Could you post a floor plan that showed the measurements of where the windows and doors are and what the sill height of the windows is? That would be more informative in doing a kitchen layout. Thanks :)

Hi there! I think that you would be much happier and it would be easier to visualize where everything should go. I agree with the above poster, you need a floor plan. Good luck!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Floor Plans

Ditto what palimpsest asked. We also need to know more about you or else it's just a stab in the dark. Some of the things we'd need to know are: Do you have kids? If so, ages? Is this a one-cook or two-cook kitchen? Do you want range or cooktop and wall oven?

If you haven't already, read the "Read me...." thread (link below) to get an idea of what kinds of things you need to consider, decide and then post here for kitchen design help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Read Me If You're New To GW Kitchens!

Hmmmm.....kitchendesigntips...the above link does not work (and it's to am external site that matches the poster's user name)

Favabeans5...I second Palimpsest, a layout with measurements would be more useful. Without them, it's anyone's guess what might fit where. See the "Read Me" thread linked below and scroll down to the post w/the subject "Layout Help" for more information on posting layouts and asking for layout help.

I look forward to reading more!

Here is a link that might be useful: Read Me If You're New To GW Kitchens!

How this? The window to the back doesn't currently exist since that would be a new exterior wall. If it isn't labelled as a door or window it is an exterior or interior wall...

Not sure if this helps... Each square is 1ft x 1ft.. .So the total space is 14ft x 21ft

I have 2 young children and that will be it. A 2+ year old boy and a 4 month old girl.. we want the 14x21 space to include the kitchen and dining room table.. our current table is about 3 feet wide and 6 feet long with extension that make it about 9 feet..

I am thinking maybe something with an island but can't work it out in my head where i could fit the frig and stove and have it all work.. we would like the kitchen to be in the top right section of the space so with the sink facing out the window.. but if some other layout functions better we are open to anything..

Thanks for any ideas...

Here is a link that might be useful: Floor plan..

oops.. i should add that the steps to the den don't have to be that wide... so totally open to narrowing those if that helps with the space..

favabeans, did you read the thread that both buehl and I referred you to? You haven't provided enough information for anyone to suggest a plan that won't require multiple revisions because the designs would be created with little information about you, your family and how you use your kitchen.

Is this a one or two cook kitchen? Do you want a range or cooktop and wall ovens? Do you entertain? Do you want extra seating (peninsula or island seating)? Are you reusing any appliances? Full depth, CD or built-in fridge and how wide? Is there a kitchen already in this space or is it all new construction? If the former, where are the plumbing, gas lines and venting and can any of those be moved? Tell us your traffic patterns. For instance, do you bring groceries in from the garage, front door and is that path through the FR or LR? These questions are just a few of the things we need to know about you.

There are some wonderful design experts here and it's great that you're open to anything but unless you want a plan designed to suit our preferences not your needs, read the thread, do your "homework" and post again, please.

What are your goals? E.g., more counter space, more storage, seating in the kitchen (island? peninsula? table?), etc. - Just need to fill the space with the kitchen and dinning room table and allow access to the den that will be 2 steps below the kitchen level..

What is your family composition? Adults? Children? Age ranges of children? Current? Future? 2 adults 2 kids 4 months to 2+ years and 1 cat

How many kitchen workers are there? Cook(s)? Cleanup? Helpers? Now? Future? Generally only one cook and one cleanup we don't do big formal dinner but would like room for at least 2 people to be in the kitchen one prepping or cooking and one cleaning etc..

Do you or anyone in your home cook? Yes we cook.. not a lot of baking beyond cookies and brownies etc... mostly stovetop stuff.. rice.. soups..

How do you see your kitchen used? Just for cooking/cleaning up? Children doing homework while you cook? Party place? - We want it to be used for cooking and socializing.. so our current kitchen has bar seating which we always have filled up when we have friends over.. we would like seating in the kitchen if possible along with the dinning room table.. if you look at some of the other pictures on the flickr site you can see our current kitchen and layout

Do you entertain a lot? If so, formal? Informal? we entertain between 8 and 20 people maybe 8 times a year..

Do you want your kitchen to be a "hang out" place? Parties only? Everyday? a hang out everyday place..

Do you have a separate DR? Do you use it frequently? Infrequently? If infrequently, do you want to begin using it more frequently (e.g., for daily/nightly family meals)? we would like to use the dinning room more frequently.. currently the dinning table is in the area that we want to use as a den.. so we want to open the space up so we can move the table on the level of the kitchen.. it will not be separate as the 14*21 space will be open with no interior walls separating the dinning area from the kitchen..

