Kitchen Design Dilemma – TN Kitchen BEFORE
I’ve never had such a hard time deciding what to do with a space as I am with this kitchen. My kitchen is separated from the living room by a big wall so it feels like I’m in “Time Out” when I’m preparing meals or cleaning up.
I don’t really get how this house is set up. There are 2 dining rooms right next to each other! One kitty-corner to the kitchen.
And the other one, right next to the first one, just off the main entrance hallway.
This dining room is small and will NEVER get used if the house remains set up as it is. I hate wasted space. If this dining room was usable, I could use the other one as a craft room or a reading room and then both rooms would ACTUALLY GET USED.
This is what I’m thinking for my Kitchen Reconfiguration Project as of now:
Close up both doors in the dining room so this door (on the right) will be all wall.
Tear out the wall between the kitchen and living room.
Make the window in that little hallway — a door going outside. Then we can take the trash out without dragging it through the whole house and bring in groceries in the same manner! The part of that little hallway that used to be a door to the dining room will be a “locker type” coat/bag/backpack hanging area.
Then open up a doorway to the dining room on this far wall, after the dividing wall is removed.
Then put in either one HUGE island or two narrow, long islands or one wide island in the center and another one kind of where the peninsula is right now only back farther or one huge island and a dining table…
I do know I want the oven on the opposite wall. That part I am sure of! I know I want a gas cooktop and double ovens and two separate sink stations.
I’m just having a hard time deciding exactly how I want to set it up. I’m not excited about losing all these upper cabinets but I HATE having a kitchen that is all closed up to the rest of the house. THAT MUST CHANGE!
I would DEFINITELY make the “outside door”!
You have some great ideas for the kitchen! I especially like converting the window to a door and having some sort of a landing area. A Dutch door would allow you to sill see out and open for ventilation, if needed.
I have a 5 x 6 ft island in the center of my kitchen….sort of baseball diamond shaped…just a huge flat work area with seating on the curved section. It’s my favorite part of our home and gets used all the time.
Good luck….can’t wait to see what you will do.
Sounds CRAZY awesome. Not that I think everyone needs to tear down walls, but if the wall needs to come down, there’s no need to NOT do it because it’s scary or messy. I’m willing to live through the mess in order to end up with the space that will serve me best in the long run. I’m with you on the TOO large island. Function, function, function and then make it pretty. That is my goal!
Sandra, you will make it awesome, we all know that! When we remodeled our kitchen 6 years ago, we closed up a door, replaced two windows, put in a slider out to our deck, and tore down an L shaped wall because of the whole being sent to do maid’s work feel of a separated kitchen. I haven’t regretted it once!! I have one HUGE island and sorta wish I had made it smaller. It has cabinets on both long sides, drawers on one end, and an overhang for seating along one side. It can be hard to use the middle of it! BUT, it is great for the tabletop ping pong set we bought for when all our kids are home!! Haha!
I’ll show you my floor plan of what I decide to do. 😉 I’m definitely moving the entrance to the formal dining room which will mean closing up the current ones.
Basically the only part I haven’t decided is what I’m doing with the island. (Or islands.)