Post by dr.girlfriend on Mar 11, 2014 19:12:35 GMT -5
I promised y'all a big kitchen reno thread, and here it is. Probably bigger than our kitchen!
I have pictures of the kitchen (from when we bought the house) but it was a lot and I figured people would get bored, so I moved it to the end. :-D
I mocked up a quick plan of how the kitchen is now -- measurements might not be exact, but you get the idea.
And here's the new plan:
So, the wall between the kitchen and dining room will be knocked down. On the kitchen side you'll have the sink and dishwasher, and a pull-out for trash. There'll be a 6 - 7" rise (like people often do with a breakfast bar), and then on the dining room side there will be three cabinets...a drawer and door on each side and four drawers in the middle with the same granite countertop on top. I want the effect on the dining room side to be kind of like this (but with no uppers):
Here's something showing the height difference with a breakfast bar:
And in the foreground here you can kind of see it with cabinets:
Here's a pulled-back view of those same cabinets:
I'm hoping this (along with a nice deep sink) will hide all the sink-level clutter, plus give us storage in the dining room that we're lacking in the kitchen (we store all our dishes in the dining room anyway, in this):
Any input on my kitchen plans? The things I'm happy about are:
- Food prep room near the stove - A food prep "triangle" - Pantry storage (which I hope will make up for a lot of the lost cabinet space) - A full-sized dishwasher
The things I'm not happy about are: - No great place for microwave (I'm hoping to do a built-in in one of the 24" cabinets as shown, but it'll make the drawers uneven with the other two cabinets in that run) - No great place for other applicances (e.g. toaster, cofeemaker). We really just use the toaster, and hopefully that'll be low enough that if it's on the sink side you won't see it. - Losing almost all the upper cabinets (and the one I'm keeping will be 6" smaller, since I want a glass door and that's not available in 24") - The left-hand wall is basically a giant wall of floor to-ceiling cabinetry (pantry + fridge) but I think that'll be okay since it'll mostly be hidden behind that scrap of wall that's left.
I realize the microwave thing is confusing in the plan -- I'm hoping to build it into that 24" base cabinet, like this:
My hope is to do it in pretty similar color schemes to above. That wall color above is in the dining room, I'll probably carry it through. Here are the floors (carried through from t.v. room)
The cabinets will be IKEA Lidingo, like this, only sadly only one glass upper. :
Okay, if you're still with me -- congratulations! Here's pictures of how the kitchen looked when we bought the house (with the seller's stuff, but we more or less replaced the pot rack with a buffet and left everything the same, although our tastes are less "country"). As you can see, it's -- PINK! Even the cabinets have a pink undertone. I can't believe I've put up with it for this long. The pictures are a little hard to visualize the whole space -- there's really no place to stand back far enough to take a good pic, so I'll try to describe.
If you are in the dining room, there is a door to the kitchen, set two feet in from the left-hand wall. (That's important because I hope to put in a counter-depth fridge along that wall). The whole rest of this wall will be coming down.
On the left-hand side of the kitchen there is nothing permanent, except the door to the basement in the back corner. The previous owners had a potrack there, we have a buffet-type piece of furniture. Like the bright orange basement, by the way? ;-P As a bonus, because of the overhang on the countertop the basement door doesn't open all the way. This current "run" of counters is 69", I am cutting it to 66" (partly for door clearance, partly because that's the way it worked out with the standard counter sizes). I'm really worried we won't be able to get the giant washing machine out of the basement if it ever conks!
Along the back wall, there's one upper cabinet and lower cabinets, including (from left to right) one set of pull-out drawers, a 3/4 size dishwasher, the sink, a measly 9" strip of counterspace, and then the oven/range. This is the WORST because there's no place to put stuff near the stove! I can't wait until this is all counterspace!
On the right-hand wall is the door to the t.v. room (the famous knotty pine room which is now white and a billion times brighter!), and then a very small amount of corner cabinets.
A view of that corner:
The fridge basically takes up the rest of that wall until you're back around to the doorway looking from the other direction.
THANK YOU guys for any input, advice, criticism, or encouragement you can provide!
If you're going with Ikea, have you tried their kitchen planner tool? I found it very helpful to use when planning out our kitchen, and really let me play with ideas.
If you're going with Ikea, have you tried their kitchen planner tool? I found it very helpful to use when planning out our kitchen, and really let me play with ideas.
I had a lot of trouble with the kitchen planner tool from IKEA, but I think a lot of it was the fundamental mistake of setting the kitchen up as its own room, instead of doing the kitchen + living room. After the contractor consults this weekend, I'm going to pay for the IKEA planner to come and measure and design -- I think they said it was a couple of hundred bucks. Seems worth it, I hope. I tried to install the plug-in again last night and it wouldn't install.
