've taken it off and put it into storage in the basement, it was just in the way all the time. I don't have an updated picture of that though. Also, not pictured, is that the booth has sort of a lower wide doorway from the rest of the kitchen.

Hi, well your sketch is still 'wanting' - the arrow pointing the booth (obviously no longer there) is a bit vague, but never mind. However, the photos show the fridge & stove touching, but the sketch has a big gap. ANYway, the area's tiny so I might just turn it into a place with a chaise, floor lamp, tiny table, and lots of plants. You could still always have tea there... maybe no chaise but two little chairs?

How about a pantry/storage area? I've never met a kitchen in a small house that couldn't use more storage, and that kitchen looks to desperately need it. I'd put a 5' run of cabinets on each of those long (5'11") walls - one wall floor to ceiling, the other wall with uppers, lowers, and a shallow counter. I would use upper-depth cabinets for the bottom ones as well as top; 12" is a fairly standard depth for those so you'd have a 3' walking/door-swing space between them, and the end window would provide natural light. It looks like you can fit 12" between the window and the wall? This counter would make a great serving/staging spot for food ready to serve in the dining room, thus keeping it out of your very scant counter area over by the sink. A heat-resistant surface like tile would be ideal.

I'm a little puzzled, though, as to why in your drawing you show a space of a few feet between the fridge and stove, but in the picture they're butted together. Does that empty space actually exist? If so, I'd put a heatproof counter surface of some kind between the stove and the fridge, so that you have somewhere to set things down when you're taking them out of the fridge or oven, and it would provide an additional food-prep area so someone could help you in the kitchen without bumping elbows over in that tiny area by the sink. One additional benefit of separating stove and fridge is that the fridge has to work less hard because it doesn't have this big hot thing sitting next to it... and you don't get that schmutz building up on the side of the fridge from cooking splatters. :-)

I know a lot of old-house people would have heart attacks but if you're DIYing and on a very tight budget, consider Ikea cabinets, which Consumer Reports rates as one of the best "bang for your buck" cabinet systems. It's basically a completely different animal from their furniture, with details you usually only find on very expensive cabinets. Their Adel White door, a simple Shaker style, would be a pretty reasonable style for the age of the house and light enough for the rather dim room. A bright, cheery wall color (I have always loved yellow for kitchens) and lino tile for the floor (or VCT - vinyl composition tile - if the budget is corset-tight, since it gives a similar look to lino tile for 75-80% less money) would add some fun and still be respectful to the period without blowing your wallet to Kingdom Come.

I could definitely use more storage areas, so I do like the idea of adding cabinets/counter space in there. I had thought of making it more of a full fledged pantry, but I want to keep the window accessible since its a dark room already. Sadly there is no Ikea in Denver (one planned to open in a few years though). I should price them though to see if its worth the trip out to one.

Yeah, the picture and drawing there are a little confusing with the fridge/stove. The old stove isn't attached to the wall (when I replace it, I'll do that), so I just slid it down apart from the fridge and put the dog food bowl there for the time being. I might move the stove to where some of the old cupboards are (closer to the sink, where the wall slides back 1'5") because there is an existing vent that a hood could use. I think the original stove was over there, but that was taken out in the 60s.

One other clarification on my sketch there, the booth occupies the whole 5' by 5'11" area. I found a picture from when I moved in that might help:

I think I'd move the stove over to the 5'11" wall (to the left of dining room door) with counter space on either side of it. That stove just seems really crowded and in the way where it is now. Even moved its not that far away, you've still got your work triangle thing.

Does there need to be eating space at all in this room? If so, one of those tiny round ice cream tables with 2 chairs where the stove was. OR a bar with stools (with narrow counter 18" to allow more space to move around.)

IF NOT, then a hutch type thing where the stove was (upper cabinet up to ceiling, lower cabinet/counter below - but again keep the lower cabinet & counter narrow, 18" or so - I did one something like this out of IKEA peices, using 12" deep upper 30" cabinets as a lower.