Would you like to open up the kitchen to adjacent areas? Close it up? it will be open up to other areas.. both the den... and the living room through the door noted on the doorway noted on the bottom of the picture..

Do you plan to merge two rooms/areas (e.g., Nook and Kitchen into a Kitchen only).. it would be kitchen and dinning room merged together..

Where are you flexible? pretty much open to ideas.. put would like the kitchen sink facing out the back yard.. we have a nice view of a pond back there from fall to spring.. its about my favorite part of the house and i enjor sitting at the existing bar and looking out at the pond..

Can windows or doorways change size? the doorways cannot be changed.. the steps to the den can be more narrow but they cannot be any farther towards the bottom than the are now.. so the bottom line of the steps is fixed but the top is flexible..

Can they be moved or eliminated?

Can windows be raised/lowered? no windows now so they can be wherever needed.. I just want the window facing the backyard..

Can any walls come down? no

Does the sink have to be centered under a window? yes

Does it have to be under a window at all? yes

Do you bake a lot and do you want a Baking Center? no

Do you want a coffee/tea/beverage center? no.. fine with coffee marker on countertop..

Do you want a snack center? no

What appliances do you plan on having (helps to figure out work flow, work zones, and types of cabinets...upper/lower vs full height, etc.) Standard width frig, range, dishwasher, under cabinet microwave.. upper cabinets are totally flexible..

Range or Cooktop or Rangetop? range

Single or Double or no Wall Oven? no wall oven

Warming Drawer? no

MW? (Advantium, MW Drawer, OTR MW/Hood, countertop, built-in, shelf?) under cabinet..

DW? Standard or drawers? If drawers, 1 or 2? standard

Refrigerator (Top/bottom freezer, SxS, or all-fridge/freezer? Counter-depth (CD), standard-depth, or built-in?) .. side by side counter depth

Ventilation Hood? we have a down-draft range..

Other?

Sizes of desired appliances (e.g., 30" or 36" or 48" cooktop; 36" or 42" or 48" wide or other Refrigerator? etc.) standard size appliances.. is that 30 range and 36 fridge?

Pantry: Walk-in or cabinets? In the Kitchen or outside the Kitchen (e.g., Mudroom or hall)? Pantry would be nice. it does not need to be in the kitchen proper and could be in the area closest to the dinning room if that makes sense..

***** Very Important *****

Is there anything you:

Can't live without? nope

Definitely don't want? nope..

Would like if you can find a way? would like some sort of seating facing the window our the backyard.. so we can enjoy the view.. open to a bar height penninsula or perhaps an island is more appropriate.

actually saw this on the gardenweb site and this is a pretty nice setup.. thou I dont think I can have room for the island to be backing up to the den area.. don't want anybody falling over backwards..

curious to see what kind of creative ideas come in.. i tried to answer all of the questions from the link.. let me know if you need any more information..,

the space doesnt exist so there are no restrictions with electrical, plumbing, or windows..

Here is a link that might be useful: maximizing the view

Bumping for you.

You might get more feedback if you post a plan you've drawn as a starting point in the design process. Most GWers don't have design software or even the ability to post a hand drawn plan (me included). A blank slate never gets as many responses as threads where the OP posts a plan for review.

Thanks Lisa,

Great idea.. So I created 2 rough layouts...

One is if we leave the kitchen where it is now and put the dining room in the new space.. This would be super easy and less expensive.. But I dont like that we lose the open feel since the dinning space would be blocked by the kitchen base cabinets and on the right the entire wall would be closed with the wall cabs..

The other is if we move the kitchen which takes advantage of the entire space and open feel etc.. but i can't get the layout to work and have everything fit.. it really might not fit in either example..

Here is a link that might be useful: leave kitchen where is..

here is the one if we move the kitchen.. but i can figure where to put the fridge..

Here is a link that might be useful: move kitchen

thou I am not totally happy with the fridge placement.. id like it to be easier to access i think.. i guess its okay but blocked by the island doesn't feel right..

Here is a link that might be useful: island?

Anyone? Please... I think i like the island layout the best.. I am really not looking for a lot of detail on which cabinets etc just overall major shape and appliance placement... Thinking now that the range might need to be on the wall on the right next to the fridge.. So we have room for wall cabinets near the sink.. It also provides for more workspace next to the sink.. We use all that space now so i am sure would mss it...

It's great that you did lay-outs. Embedding them in threads makes it easier for GWers to view and give feedback (your way has us going back and forth multiple times, not as effective).

Here's your "leave kitchen where it is" plan:

"move kitchen" plan:

And lastly, your "island" plan:

(All I did to embed the images was click on "Share this", click on "Grab the HTML/BBCode" and then copy and paste in this thread. Easy to do.)

