I don't actually understand the question about the peninsula. Oh! You're asking if you should leave the framing around the opening between the two rooms? It's a good way to incorporate a beam if you need one to hold up the house where you're taking down a wall. Aesthetically, it also helps define the dining room and kitchen as separate areas. But if you don't need the beam, it's up to your taste and how you want the final look to appear.

What I'm more concerned about is that the dining room in the photos isn't "miniscule". So my first instinct is to ask if you really have enough room for both stools and chairs. You need something like 6 feet, to make that at all workable. You can skimp a little with stools that fit entirely under the counter, where no one is going to be sitting both at the counter and that side of the table. But even with 6' there will be a lot of pardon-me's and rubbing-up-againsts if people are sitting on both sides.

I'm not clear on the big difference and what your proposing 'cept for the addition of the rolling cart. I went to the dentist today so I'm a little foggy... what am I missing?

First of all, it looks like your inspiration pic has more room...that looks like a 36" cabinet on the peninsula, not the 24" one you have.

Second, that wall is taking approx 18" off the peninsula counter...thereby reducing some of that nice expanse of workspace you'll have on the peninsula. In your case, you'll have approx of 5' of space...plenty of room for 2 seats. But if you then reduce it by 18", you're left with 3'6"...not quite enough room for 2.

The framing of the opening looks nice, but I think you need to weigh the functionality of your space against the aesthetics... If you could gain a foot or two of kitchen width I'd say go with aesthetics in this situation regardless of the counter loss (since you could still seat two) if it means a lot to you.

You need to ask yourself in this case is,
What is more important to you, functionality or aesthetics?Only you can answer this for you.

Other comments...

Their range location...right in the aisle w/the peninsula...not very safe!

.....But you don't have that, although you do have your range right in front of a door...w/the door opening into it.......can you at least change the swing of that door to make it less likely someone working at the range or trying to take boiling water to the sink to drain will get whacked?

Yes, the door might hit the open DW, but (1) it looks like the DW is recessed from the edge of the wall and will be protected by that somewhat and (2) I'd rather hit the DW than a person as mentioned above.

BTW...While the DW & MW setup looks good initially (and I liked it at first) in your inspiration, the DW is in the way of the MW...you can't use the MW while the DW is open.

thanks all. to clarify - that kitchen is not my ispiration pic at all - just grappling with the wall situation.

yes, the range is by the door in my layout for budget reasons:

gas range and don't want to move gas and the door is already there and also won't move. but yes, we could have it open in the other direction (which it does now and that actually annoys me to no end truth be told). DW is free and clear of door although it doesn't look that way in the mock up.

here is overhead view:

As for the space issue - I need to get the specific measurements to see if there would still be adequate room for 2 people even with the wall there - not sure there is.

and to those that understood what i was asking - thank you! i know my post was a bit confusing without marking things specifically on the pictures.

just as an fyi - the sink cabs look short b/s there is a soffit above that will not be removed- and it is a soffit that continues into the adjacent dining room.

Issue with the door, are you in a climate where you can have swing out to the left? That would eliminate one of the problems. IE: We get lots of snow & ice, so wouldn't be practical for main door.

Have you looked into how much it would cost to move the gas? From comments others have made on the Forum, it doesn't sound like it's expensive at all... We don't have gas, so I can't speak from experience. Even if you could move the range to the left by one cabinet, it would help w/the door situation...it may even eliminate the problem.

I like the large cased opening from a design standpoint, because it eliminates looking at the side of a cabinet, which I think is a weak way to terminate a design.

However, with that element in place you may only have comfort room for one counter stool. Without the cased opening you have a bit more room.

would it be strange to have the door swing outward? it opens to the backyard and it is covered by an overhang on the outside. the whole house is strangely designed actually. we are doing a mid range reno on this kitchen without moving any exterior walls.

i should add also that this isn't our forever home or my dream kitchen. we are trying to make it the best we can with the budget we have and we are not DIYers (i wish). we hired a contractor.

Well,

We had the kitchen pictured above. Very large opening between kitchen and DR, with walls ending where counter top ended.

We took down the wall, added a peninsula, and absolutely love how it has opened up our kitchen. Kitchen looks twice as big now.

We changed our table to a counterheight one so that table chairs could be interchanged with peninsula ones (important when you have limited space).

Sorry, I don't have pics from the exact same viewpoint. But, you'll have to trust me when I say it really improved the space by removing that wall. So, can't recommend that you add one in your case.

thank you raehelen - that looks fabulous. i think you have talked me out of keeping any semblance of a wall there. can i ask - do you have pictures from any other angle? wondering what you have on the wall adjoining the peninsula and if you have any upper cabs hung on that wall.

thanks!

I haven't taken any pictures for awhile... have been stalled by trying to choose a backsplash, so have been waiting to take finished kitchen photos (and we're renoing the whole house, so always something else to do). So, this is what I DO have, I have one upper on that wall, between the two greenhouse windows (2 X 21")- a huge improvement over the one 12" upper that was there before! Not sure how much room you have at the end of the peninsula, but we added a small 7-9" curved overhang that comes in handy to squeeze in an extra seat on the end- that leaves us with just under 32" for our aisle, less than recommended, but works just fine for us!

old kitchen- see end of wall on right?