It definitely seems worth it. We were thinking about doing the same thing for measurements only, and taking our favorite design to the kitchen planners at the store for them to review and tweak.
Have you considered switching the sink section and the stove section? If you put the sink under the window, then you could probably fit 2 uppers to the right of the window, to allow for more storage (it seems like there will only be 1 upper?), and you would have all of that counter space for small appliances. Then with the stove on the dining side, I imagine you could pull food out and put it right up on that bar while entertaining/socialize while cooking. There would still be plenty of food prep space there, and I like the micro in the cabinet below.
Have you considered switching the sink section and the stove section? If you put the sink under the window, then you could probably fit 2 uppers to the right of the window, to allow for more storage (it seems like there will only be 1 upper?), and you would have all of that counter space for small appliances. Then with the stove on the dining side, I imagine you could pull food out and put it right up on that bar while entertaining/socialize while cooking. There would still be plenty of food prep space there, and I like the micro in the cabinet below.
I think it would be hard to have venting for the stove right over the peninsula, right? It would block the open look I'm going for.
Have you considered switching the sink section and the stove section? If you put the sink under the window, then you could probably fit 2 uppers to the right of the window, to allow for more storage (it seems like there will only be 1 upper?), and you would have all of that counter space for small appliances. Then with the stove on the dining side, I imagine you could pull food out and put it right up on that bar while entertaining/socialize while cooking. There would still be plenty of food prep space there, and I like the micro in the cabinet below.
I think it would be hard to have venting for the stove right over the peninsula, right? It would block the open look I'm going for.
Is putting the microwave above the stove an option? You can get microwaves that vent to the outside rather than just recirculating air and then you gain cabinet space.
Otherwise I think the layout looks like a great improvement and you will love it I bet! I redid my kitchen with the same cabinets and love them 2 years later. I wanted to use the kitchen planning but they weren't offering it for some reason, so it was a little challenging doing it but still worked out. We had the in-store kitchen people review the plans before ordering and they helped fix some errors. Then we took advantage of the ability to return cabinets that were wrong. In the end it worked out great.
Also, I have the same setup with using the tall upper cabinets as the base for the bar, and I love it so much. The additional storage space is great! And I like that it hides the kitchen mess. If I can figure out how to PIP I will
The micro above could be a good idea too. Mine is above, has a vent, and then there are 2 shorter cabinets above it that we store our oil/vinegar/flour/other messy baking goods in, so that could give some more storage a well as free up lower storage.
how much space is between the stove and the TV wall right now? can you extend the run a little and get an extra cabinet in there?
That's like a 4 - 5" little bumped-out wall -- I'm not sure what's in there -- they added a half-bath from part of the tv room that's on the other side of the wall -- maybe they ran the plumbing through that bump? I don't think there's enough to shift it over without having part of the stove under the window. Here, this picture shows it a bit better. The space is REALLY tight! :-)
My only thought - our microwave is above our stove. Is that an option?
That's what the contractor was really pushing when we first spoke, but I'm really hoping to avoid this. We are not big cooks at all, we use the microwave more than anything, and if we do cook on the stove we're usually microwaving to go along with it (e.g., boiling pasta and microwaving frozen sauce). I think it'd be a pain to have someone constantly reaching over the stove to get into the microwave. Plus, thinking more long-term, I want DS to be able to make himself simple stuff when he gets older, and having the microwave up high seems dangerous for him. I'm only five feet tall also, so reaching up all the time to microwave seems like a pain. On the whole, I think I'd rather lose one 12" x 24" cabinet drawer, especially if we have the whole 88" high pantry and a 72" run of cabinets in the dining room to make up for it. I also don't love the look of just one cabinet hanging out over the stove. Plus, we have a nice stove hood already, so we could just keep that one.
Hope this doesn't come across as argumentative, just been thinking about this a lot, and I know the contractor is probably going to try to talk me back into it -- he was very opinionated!
Post by chickens987 on Mar 12, 2014 8:35:16 GMT -5
how much room is between the basement door and the fridge? and which way does the door open? I wonder if you can swap the 15" pantry for a 24" cabinet for a built-in microwave (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S99845543/). You'd lose some pantry space but preserve a drawer or 2 under the window and gain some width.
Hope this doesn't come across as argumentative, just been thinking about this a lot, and I know the contractor is probably going to try to talk me back into it -- he was very opinionated!