Since the dining room is so close I'd be inclined to give up the in-kitchen eating in favor of more workspace.

Add an over-the-fridge upper cabinet over the fridge (leave it facing out that same direction.)

In the stairwell going downstairs, you can put in NICE open shelving in that space to the right of the doorway - with good lighting. Use that as a pantry.

You're right, you've got a clean slate which can be fun to work with - compensation for having lost all the original built ins.

Try posting this question on the kitchen forum. They should have plenty of suggestions.

Scratch the above post.

Just saw the picture & new info. - so stove and old hood would be to the right of where the stove is now - sorta set back? Yeah, that would work although slightly crowded if cook & dishwasher are working at the same time. My sink & stove are that close and its doable. Then that nook could be given over entirely to a BEAUTIFUL hutch/ pantry type space (with countertop for extra workshopace- cabinets with glass doors up to the ceiling.) I wonder if that's not what it was originally. I'd remove that partial wall thats above the booth closes up the space too muchh - unless it was original.

Then do either the narrow shelving or bar with stools or whatever where the stove was.

It doesn't matter where the existing booth, fridge and stove are located if this is going to be a gut rehab.

Rather than rearrange elements in a hopelessly tight kitchen you need to open the space up somehow. The biggest issue is the tight passage in the middle of the space.

What's on the other side of the wall behind the fridge? Could it move even a foot? Or just move the protruding corner over a bit?

Could a door be added at the bottom of the basement stair or on the landing so some or all of the enclosure walls could be removed or lowered? You need to be able to see through the window and door in the stairway even if it is by means of a wall opening or an interior window. I realize the mud room would suffer but the kitchen problem should come first in my opinion. If this were my house I would have had the ceiling out of the stair to look at the second floor framing an hour after the closing.

Is the kitchen entered directly from the dining room? Could the separation wall be removed or lowered, or the doorway enlarged?

I would seriously consider pushing the basement stair out of the house if it is possible and you can afford it because that's the only way you're going to get a space large enough for a full kitchen.

What part of Denver? My son just bought a small house near Washington Park.

I own a bungalow built exactly in that time frame in town. When I saw your drawing, it rang bells. Is there any chance your house is a Sears Craftsman? That floor plan looks very familiar, right down to the arch! There is a door to the outside directly in front of the basement. It is at a lower level, however, than the kitchen .....right? That's how it is in my town house. At first I was going to add that I thought the wall had been added onto to accomodate a booth, but it hasn't. I recognise the drawer in the mudroom and think it is orginal to the house, as are the doorframes there. The ledge to the left in the mudroom is the same as in my townhouse, it's base is block and the back part of the basement stairwell construction.

You have a very unwieldy set up and the booth is part of why it is. Youf sink was at one time under the window in the booth area, I'll lay you money. I'll bet there are old pipe entrance holes in the basement ceiling there. Booths were hot stuff in the late fifites and early sixties and I can see someone trying to modify one into that space in that era. And the offset in the wall directly across from the basement door is where the kitchen table used to be, I'll betcha.

Remove the overhang above the 'eating nook' to integrate the area to the rest of the room. Remove the walls enclosing the 2'8' mudroom to include the small mudroom/top of stairs area in the room (if possible). You will then be able to play around with a floor/plan program to arrange things.

My initial thoughts include having the stove located where the width of the room becomes wider and having the refrigerator recessed into the area at the top of the stairs (this would require a narrow refrigerator). I also thought maybe getting rid of the fridge using those built in drawers and maybe a full-size refrigerator/freezer in the basement. That would free up a lot of space.

Could you get rid of the mud room and instead put a closet in part of the space where the booth was? That would open up the most cramped part of your kitchen, assuming that those walls could come down.
What program did you use to draw your floor plan?
kathy

She's concerned it is a load bearing wall, and if it's integral to the house build, it may be. It would open up a lot of room in an already small kitchen if you could, but if you can't here is what I would do.