This shouldn't keep you from opening the door to the outside if that's what will work well for you; it's just something to take into consideration. When a door opens to the outside, your hinges are then on the outside. A thief can remove the pins from the hinges and remove the door. There are things you can add to the door to prevent that, I think, and there may also be special not easily removed hinges.

Als6w,
I suggest not having that extra wall. Then the kitchen will look like one large room, not like a combination of two small rooms. I would also extend the cabinet to go to the end of the peninsula, ending it with a diagonal glass cabinet facing the eating area. That will give you a nice transition and people will not be looking at the side of the cabinet from the eating area.

Raehelen,
can you please post a photo of the whole wall with the refrigerator? I would like to see what cabinets you have between the refrigerator and the range wall. How far does the cabinet over the refrigerator come out beyond the 24 in.? How wide is your kitchen? Is the ceiling 8 ft. and the moulding 2 in.? Our remodeled kitchen will also have frameless cabinets to the ceiling (after removing the soffit) and we will add a peninsula like yours, but our refrigerator will be directly across from the peninsula, so need a 44 in. aisle. Our kitchen does look wider than yours. We are not getting a new refrigerator now, it's not counterdepth, we can't recess it since it's against an outside wall, and there is no better place to move it. How much overhang do you have on the peninsula on the table side? And how much space between the peninsula base cabinet and the table? What company are your cabinets?

How much space should there be between peninsula (eating) and table???

Our remodel will be very similar to Raehelen's kitchen. We can't wait to get that whole wall down.

the whole reason i was debating the wall was b/c i don't love the idea of seeing the side of that cabinet. but i don't like the lack of functionality in the angled cabs that i see sometimes on the ends of those uppers. a friend suggested i just pick a nice end finish for the panels - be it beadboard or "doors" and put it on the side of that upper + the back and side of the peninsula and that would make the whole thing look more finished.

als6w,
There are lots of neat ways to finish off cupboards and peninsulas. It wasn't even something on my radar until I started frequenting GW! Doesn't bother me in the slightest, but I do like it when I see those finishes in other kitchens.
For us, seeing the side of the pantry instead of the side of our fridge was such an improvement- we're happy, and we jealously guarded every inch of space on that wall, losing a couple of inches to add a fake door on either end just wasn't an option, let alone the $$$.

We actually had ordered an angled cupboard to finish of the run of cabinets for the fridge side- had to reject the first two attempts, and ended up hiring a carpenter to build us a winerack/bookcase combo- far more functional, and we're happy with it.

letter100,

Our kitchen is 10.5' wide(actually an inch or two less than that). Yes, our walls our 8' high and the cupboards are 39" with a 3" molding and an 1.5" light rail (DH made the light rail, so he made it as small as possible).

The peninsula overhang is 12" on the table side (so glad we added an extra 3" from the original plans). There is 5' from the base of the peninsula cabinet to the table. Wouldn't want it any tighter than that. Would have loved 2 more feet of length and depth to the DR part- but as we basically live in the kitchen and eat 95-98% of meals at the peninsula, we stole as many inches as possible from the DR.

Our fridge is flanked by two 18" pantries- one is used as a broom/storage closet, the OTF cabinet is 29" deep+ 3/4" door. Any narrower, and I wouldn't be able to reach my pans/trays.

I wouldn't recommend the cabinet manufacturer to anyone- (you could search to find out my long sad story)- my kitchen company has gone bankrupt and good riddance is all I can say!

Als6w,
I just realized what I am going to do to hide from view the side of that cabinet over the peninsula - hang a large plant from the ceiling, with vines hanging down! Maybe that would work for you also, or some other decorative object.

Raehelen,
So sorry to hear your story! I like the way you designed the cabinets around the refrigerator, stepping back with different depth. Seeing it gives me an idea on how one of my possible designs might look. Thanks!

I'm thinking that if you'd like to keep that upper wall cabinet, that keeping part of the wall as framing would be a good plan. If you can handle not having that cabinet (storage not being an issue), then I think that tearing down the wall and having that space open(like raehelen's kitchen) would look great.

Why don't you want to move the gas line? I ask because as someone else mentioned, having the range so close to the door is dangerous (someone swinging that outside door open while another person has a hot oven door open=bad situation for doors and cook). When we moved into our house the range was on electric, but the fireplace in the living room was gas. Since we wanted a gas range, our plumber ran a flexible gas line, from fireplace to kitchen, under the crawl space (a good 20 ft.) for about $150. Two months ago he spliced off of that to give us permanent gas to our outdoor grill (about 40 ft. and only an extra $50). It's pretty inexpensive to have done and well worth it.

At this point it is too late to move it - the cabs are ordered. Demo starts Monday. Also - we have lived with that door situation (opening into range) for 2 years now and haven't had any problems - this *might* be because we are avid cooks....but even so, still no problems to date so we didn't even factor that in to be honest.

Originally I was going to not put any uppers flanking the sink - but then the whole kitchen felt unbalanced to me. I considered open shelves too b/c i Love the look but then I got real - we are not an open shelf kind of family right now (two young kids).

I do like the plant idea though. ;-)