Of course it doesn't! And you make a couple good points. 1- DS using it. We clearly don't have that option (the kitchen is how we bought it). 2- the lack of other cabinets. Our stove is on a wall surrounded by cabinets, so the microwave and cabinet above it blend into what's around it.
Since you don't cook a lot, could you do something smaller than a 36" fridge? That way, you could have a microwave cabinet with storage rather than just a pantry cabinet. Samsung has a counterdepth, French door at 32.25". Summit and Liebherr both have CD options under 30". Even if you only lost 4" of fridge and needed more space for the 24" cab, there's room to bump the fridge down a bit more and still have enough clearance for the basement.
Also, for the basement: have you considered removing your standard door and installing a pocket or sliding door? That could give you more options as well.
I promised y'all a big kitchen reno thread, and here it is. Probably bigger than our kitchen!
I have pictures of the kitchen (from when we bought the house) but it was a lot and I figured people would get bored, so I moved it to the end. :-D
. I want the effect on the dining room side to be kind of like this (but with no uppers):
Why no uppers? The only reason I ask and perhaps you have already thought of this was that emptying the dishwasher is going to be a real pain to stack up the dishes and carry them into the other room all the time. The duel sided glass uppers would be an excellent solution for both putting away the dishes and setting the table. Plus that picture you provided looks really nice too. Otherwise, I like the layout!
Hope this doesn't come across as argumentative, just been thinking about this a lot, and I know the contractor is probably going to try to talk me back into it -- he was very opinionated!
Of course it doesn't! And you make a couple good points. 1- DS using it. We clearly don't have that option (the kitchen is how we bought it). 2- the lack of other cabinets. Our stove is on a wall surrounded by cabinets, so the microwave and cabinet above it blend into what's around it.
I figure at worst we could always do that later (replace the hood with a microhood/cabinet combo), and even have two microwaves. :-) It would just involve removing the hood and installing one cabinet, so it could be done as an afterthought.
I was just trying to brainstorm some ideas, and solve some of your concerns. It is really whatever you feel comfortable with.
Honestly I think your kitchen will look so amazing, and I cannot wait to see it!! I really love your style of everything.
Sorry, hope it didn't sound like I was arguing -- I was hoping you might tell me that there's a way the stove doesn't need venting or something. :-)
Have you looked at downdraft stoves? My parents have one in their kitchen peninsula with a raised breakfast bar behind it, no overhead ventilation needed. Or were you trying to work with your existing appliances?
Since you don't cook a lot, could you do something smaller than a 36" fridge? That way, you could have a microwave cabinet with storage rather than just a pantry cabinet. Samsung has a counterdepth, French door at 32.25". Summit and Liebherr both have CD options under 30". Even if you only lost 4" of fridge and needed more space for the 24" cab, there's room to bump the fridge down a bit more and still have enough clearance for the basement.
Also, for the basement: have you considered removing your standard door and installing a pocket or sliding door? That could give you more options as well.
That's interesting! I didn't realize there were counter-depth fridges less than 36" wide. The only reason I think I wouldn't do that is that because we don't cook we usually just eat prepared stuff out of the fridge or freezer (e.g., rotisserie chicken and salad, frozen dinners, etc.) so I think not cooking actually warrants a bigger fridge/freezer than otherwise. That said, I also don't think we can find another 9" there...I marked off where the fridge would end and it doesn't leave much space to get in the basement door with laundry baskets, etc. I think at worst if we had to do something big that's a one-time thing, like get the washing machine out, we could remove the refrigerator panel and move the fridge. I'm more worried about the daily getting in and out of the basement -- as it is we use a laundry duffel more than baskets because it's awkward getting through with the door not opening all the way.
I did ask the contractor about a pocket or sliding door, and he said it wouldn't be possible because of the pipes that run up the side of the basement wall from the utility sink there. And then with the fridge on that wall there will be electric and maybe even water through that wall also if we have an icemaker/water dispenser. It may be possible eventually, but it would probably be crazy expensive. :-)
I promised y'all a big kitchen reno thread, and here it is. Probably bigger than our kitchen!
I have pictures of the kitchen (from when we bought the house) but it was a lot and I figured people would get bored, so I moved it to the end. :-D
. I want the effect on the dining room side to be kind of like this (but with no uppers):
Why no uppers? The only reason I ask and perhaps you have already thought of this was that emptying the dishwasher is going to be a real pain to stack up the dishes and carry them into the other room all the time. The duel sided glass uppers would be an excellent solution for both putting away the dishes and setting the table. Plus that picture you provided looks really nice too. Otherwise, I like the layout!
