Are you still looking for input?

Hi Buehl,

thanks.. I would love input:) Looks like I posted when there was a lull in the forum. I was hesitant to re-post.

Since then I got feeback on my under cooktop drawers (36" instead of 48) and for open shelves under the uppers (code requires 18" back splash, then shelves OK).

Here's the layout Lalitha is asking about:

It will look extremely cluttered to have so much on the counters. I would not do extra depth cabinets on both runs. That narrows your walkway too much for the through traffic that a galley kitchen sees. You've got some large square footage hogs in your choices, and you need to make some compromises in order to keep the design from feeling overpowering and cluttered. So, I have to ask about your pantry? Could you possibly steal space from some other room to make it bigger and more of a "butler's pantry" type situation? With such a large pantry, I think you can dedicate one portion of it for regular depth, or even shallow depth, base cabinets and uppers and place some of your "must leave out" appliances in there. Even with extra depth cabinets, you don't have enough counter space for all of those to be left out permanently in that space and still have usable space for other things.

These would all be my personal prefs - so they aren't wrong or nothing.

Cut the little 9" shelf at the door. I would find that to be annoying more than useful. I got this thing about having a shelf in my face when entering a room. That's also going to be everyone's landing spot going to and fro out the door.

The freezer drawers are because...? I'm trying to understand why you want to put them with the oven. It could be fun to have all pre-cooked meals in the freezer and just pop them in the oven above, but I don't think that's your intent.

A 24" cleanup sink might be too small for stuff like cookie sheets. I haz one and I wish it was a 26". On the other hand, I felt like a 30" was a waste of good counter space.

I'm not criticizing the little peninsula - I don't know what I would do in terms of doing that or not doing it, merely stating that you're exchanging a 24" cabinet with 26" of straight counter for a 27" cabinet that faces into the dining area and an 18" cabinet that faces the array of cooktops.

If someone is using the cooking area, the 18" cabinet will be inaccessible to anyone else. The wok worker (can't believe that phrase) might feel a little funny for a while standing offset to the wok. The available counter space might actually be less because it won't be possible to reach some of it when the wok is in use.

It does bump the bums who are passing through the kitchen over to the ref side. But stuff on that counter feels somehow vulnerable to the same thing - those bums leaning and chatting might push stuff off.

I don't wok much, so I don't know how serious any of this is.

Hi all,

Here is an updated layout with the locations - we made some changes over the last couple of weeks that is not reflected in the earlier sketch which Buehl kindly mocked up. Pardon my rough sketch. Davidro1 -> I hope this is the base cabinet layout you requested.

- We decided to nix the peninsula as it did not feel right when we mocked up.
- The aisle between the counters is 5' and already accounts for the 30" counters on both sides.
- The counter on the cooking side is lower (around 33") to accomodate the vertically challenged cooks. The counters on the clean-up side is regular height to accomodate the undercounter appliances like dishwasher and possibly the freezer drawers.

- Refrigeration --> The 30" is all-fridge. The freezer is a 27" all-freezer drawers in a separate unit that I am not sure where to place. The counter run in the clean-up sink side is taller but I am not sure if I can accomodate the freezer drawers and a drawer stack for silverware etc (stuff coming out of the dishwasher).

- The uppers will be 15".. Anything deeper than that did not feel right. No uppers in the narrow wall right of the clean-up sink.

- The entrance to the pantry - not sure if it will be on the long side facing the kitchen or the short side facing the family room. We may have some structural considerations there.

Green designs --> I am not sure how a butler's pantry would help with the layout. My current pantry is really not that large I think - it is more of a step-in pantry. Just 3'6" X 6ft.

Lalitha

Did you say that you have already bought the sinks? We thought about the Franke Beach when we saw it. It looks neat at the store, but I have doubts about how practical it is. The garbage disposal is normally put on the upper drain which means that you have to fish any stuff out of the main part of the sink that you want to put down it. The upper bowl and "beach" slope take up a lot of the 24" width so what you get a 10-12" full depth prep sink that you can put a colander, bowl, etc. That seems like a lot of wasted space. A plain rectangular or D prep sink that is 13 to 19" wide, depending on how much counter space you are willing to spend on it, might be more practical.

From the family room to the living room is there another hallway or is going through the kitchen the only way?

Cloud swift - I actually used the prep sink 3 times before I purchased. I like the small double bowl. I can scrub veggies in the big sink and use the inset bowls in the little bowl to collect cut veggies. One of the places I tried had the disposer in the large bowl. Let us see how it plays out :)

Davidro - yes indeed . The living room is behind the kitchen. The other side of the pantry is a hallway that has an entrance to the living room.

This kitchen doesn't need to be a passing through kind of galley.
If people use the French doors to the patio, to get to the garage.

