This is my first post! I am in the process of planning a kitchen remodel and am so glad to have found this site. I have seen so many great suggestions and ideas while lurking around that I thought I would post my current plan here for review! After many, many, many hours spent playing around with the Ikea kitchen planner here is what I have come up with:
http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/US/UI...SharedDesign=1
I have drawn out our dining room and hallway adjacent to the kitchen since we are planning on doing an open concept with our dining/kitchen area. Our current kitchen is open to our hallway with the partition wall hiding our double oven in that corner. We have our oven and fridge along the wall dividing dining room and kitchen with a small bar height "window" past the fridge and a built in pantry closet in the corner of the dividing wall and wall A which we are planning to get rid of. Along wall A our current setup is nearly identical to the one I have drawn as we are unable to relocate the rangetop and hood location. Along wall B is our sink and dishwasher (same position as that which I have drawn) which again we are unable to move. The window is actually a green house window which extends outwards to our backyard patio. Then along wall "C" we have a peninsula with a seating area that visually divides the hallway and kitchen. Our hallway actually extends further back past the kitchen, so I have indicated it with a open doorway on the design. The opening is floor to ceiling and does not have molding or a frame around it.
Our current kitchen while not horrible is getting old (going on 20 years) and needs some updates. Also, we feel that the workflow could be improved since we have a lot of dead space in the center of the kitchen as everything is against the walls. We have always wanted an island so that would be something we would really want to keep in the final layout. Also, we really like the seating area in our kitchen for informal meals and get togethers when everyone gathers around the kitchen so we wanted to keep at least a small area where people could convene. Our seating area has always been in the hallway space so it doesn't really bug us to keep it there.
Personally it has always bugged me that our oven is next to our fridge since it doesn't make sense to have something that heats up next to something that cools down (although it probably isn't a real issue, but the concept just seems to bug...lol) and it seams to make more sense to have the fridge closer to the storage, prep and sink area and the oven closer to the rangetop. We will be relocating our pantry next to the fridge into the hallway space. It is only 15" wide, but since our current pantry closet has shelves 12" deep by 26" wide we figure that what we have lost in width we will gain in depth with the 24" deep high cab unit.
This leads me to my next conundrum...Our ceiling is 98" high, but with legs the 88" tall high cabs will only reach 92" We would like to place our wall cabinets as high as possible to maximize the space between wall cab and base cab since we have some tall appliances. If we raise all the wall cabs to the ceiling, then they will be out of line with the high cabs...is there a good way to solve this? Fillers, cornices, taller legs?
Lastly, the island is a bit funky in design, but we actually like having the two coves on either side to mount some bars to hang dish towels, utensils, etc. Does anyone see a problem with this layout?
Sorry for the long post, but just wanted to make sure I gave you guys as much info as possible to help! I would love to hear everyone's feedback and expert advise so that I can maximize my remodeling effort and come up with something that is both practical, easy to use and aesthetically pleasing.:)
Thanks!
Sam
http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/US/UI...SharedDesign=1
I have drawn out our dining room and hallway adjacent to the kitchen since we are planning on doing an open concept with our dining/kitchen area. Our current kitchen is open to our hallway with the partition wall hiding our double oven in that corner. We have our oven and fridge along the wall dividing dining room and kitchen with a small bar height "window" past the fridge and a built in pantry closet in the corner of the dividing wall and wall A which we are planning to get rid of. Along wall A our current setup is nearly identical to the one I have drawn as we are unable to relocate the rangetop and hood location. Along wall B is our sink and dishwasher (same position as that which I have drawn) which again we are unable to move. The window is actually a green house window which extends outwards to our backyard patio. Then along wall "C" we have a peninsula with a seating area that visually divides the hallway and kitchen. Our hallway actually extends further back past the kitchen, so I have indicated it with a open doorway on the design. The opening is floor to ceiling and does not have molding or a frame around it.
Our current kitchen while not horrible is getting old (going on 20 years) and needs some updates. Also, we feel that the workflow could be improved since we have a lot of dead space in the center of the kitchen as everything is against the walls. We have always wanted an island so that would be something we would really want to keep in the final layout. Also, we really like the seating area in our kitchen for informal meals and get togethers when everyone gathers around the kitchen so we wanted to keep at least a small area where people could convene. Our seating area has always been in the hallway space so it doesn't really bug us to keep it there.
Personally it has always bugged me that our oven is next to our fridge since it doesn't make sense to have something that heats up next to something that cools down (although it probably isn't a real issue, but the concept just seems to bug...lol) and it seams to make more sense to have the fridge closer to the storage, prep and sink area and the oven closer to the rangetop. We will be relocating our pantry next to the fridge into the hallway space. It is only 15" wide, but since our current pantry closet has shelves 12" deep by 26" wide we figure that what we have lost in width we will gain in depth with the 24" deep high cab unit.
This leads me to my next conundrum...Our ceiling is 98" high, but with legs the 88" tall high cabs will only reach 92" We would like to place our wall cabinets as high as possible to maximize the space between wall cab and base cab since we have some tall appliances. If we raise all the wall cabs to the ceiling, then they will be out of line with the high cabs...is there a good way to solve this? Fillers, cornices, taller legs?
Lastly, the island is a bit funky in design, but we actually like having the two coves on either side to mount some bars to hang dish towels, utensils, etc. Does anyone see a problem with this layout?
Sorry for the long post, but just wanted to make sure I gave you guys as much info as possible to help! I would love to hear everyone's feedback and expert advise so that I can maximize my remodeling effort and come up with something that is both practical, easy to use and aesthetically pleasing.:)
Thanks!
Sam