I would put in a sink, counter and dishwasher against the window side of the little alcove where your booth is now. A standard depth for off-the-shelf base cabinets is 24". If you put a bank of them on one side of that alcove wall, it would still give you a 3 foot isle to the sink. I know that's tight, but I have a 3 foot isle between my kitchen island and some appliances against a wall, and I don't find it terribly claustrophobic. You could run either floor to ceiling bank of them against one wall of the booth alcove, or better yet, just floor cabinets and put in a built in oven and cooktop in it, and get rid of the free standing range to open up more of your kitchen area. With some wall cabinets overhead of it to store to hold your seasonings, and etc. If you think it too tight, then perhaps a narrow pantry of about 18".

That would leave only the fridge out in the main floor area, and I'd leave it where you already have it, so it's in close proximity to the cook units and sink.

If you can't get a cook-top and built-in oven into the booth area, and have to keep it in the kitchen area, I'd still bank it up against the wall your fridge is on, so they'd also give you extra counter area, and extra cabinet area, and then maybe go to a counter with a deep lip, so that you could slip a couple stools under it, and use it for casual eating. It's all about getting as many cabinets and as much counter space built into that kitchen, and away from as many free-standing units as possible. I have a 16 x 32 foot kitchen/dining room, and we still built in as much storage and counter as possible, and made them do double duty for storage, food prep and eating.

Not ideal, but cheap (I think). I'd move refrigerator into booth area, (even tho' it blocks the window), and add open shelving on the 5'-11" wall. Then I'd shift the range down to the wider end of the room, and add a narrow work table and shelving to connect it to more narrow end of room.

Mighty Anvil -- I think the OP meant the gut already happened, and s/he is looking for inexpensive DIY help. Any suggestion for DIY'er to determine whether those walls around stairs are load bearing? It does seem to open possibilities if they were gone.

Thanks for all of the great suggestions! I really appreciate the ideas.

To answer a couple questions, this is a bit south of Washington Park in old town Englewood (near the high school). It's not a Sears Craftsman, but it has a lot of craftsman elements. It is really more of a Tudor style on the outside. Calliope, you're right that the outside door is at a lower level and that there is one original built-in in the mud room. For some odd reason the back door leads into patio that is a foot below grade, causes drainage problems, but I digress.... I made the sketch with Google SketchUp, it takes a little figuring out but it is free. You can do some really neat 3D tours in it.

As far as moving walls, the wall behind the fridge is a narrow hallway & the doorway into a bedroom. I don't think it would be possible to move without serious re-working of that part of the house. There is also a furnace chimney coming through there. I've thought about a basement stairway reworking too, but that's out of budget for now. If I could though, that would be great.

I need to determine what is structural around the mud room. There appears to be a support running up from the basement along the stairs into this area, but I'm less sure about the mud room itself. I'm doing insulation this weekend, so I'll see what I can tell in the attic. I have been debating whether or not to open up the wall into the dining room. The only drawback seems to be less wallspace for counters, but that might be worth it.

Thanks again for all of the help! I think I need to figure out structural walls before I get too far along. In the mean time I'll be insulating and patching holes. Boy have the hornets been busy building up there...

"For some odd reason the back door leads into patio that is a foot below grade, causes drainage problems"

So does the same door at my townhouse. Are you sure it's not a Craftsman? Perhaps it was a published house plan. But there are too many common elements between your kitchen and mine to be a fluke. LOL. There had to be installed some underground drainage to carry the water away at my house.

In my house, where your door is to the dining room, is the archway and it is where some owner previous to my parents made the major part of the kitchen. They use the old kitchen (size of yours) for a table and chairs and the double door fridge. The sink and battery of cabinets and stove are in that area.

Is there basement under your main kitchen area? My house has a full basement, EXCEPT under that part of the kitchen.