I've gone back and forth about this, and half of me wonders if once the wall is all knocked down I'll be like, "damn, I should put uppers up there!" Right now, though, my feeling is that they would block the open feel I'm going for, and not be very functional given that (1) I'm so short, and DS will be short for awhile and (2) I would want glass-door ones, so only pretty stuff could go there. As it is, we stack dishes from the dishwasher and carry them all the way through the door into the far corner of the dining room and put them in that wooden cabinet. I'm hoping it'll be a lot easier now -- straight out of the dishwasher and onto that high counter that's on top of the dining room cabinets, and then come around to the dining room side and put them into those cabinets. That way they'll still be in the dining room, and DS can access them and set the table, etc. as he gets older. The middle drawers can hold silverware and servingware, etc. We've actually found it pretty convenient to keep dishes in the dining room -- you go through it on the way to the kitchen, so picking up the dishes you need on the way to the kitchen is not a big deal.
Sorry, hope it didn't sound like I was arguing -- I was hoping you might tell me that there's a way the stove doesn't need venting or something. :-)
Have you looked at downdraft stoves? My parents have one in their kitchen peninsula with a raised breakfast bar behind it, no overhead ventilation needed. Or were you trying to work with your existing appliances?
I've never heard of those. In the long run, though, I think I'd much rather have the sink on the other side. I feel like we spend much more time every day standing in front of the sink/dishwasher than we do in front of the stove, and my main idea for the kitchen reno is over the next few years being able to see DS doing his homework at the dining table while I'm doing dishes and food prep in the kitchen. :-) The view out that one window on the other side is not inspiring -- it's basically just a tall privacy fence. :-P
Can you afford to lose that much space in the dining room? Are those going to be custom cabinets due to the height?
Ah, these cabinets. They have been driving me up the wall. I currently have them as being 24" deep. Basically, my options are to buy a pantry cabinet and cut it down to 36.75". That would be 24" deep, and I could use the standard door and drawer set, and just add a shallow drawer on top, which is sold separately, and makes up the other 6.75". The other option is to use an upper cabinet, which comes 39" tall and is 12" deep. That seems a little stingy, though, especially since we're losing the 6" of wall in between, and wouldn't fit any combo of existing door-and-drawerfronts, so it'd have to be just plain doors with maybe pull-out drawers inside.
I think we have the space to lose, currently we have a piece of furniture there that is pretty deep. That said, I really, really, REALLY wish there was a way to make these 18" deep. I am going to ask both the contracter and the IKEA planner for ideas. At worst, I'm wondering if it's worth it to me to have a custom cabinetmaker or handyman build boxes that are 24"w x 18" d x 36.75" high, find sets of 18" drawer rails and drawerboxes, and use the IKEA doors and drawerfronts which can be bought separately. I think this may be worth the money, compared to spending years thinking "ugh, that's too small" or "jeez, this thing is too massive." 18" depth also seems like the perfect depth to store stuff but not have a lot of wasted space at the back of the cabinets also.
I don't have a good pic of the dining room as it is now, I'll try to take one tonight. Here's a pic from the listing. The left-hand wall is where these new cabinets will be, and you see how they have a cabinet about that size there now (although not as wide, of course). Plus there's room to move the table over. We are social but not dinner-party people, usually if people come over it's for pizza and Oscar party type stuff, so I think we'll be okay with a six-seater table at most, and will benefit from having buffet-type counterspace for appetizers, etc.
Oh, wait, I found this pic -- it sort of shows the low piece we have there now. I think it is 24" deep (I'll confirm tonight) and that's with a 6" wall behind it. This run of wall from the doorway to the right-hand wall is exactly 72", so the cabinets would completely replace it.
Post by spankswife on Mar 12, 2014 10:28:30 GMT -5
You are totally not be argumentative! It is good that you have reasons for what you are doing
I agree now too about the sink facing the table with your DS, instead of always having your back towards him. The biggest thing here is you have to design what works best for you and your family. I think everything seems to be thought out, and practical for you guys.
Likewise, I am just throwing out other ideas to brainstorm. I have 11 upper cabinets, and they are all full, but I don't have a pantry.
Can you afford to lose that much space in the dining room? Are those going to be custom cabinets due to the height?
Ah, these cabinets. They have been driving me up the wall. I currently have them as being 24" deep. Basically, my options are to buy a pantry cabinet and cut it down to 36.75". That would be 24" deep, and I could use the standard door and drawer set, and just add a shallow drawer on top, which is sold separately, and makes up the other 6.75". The other option is to use an upper cabinet, which comes 39" tall and is 12" deep. That seems a little stingy, though, especially since we're losing the 6" of wall in between, and wouldn't fit any combo of existing door-and-drawerfronts, so it'd have to be just plain doors with maybe pull-out drawers inside.