A storage space (your pantry) can take the shape you give it.
It's leftover space.
Consider turning the ovens 90 degrees so they back into the pantry area.
They could back into that space a lot or a little; you work that one out.
The dead space on the RHS of the ovens can become a garage for some of your appliances.
You have many large countertop appliances so it might be good to plan for a spot for them.
The microwave might be able to go in that corner too.

Consider putting the big hood over where the Beach sink is.
With the cooktops there too.
Then, all smell producing appliances are in one spot where the exhaust hood is.

The Beach sink then goes where the cooktops are shown.

You can adjust things so as to get a huge expanse of open countertop between the Beach sink and the cooktop.
A 30" induction will do.

Another idea is to have a countertop that is 36"deep or more, and to make "the backsplash and the garage all one."

Hi lalitha, this isn't really about your layout, I'm sorry, but I'm glad to see 27" wall ovens in the new sketch! I thought I read in your previous layout that you were getting 24" ovens. I have a 27" and can't imagine voluntarily putting in a 24" oven.

as a fellow galley kitchen owner with a broom closet facing the fridge similar to your dutch door and pantry, I would be careful how you intend to plan access into the pantry. As davidro1 said, where's the door? If facing the aisle, it'll interfere with the dutch door. If on the side, it'll interfere with the oven doors. Maybe there's no door?? I don't often access the broom closet while cooking and specifically got a FD fridge to help deal with the narrow aisle, neither option would seem to help in your layout situation.

also again :) , we used to live in an adobe home so I know the wall-angst you're going through!

cheers

I think this last is almost there. It's definitely better. Will the freezer drawers fit on the little bit of wall between the nook alcove and french doors? They could kind of serve as an end table there. That would preclude a chair, there, though, and if that's a bench seat for a table, perhaps some sliding in space. An alternative would be to turn it into a real end table and put it in the living room. :)

I'm thinking that curving the corner of the pantry, with a curved door that wraps the oven side corner, could make it more accessible, and look cool too, matching your other curves.

Mostly, however, I really don't like the location of the prep sink. It chops up your counter and crowds you way too much in the baking area where there's the side of the oven boxing you in. If you put it a pot's width away from the gas unit, to leave a landing area there, it would give you a more comfortable counter area. You can use a cutting board, or something made to purpose, as a cover for the sink while you're cooking on the stove, if you want to extend the counter, but that doesn't really work for baking. Moving it over will also keep it from being butt to butt with the clean-up sink. Five feet seems like a big aisle, but when things start flying in the kitchen, especially a compact galley, there's still a lot of do-si-do going on, and staggering the fixtures and stations can be helpful on the long promenade.

I forget: Why not the 48" pot drawers? I have them under my two cooktops and love them! Drawers hold more when they're single bigger than two smaller. I'm also a little concerned that the counter under the microwave isn't be enough a landing space, but I can't see a better alternative. :( Is the microwave going to open into the doorway area? That would be better...

I think that when you've put the double oven in the oven cabinet at an appropriate height, you won't have enough room left for the freezer drawers.

I'm voting for freezer drawers in the space between the ref and the dw.

Pantries are hard. We have a little corner pantry that I jokingly call "worlds smallest pantry". Again, personal preference, but I don't know if I would have it come out that far into the room.

Pantries like that are dimensional and have walls either on the inside of your lines or on the outside. Walls are about 5-6" deep. Sometimes, you can turn studs or do other small tricks to lessen it a little. We had pedantic plan approvers who wouldn't permit any such thing, tho. That's because we were required to wire it with outlets, we wanted a light and most of the walls are exterior walls.

It isn't "structural" - so you can do fun stuff like increase the spacing between the studs and have shelves extend into that space between and use it. Or actually use plywood instead of drywall to be able to attach anything anywhere.

It is important to try and figure out generally what you're going to do inside now (doesn't have to be exact). Using just a plain block pantry, you start out with 42" depth but minus the walls, that may become as low as 32". The 6'4" part becomes 5'11" due to using the existing wall on one side.

The adjoining counter means that the back half will be roughly 32" deep. It needs an entrance that nets out as 27-28", but starts as 30" before the door frame. So that means there will be about 9" of shelf-able length left over for the front half. In the 32" general depth, you need room to turn around and take a step into the deeper end. I'm thinking leave 24" for that.

So, roughly the box contains 8" deep shelving on the first short wall and 8" deep shelving on the long wall and up to 30" deep shelving on the other short wall - but 16" is likely better. You'll have a small box for access that is 24" deep and roughly 40" long.

If you invade the stud space, those 8" deep shelves become 10-12" deep mostly. Those are deep enough to store things like big boxes of cereal. You'll have one end with deeper shelves for larger things or things inside of organizer boxes, but those are around 24-32" wide.