I'm a fellow DIYer so I know how budget restraints can put the shackles on, but having said that, this looks like a gut job. I say this for a couple of reasons. 1. you're already planning on doing away with the booth nook, because it can't be used comfortably. 2. You're open to pulling out cabs to put the stove on that other wall. 3. You have very little storage.

These were a couple of ideas that I had on the fly. These are random thoughts, but that can sometimes help to get the ball rolling. Obviously if the mudroom wall is structural, option 1 is out. I've eliminated corner cabs because they tend to be space vampires and mostly unusable. Plus separate cab runs can add to a vintage unfitted look.

Ideas for saving cash in a DIY project:
Check out H4H Restore and Craigslist. Oftentimes people who just want a new look get rid of perfectly good cabs that can be reused. The unfitted look lends itself to recycled cabs particularly well with separate cab runs painted or stained differently. Try IKEA or LL for really inexpensive butcherblock counters. Ebay is great for hardware - pulls, knobs, faucets, etc.

HTH

Mblmstrm, don't listen to the naysayers. Your kitchen is not hopelessly small--it's other people's kitchens that are hopelessly large. My last kitchen, which was a very long, tight galley, absolutely sang when I cooked in it. It just worked. I think you can make this one work very well too. I think the best feature of my last kitchen was the placement of the sink and stove near each other, with about 30" of blank counter between them that was used for prep only. There was about a 1 1/2 feet of counter on the other side of the sink where dishes could accumulate, and appliances (microwave, mixer) were elsewhere too. My current kitchen is much larger, but has a poor layout, and I really miss that dedicated prep space.

So, I recommend turning the booth area into a pantry with 12" deep uppers and lowers. Appliances (micro, toaster, coffee, mixer, etc.) can live on these shallow counters, and with 12 feet of them, you will still have empty counter space for staging dishes into the dining room. Then, put the fridge by the door to the dining room as in laxsupermom's option 2, but it need not be counter-depth. You can skip the pull-out pantry because you already have the large pantry area where the booth was. Continue, from the fridge, with a bit of counter, then sink, then more counter (this is the dedicated prep space), then outside curve jog where the wall offsets (I'll try to post a sketch of this, it would be so easy and lovely), then stove, then a bit more counter. Keep the 18" hutch idea too, or else put a small desk and chair there.
Oh, and consider getting a french door fridge, since it will partially block the door to the dining room when open. My neighbors have a fridge right by their dining room door, and it's not such a problem as you would think (and this is a house that has 4 adults and 3 kids, with multiple simultaneous meal prep, so the layout was really put to the test). With the french door fridge, a door could be open and you can still squeak by. I think your kitchen will be great!

You know you're kitchen obsessed when you're thinking about other people's kitchens in your sleep:) I woke up thinking along the same lines as slateberry. I made the north pantry wall 15" to accomodate the mw and mixer better. The mw is situated close to the frig for ease of access. Putting 12" uppers and lowers on the south side of the pantry makes the turnaround space only 33" which is tight, but certainly doable. Sending the range to the south end of the room keeps all traffic and snackers out of the cook's way.

I ended up w/ a tiny bit of voided corner space at the jog out, but w/ the giant pantry, you won't miss that space. Putting the DW to the left of the sink gives you a nice prep space and still leaves you a bit of counter to the left of the sink. I would use the cab between the frig and sink as a trash pullout.

Work flow would go frig to sink to wash veggies to prep space to stove. Cleanup work flow would be trash pullout, sink, DW, hutch or 12" side of pantry.

I like slateberry's idea for a desk in the hutch space, too. Perfect spot for a laptop for recipe lookup.

The cheap effective scheme would be to run a saw through the stair wall at 42 inches above the floor and add a wood cap. Then add some 12 inch shelves floor to ceiling on the opposite wall (or standard wall cabinets) and pull the standard base cabinets out 6 inches and put a 1x8 wood shelf on top of a 6 inch high backsplash. Then install new sheet vinyl flooring, and put a 36 inch high table in the middle. It would be nice but not essential to enlarge the door to the dining room.