I think we have the space to lose, currently we have a piece of furniture there that is pretty deep. That said, I really, really, REALLY wish there was a way to make these 18" deep. I am going to ask both the contracter and the IKEA planner for ideas. At worst, I'm wondering if it's worth it to me to have a custom cabinetmaker or handyman build boxes that are 24"w x 18" d x 36.75" high, find sets of 18" drawer rails and drawerboxes, and use the IKEA doors and drawerfronts which can be bought separately. I think this may be worth the money, compared to spending years thinking "ugh, that's too small" or "jeez, this thing is too massive." 18" depth also seems like the perfect depth to store stuff but not have a lot of wasted space at the back of the cabinets also.
The other reason I ask is because a 24" countertop *may* look odd on the raised part since most raised bars are either 12 or 18" in depth. I know you won't have seating there, but it'll still appear from multiple angles that it is a raised bar (since you won't see the cabinets). I'd definitely go custom-the drawer slides aren't a problem: www.lowes.com/Search=drawer+slides?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10051&N=0&newSearch=true&Ntt=drawer+slides#! And if they're custom making the boxes, the drawers won't be a problem either.
If you did custom-I'd consider 36" wide cabinets-IF you don't think you'll ever do the uppers. I really like the look of the first picture (with 2 vs. 3), and those appear to be wider than 24". Personal preference though
You are totally not be argumentative! It is good that you have reasons for what you are doing
I agree now too about the sink facing the table with your DS, instead of always having your back towards him. The biggest thing here is you have to design what works best for you and your family. I think everything seems to be thought out, and practical for you guys.
Likewise, I am just throwing out other ideas to brainstorm. I have 11 upper cabinets, and they are all full, but I don't have a pantry.
Right now we store some food in those uppers, but they are so awkward in the corner there that we don't really get to it much. Otherwise, there are these shelves along the basement wall (yes, the basement is not only ORANGE, but with forest green accents!) that we use for food storage, although I'm hoping the pantry eliminates the need for some of these (these are pics from when we were buying again, all our food in this area is in those mouse-proof containers. :-)).
Ah, these cabinets. They have been driving me up the wall. I currently have them as being 24" deep. Basically, my options are to buy a pantry cabinet and cut it down to 36.75". That would be 24" deep, and I could use the standard door and drawer set, and just add a shallow drawer on top, which is sold separately, and makes up the other 6.75". The other option is to use an upper cabinet, which comes 39" tall and is 12" deep. That seems a little stingy, though, especially since we're losing the 6" of wall in between, and wouldn't fit any combo of existing door-and-drawerfronts, so it'd have to be just plain doors with maybe pull-out drawers inside.
I think we have the space to lose, currently we have a piece of furniture there that is pretty deep. That said, I really, really, REALLY wish there was a way to make these 18" deep. I am going to ask both the contracter and the IKEA planner for ideas. At worst, I'm wondering if it's worth it to me to have a custom cabinetmaker or handyman build boxes that are 24"w x 18" d x 36.75" high, find sets of 18" drawer rails and drawerboxes, and use the IKEA doors and drawerfronts which can be bought separately. I think this may be worth the money, compared to spending years thinking "ugh, that's too small" or "jeez, this thing is too massive." 18" depth also seems like the perfect depth to store stuff but not have a lot of wasted space at the back of the cabinets also.
The other reason I ask is because a 24" countertop *may* look odd on the raised part since most raised bars are either 12 or 18" in depth. I know you won't have seating there, but it'll still appear from multiple angles that it is a raised bar (since you won't see the cabinets). I'd definitely go custom-the drawer slides aren't a problem: www.lowes.com/Search=drawer+slides?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10051&N=0&newSearch=true&Ntt=drawer+slides#! And if they're custom making the boxes, the drawers won't be a problem either.
If you did custom-I'd consider 36" wide cabinets-IF you don't think you'll ever do the uppers. I really like the look of the first picture (with 2 vs. 3), and those appear to be wider than 24". Personal preference though
That's interesting -- because the glass uppers only come in 18" (one-door) or 36" (two-door), so having only two cabinets would match if I did want two uppers. However, I do like the idea of having drawers in the center for silverware and dishes on the sides. In my mind the view from the dining room will look like this (forgive the hasty PowerPoint mockup):
I think you're right, though, I'm getting more and more set on having this be 18", and damn the (financial) consequences! Hopefully it won't be too expensive if the drawerfronts and doors will be IKEA. And they say you can get a pretty good paint match for the ikea cabinet finish.