A little background. Our kitchen is original with the house, so it really hasn't been changed since the 1950's. The cupboards are built in place plywood, the countertop is some kind of laminate with a metal edge band (please don't look at the edgeband, it's disgusting and I can't clean it), and our workflow is best described as a "kitchen zigzag". I've been wanting to update it since we bought the house 13 years ago, but we're finally ready to start.
"Phase 1" is actually outside of the current kitchen. We've decided to turn our old family room at the back of the house into a dining room, and so our old dining room (right next to the kitchen) is going to become additional kitchen space. Phase 1 involves building a wall of cabinets on the old dining room wall. Once this is complete, we'll have storage (finally--we barely have any now, even in the old kitchen) and we'll be able to move just about everything from the current kitchen, so we can begin demo and move onto Phase 2.
I'd like to get input on Phase 1--we're planning an Ikeacation in a week and a half, so we're almost to the point of actually buying stuff.
To give perspective, here's the link to the full plans. These plans are slightly in flux, and don't fully reflect what's in the second link below. This one is just to show where everything fits in (Phase 1 is the far "right" wall in the default view).
http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/US/UI...SharedDesign=1
Here's the Phase 1 plans. I've played with it a little, so what this includes is three different variations on different colored walls.
http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/US/UI...SharedDesign=1
Right now the favorite is the Green wall. Each cabinet is either 15 or 30 inches. The wall space I have to work with is 10.5ft, so the green wall works out to be 10ft, giving me a little flexibilty. We had talked about trying to do 18" base cabinets and uppers on either side of the "desk", but that extends it out to 10.5ft, and leaves me no room for a filler panel next to the first tall cabinet, nor any flexibility in installation.
The things I'm most curious about:
1. Is the 60" of tall cabinets overwhelming? We started with two 24" tall cabinets, but two things pushed me away: first, the 24" doors (since there aren't 12" tall doors available, at least according to the website) would open into our walkway into the dining room and block off too much of it. Second, I wanted to be able to do one tall cabinet as a cleaning supplies cabinet, and have it physically separate from food storage. That's why the 60" is made up of 2 15" and 1 30".
2. We've combined both 39" and 30" uppers above the desk area. I'm still not sure how I feel about this--on paper, I like the look of the taller uppers on the outside, and the shorter glass uppers (possibly with a custom valance and under cabinet lighting) in the middle. But I'm not sure if this will look as good in real life as I think it does in the design.
3. I wish there were a way to put the tall cabinets more into the flow of the overall kitchen. Our space in the old kitchen area is limited, though, and one of my major goals is to keep the fridge, sink, dishwasher, and stove in line with each other. The stove is currently (in the "old" kitchen, not pictured) on the opposite wall from the sink, and it's a terrible workflow. I've decided I'm willing to have to walk around the stove to get to our pantry cabinets, but if anyone has any other ideas, I'm all ears.
"Phase 1" is actually outside of the current kitchen. We've decided to turn our old family room at the back of the house into a dining room, and so our old dining room (right next to the kitchen) is going to become additional kitchen space. Phase 1 involves building a wall of cabinets on the old dining room wall. Once this is complete, we'll have storage (finally--we barely have any now, even in the old kitchen) and we'll be able to move just about everything from the current kitchen, so we can begin demo and move onto Phase 2.
I'd like to get input on Phase 1--we're planning an Ikeacation in a week and a half, so we're almost to the point of actually buying stuff.
To give perspective, here's the link to the full plans. These plans are slightly in flux, and don't fully reflect what's in the second link below. This one is just to show where everything fits in (Phase 1 is the far "right" wall in the default view).
http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/US/UI...SharedDesign=1
Here's the Phase 1 plans. I've played with it a little, so what this includes is three different variations on different colored walls.
http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/US/UI...SharedDesign=1
Right now the favorite is the Green wall. Each cabinet is either 15 or 30 inches. The wall space I have to work with is 10.5ft, so the green wall works out to be 10ft, giving me a little flexibilty. We had talked about trying to do 18" base cabinets and uppers on either side of the "desk", but that extends it out to 10.5ft, and leaves me no room for a filler panel next to the first tall cabinet, nor any flexibility in installation.
The things I'm most curious about:
1. Is the 60" of tall cabinets overwhelming? We started with two 24" tall cabinets, but two things pushed me away: first, the 24" doors (since there aren't 12" tall doors available, at least according to the website) would open into our walkway into the dining room and block off too much of it. Second, I wanted to be able to do one tall cabinet as a cleaning supplies cabinet, and have it physically separate from food storage. That's why the 60" is made up of 2 15" and 1 30".
2. We've combined both 39" and 30" uppers above the desk area. I'm still not sure how I feel about this--on paper, I like the look of the taller uppers on the outside, and the shorter glass uppers (possibly with a custom valance and under cabinet lighting) in the middle. But I'm not sure if this will look as good in real life as I think it does in the design.
3. I wish there were a way to put the tall cabinets more into the flow of the overall kitchen. Our space in the old kitchen area is limited, though, and one of my major goals is to keep the fridge, sink, dishwasher, and stove in line with each other. The stove is currently (in the "old" kitchen, not pictured) on the opposite wall from the sink, and it's a terrible workflow. I've decided I'm willing to have to walk around the stove to get to our pantry cabinets, but if anyone has any other ideas, I'm all ears.