In the island plan you have two refrigerators. Is that intentional? The island is really acting as an obstruction in this plan, at least at that size.

I am still not understanding some of the dimensions, the dining table looks like its 30" wide for example, and the corner cabinets are not drawn as corner cabinets and taking this into account the measurements don't seem to add up going by the grid.

I think your best bet may be to try another plan starting with the "leave as is" plan, but shifting it to the "move kitchen" location but get everything moved, don't leave part of it in the far corner

Personally, I prefer a version of plans 2 or 3. I think it would be nicer to view a seating area from the LR than a kitchen. But that's just me.

Here are a few things that jump out right off the bat:

You have not allowed sufficient aisle space in many areas of all 3 plans. 36" is the minimum between counters (not cabinets, as you've shown, counters reduce that distance by 2-3" because of overhang) and most here prefer 42" (recommended for a 1 cook kitchen) or 48" (for a 2 cook kitchen). In plan 1, you'll only have about 24" (after counter is added) for people to walk from table to kitchen without stepping down into the den.

Unless you're planning on a banquette, 24" between table and wall is not enough. 36" would be best (more if people will be passing behind seated diners). You certainly have the room to move the table away from the wall since you have 7' between table and fridge in plans 2 and 3. Not sure why you'd give up so much space to ... well, I'm not sure what the reasoning is here.

I say 7 feet between table and fridge because you haven't allowed enough space for a CD fridge (not built-in). Only the box is CD, the door and handles add several more inches in depth. You also need to check clearance requirements around the unit. None can sit flush against a wall. Our KA CD FD fridge is 28-1/4" deep, including doors, clearance but not handles. Because of this, your first plan lacks adequate clearance in front of your fridge.

Enough generalities. You said you like the island plan (3#) best so I'll focus suggestions on that. Sorry I can't draw this out for you but I hope you can follow along anyway.

I would extend the sink counter all the way to the den opening. If you want to prevent items from tumbling to the den steps, end the counter run with a stub wall that sits a few inches higher than the counter (no steps next to it). Or a wall that goes to the ceiling, reducing the opening slightly.

Shift sink and DW over a bit to give you more space between sink and range. Or move the range to the fridge wall, shift the fridge down to give enough room between fridge and range. Check code for your area. Some places restrict how close a gas range can be to a functioning window or door.

You'll need to lose at least a foot of the length of your island, perhaps a bit more to give you enough aisle space.

I'd move the table towards the center of the room. I think you can leave it perpendicular (there isn't a step down to the LR is there?). Then I'd run cabinets all down the right wall for storage. If you already own the buffet, you can include it in the run of cabinets. This moves them out of the path of traffic from den to LR.

I'm sure that others will come in and improve on your plans more than I have but I wanted to get the ball rolling for you.

I didn't see that the table is only 30" wide. That's really narrow for a 6' long table. Are those dimensions accurate, favabeans?

hi.. thanks for the imbedding.. i couldn't remember how to find the source code and I could have sworn I could get it by righ clicking on the images before.. but that doesn't work..

I am not so much worries about exact dimension at this point.. Just a really generally layout.. I can work with exact dimensions when i get father into just a bigger overall layout plan..

So the feedback on the island is perfect.. it would access to the sink.. I could shrink the island but I was also trying maximize use of my existing cabinets.. I want to try to re-use them in the new space.. but that is really a secondary objective.. i want to get the layout right and will deal with the cabinets 2nd..

in regards to moving everything I can't really move the fridge and pantry because that blocks the stairs to the den and defeats the overall open plan..

if I keep the pennisula.. which i really like now.. i cant seem to find a spot for the fridge that doesn't block the flow to the den...

shifting to an island opens up space for the fridge but kind of blocks access to the sink.. but I could put the dishwasher on teh wall next to the fridge and swap the sink with the range and then have a clear path the sink and keep it close to the DW... but may thats not all that important.. it seems like islands by their nature block access to at least some part of the kitchen..

the two fridges are not intentional..

i dont have access to actual design software so just trying to use grids and boxes to indicated general placement...

thanks for the thoughts..

Grids and boxes work, just try to get them to as close to their actual size as possible.

If you already own items, such as table, fridge, range, etc, then you need to worry about exact dimensions now, not later. If you want to reuse as many of your existing cabinets (if you said that before, I completely missed it), then you need to tell us what those are. A general plan could easily be shot to hell when you plug in exact measurements and find you're off. It might only be by inches but those inches can make a big difference. And then you'll be back to ground zero.