It may sound little, but you've got 6.5 linear feet per shallow shelf and 2.5 linear feet per deep shelf. If you have 4 shelves, that's 26 linear feet of shallow and 10 feet of deeper ones.

A corner pantry can be neo-angle shape.

Neo-angle is the term they use for 5-sided shower kits that are squares with a corner lopped off. Five sides but not a pure pentagonal.

It makes it a reach-in pantry. Instead of walking in, or stepping in, you let your hand+arm reach in. Far more efficient use of space. The volume can be huge inside.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dream Kitchen. Corner pantry neo-angle shape

At this stage, it makes sense to know the following:

Where there are studs, and not.
Where the drains are now. And the vent pipe.
And if there is anything special to know about the electric wiring, now is the time to bring it up.

An alternative to displaying this information is to post another image in which you remove the pantry rectangle (to let people invent their own pantry for you), and make it a zoomed-out view of the whole house floor plan (to let people get a sense of the traffic flow and sight lines).

HTh

Thank you all for your very insightful comments.
Davidro �� We are reframing the entire area, so the pantry framing is completely up to us. Our approved plans do show a pantry but my GC says that as long as I figure it out by next week when we do the framing, we have some flexibility. The vent pipes and the electrical is the same.. all will depend on what we end up doing. Only limitation on electrical is that there will be no cans. Our ceiling is low and has wood planks and beams that we plan to keep. We are adding 2 new skylights (see the X near the clean-up sink and the cooktops). I am thinking something similar to this GW classic Spanish kitchen with school house flush mounts, pendants over sink s and a modest pendant over the banquette area
The question of Pantry --> I added the pantry to the plan to see if we can reduce the cost of cabinetry and add some long-term grocery/ appliance storage. The original idea was to basically make this back to back cabinets. The galley kitchen would then end in a "L" here with the short leg facing the kitchen and another set of cabinets facing the corridor (for other household storage). The side facing the kitchen could have the fridge and the ovens (an appliance wall?). We gave up on that as the pantry seemed more optimal but the discussion now about choppy counters makes me rethink that. I love Dean1's neo-angle pantry as well (in fact pinged him a couple of times to ask to see the inside). The only thing on the oven is that I do want it to be ergonomically a good height for me. I am 5' tall and wanted the 27" gagg convection mounted lower and the 24" gagg combi mounted above so that I can peek into the combi at the eye-level. So it would be a deepish drawer with the ovens above and some storage above.
Pllog --> I completely agree on the prep sink position. I am not happy. I thought about moving it after the cooktop area across the fridge. That may work as the filtered water will be at the prep sink but was concerned about people dropping clean-up things in the prep sink. That would be a big ��ick�� factor for me. The nice thing about this sink is that it has a built in cutting board that sits flush with the counter.. so the extending the countertop idea works. I actually did this based on feedback from you and Davidro in the appliance forum thread a while ago.
Bmorepanic �� Thank you so much for the reality check on the pantry. I need to mock up the pantry layout physically per your email and see how it works.. I realized I am more visual/ kinesthetic than verbal as part of my remodeling education ��
Here are the full house layout (sorry for the small size fonts.. Only way I could make it fit ). As you can see, the house kind of wraps around the patio/courtyard behind the kitchen with doors from the kitchen, family room and the master.

Picture of the current kitchen with the ceiling plants and beam standing from where the pantry is shown in the plan.(pardon the crappy cellphone photo. There adobe brick wall you see at the end near the french door will be modified to add a window with a seat for the banquette. All that brick you see currently jutting into the aisle is gone.

with two pairs of French doors it is clear you don't need the Dutch door.

One way to train the family to keep the ick out of the prep sink--and it's going to take some training because both sinks are right there--is to always keep the cutting board on it or a colander in it. I have an orange colander that I keep in the bowl part of my prep sink. It's convenient, and it keeps the sink clean for its designated purpose. People walk the extra few steps to the clean-up sink or laundry sink--both of which places have soap and towels!--because they'd short stop at an empty sink, but won't wash their hands over the colander.

IN this planning stage, I would remove the pantry and start over.

An architect is needed here. A wide central hallway can be a feature to keep instead of encroaching on it. A kitchen 24' long is going to have a lot of storage in it, so I don't see the big+tall pantry as a need, or even as an advantage. Whether walk-in step-in or reach-in.

Is it possible to restructure the pantry like this? A little more counter space on that side of the kitchen, Some storage right beyond it towards the front hall and some storage space IN the hall on the wall of the bath.

If you remove the door you could have a nice archway into the kitchen. There are two other doors to the patio within a few feet.