It's never going to be a textbook appliance triangle kitchen with a mudroom and a home office but at least you can comfortably cook and entertain in it and you can see out of all of the windows from any point in the room. You could add a transom window above the door eventually.

You could make the counters out of 12 inch square granite tile on plywood (use very tight joints) with a wood nosing and replace all of it later if you like.

Task lighting is very important in a kitchen; you need to avoid light behind you and put it directly on the work surface and the deeper counters will make this possible. You could add a lighting track around most of the room (U shape) powered from an existing ceiling outlet and add light fixtures as you can afford them. Put a Xenon under cabinet light at the "L" next to the sink and just plug it in; it's not really much trouble to reach under to turn it on and you rarely need to dim them; they're for when you're working, not for show.

The best feature is that it can be done in stages. I would start with the stair. First look above the ceiling to see how the floor above is framed (come back and tell what you find) and be sure to kill the power.

I love the open feeling acheived with mightyanvil's saw, but I see a couple of red flags w/ the plan. 1. Aisle widths are tight. It looks to be just over 2' from the corner of the island to the corner of the frig and traffic from the stairs gets funneled right past the cook in about 34" of aisle. 2. Placing the range in front of the window is problematic. You can't have an overhead hood for proper ventilation. Most municipalities consider a range under a working window against code. You would have to switch the window out to a fixed one. This may or may not be true where you live, but I thought I'd mention it.

Having said all that the opening up of the space does open up a myriad of possibilities.

If I wanted to spend more time on this I would post some photos of ranges with downdraft exhausts in front of windows, one of which was published in a home design magazine. Of course, it is important to pull the range away from the window and install the downdraft system in the highest volume mode.

Appliance sales staff are notorious for telling prospective customers that there are building/gas/plumbing code limitations regarding appliance installation, location, and ventilation, especially for up-draft hoods and semi-professional ranges. So far, I have found none of these claims to be true for any state or town where I have worked.

OK, forget my outside corner turn, I'm with laxsupermom's latest layout. It gives me deja vu for my old kitchen. (Hey lax, when I post my own proposed kitchen layout on the kitchens forum, I hope you chime in, because I really like your analysis.)

One thought: the void in the corner behind the dishwasher, isn't there some sort of pop-up appliance thing that gets inserted into the counter (with a cutout), so when you're not using the appliance, it's just more countertop in that corner, but when you want it, some spring or crank mechanism brings it up? If you could fit a mixer in that space, it would be a dream!

Also if you put a desk across from the stove, keep in mind that you can have uppers over it.

IKEA may well be worth the drive. They have 12" deep base cabinets--stock, with doors or drawers. If you do a 15" base on one pantry wall, you can use blocking to space the 12" cabinets 3" out from the wall, and thus avoid the expense of custom cabinetry. Or, if you want that 3", you can also contact Scherr's, a company in North Dakota that will clone most ikea cabinets for you, so you can get the benefit of low-priced stock ikea cabs where they fit, and well-made, reasonably priced custom sizes where you need them. Check out scherr's on the kitchen's forum, they have many satisfied customers.

Lol, thinking about other people's kitchen's in your sleep: the gardenweb effect. After I posted my layout description yesterday, with all my longing for that "dedicated prep space," I walked over to my kitchen and did a two hour rearrange to create one. We moved a year ago, the day before thanksgiving, and I did a rush unpacking on Thanksgiving morning. Everything kinda stayed where it landed on that day, so posting here surprisingly got me to look at my own kitchen with fresh eyes, and fix a long standing problem. Ahh, gardenweb!

Here is a link that might be useful: Scherr's website

Slateberry, thanks for the compliments-I'm blushing, but when you get over to the kitchen forum you'll find that there are layout gurus that have great analysis and really neat software, too. I love your pop-up appliance idea. You would need a hydraulic scissor jack to do it in that corner(like a tv lift) which would be $$, but could be retrofitted sometime later. Can't wait to see your layout over on kitchens when you're ready for it.

Being forced to renovated a kitchen sounds like cruel and unusual punishment, but we had termite damage on some beams under our kitchen floor and had to rip it out down to the dirt and build it up again. That was the perfect time for me to do some major planning on what I wanted, and where I wanted to put it. My husband layed out the old kitchen when he renovated the room before I married him, and bless his heart, he does not cook. So, his placements were more based on how easy they would be to install and how economically he could do it.

I had to work with a bank of existing cabinets, because they were a high quality we did not want discard, as they were still good and it would save us major money, but I changed the traffic flow, set up dedicated spaces, and put the storage where I wanted it, and the food prep area got pulled closer together. I loved my kitchen before, but wow, it's perfect for my needs now. So, I'm with Slateberry saying that one should 'rethink' their layouts occasionally and see if they are working as they should be.

Wow, thanks for all of the great ideas! I think there are a couple variations here that will work well. It's never going to be a completely normal kitchen, but I think it will be pretty nice. I still need to figure out some load bearing questions in the mean time.

Calliope, it has a lot of Craftsman elements and I'm sure it was an available plan (same builder built several variations in this neighborhood). But, I think the only real classification is the "20s eclectic," it has a lot of Tudor elements too. It does have a complete basement though, including under the kitchen.

Thanks again for all the help!

You know, I have a booth in my kitchen which is very very comfortable and would actually fit perfectly in your booth space. It is molded and ergonomically designed-- we use it constantly. It's made by plycraft or plymold and came out of a restaurant. Maybe you could still put a booth there if you wanted to-- a much better designed one with a narrower table like mine-- and cut a window into the dining room....

Katie

I like laxsupermom's option 2, but with the sink and fridge areas swapped. Having space on both sides of the stove and lots of area around the sink are important. It's not ideal having the fridge at the far end of the kitchen from the dining room, but I think it would be nice to have it in the recessed area with some pantry cabinets. Gets the bulky things out of the way and opens up the look of the kitchen.

Here's a vote for LAX's option 1 - by far its the neatest arrangement with ample space around sink & stove, and also makes use of the stair well space by recessing the refrig in the wall. When it comes to small kitchens every inch counts. And those enormous honkin refrigerators these days - they are SO annoying, tend to stick out and COMPLETELY overwhelm a space. Recessing it is aesthetically much better.

Also there is an undefiable pleasing "feng shui" to how the space is laid out (not that I know anything about feng shui for real, just that it has a pleasing flow to it - aisles are wide, and everything seems in its rightful place.

You know what you could do is recess the fridge even further in, and then have 12" deep cabinets to the left of the fridge, floor to ceiling. And then across the aisle on that wall adjacent to dining room have more 12" deep cabinets - using 12" deep cabinets as lowers, with a narrow narrow countertop to serve as landing space for dishes carried in from the dining room, and then regular upper cabinets above. These could have glass doors or open shelving to display colorful pottery and China. Our local IKEA has such a cabinet set up, has a nice hutch effect without taking up a lot of space (cause your using only 12" deep cabinets) That would still leave you with ample aisle space.

ACK!!! I want that kitchen for myself!

Sorry LAX, your option 3 (after sleep) doesnt work for me - all the functions (stove, refrig, sink) are too crowded all on the one side.

Taking the wall out - I think you don't really gain enough to make it worth the expense and effort, when compared to just having a good efficient well thought out design.

The Habitat Restore in Denver usually has a good selection of kitchen cabinets and some are quite nice and quite cheap. I vote for adding cabinets to the booth space, retaining the window there. Another option would be to move the refrigerator in there if that would help the rest of the kitchen layout and would not obstruct the window.

I hate the idea of gutting the kitchen, but of course I am not living in your house. Still I would save/refinish the cabinets if I could.
Diane

mblstrm, I forgot to mention, your original light fixture is great. Hope you consider keeping it.