Last minute upper layout HEEEEELLLLPPPP!

14 years ago

I thought that my layout was settled - my partner and I agreed, we sketched out the compromise layout.life was good. Then the GC gives it the thumbs down. Or, at least, he strongly discourages having the range that close to the corner. So, when we try to scoot the range over to the right, it throws off our upper layout (because of the window).

Argh! What to do?!

One possibility is to forgo all uppers on the wall, and have either nothing or some open shelves.

The other is to put some narrow uppers on either side of the range hood. There's room for a 9 inch upper on the window side (to the right of the hood). But 9 inches seems awfully narrow - would they just look anemic and sad? I'm attaching a low-tech mock-up of this, but it doesn't give me a feel of what 9 inch uppers really look like.

I didnÃ¯Â¿Â½t think a whole lot about the uppers - I just assumed that they would flow naturally once the base cabinet layout was set. It's probably bananas that someone (myself) who reads GW every day just typed that, but it's the truth. We've asked for a few more days to get our act together. Our contractor was understanding (in fact, he suggested we just install the lowers and do the uppers at an undetermined time in the future, but that sounds like a bad idea to me...).

We were planning on IKEA with Scherr's doors, but at this point, we may be looking at mostly Scherr's to get what we want (curse you, limited IKEA sizing!).

Please lend me some upper wisdom!

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Comments (4)

carybk
14 years ago
We have 9-inch uppers on either side of our range hood (the hood is in the cabinetry and has cabinet doors hiding the stovepipe, though, so they aren't visually stand-alone cabinets). I find these 9-inch uppers very useful-- tall thin oil and vinegar bottles and similar are on the bottom shelves, and lots of small shelves above, including tea boxes, extra spices to refill the main spice drawer (on a top shelf), a very low shelf with extra Cuisinart blades only.
tracie.erin
14 years ago
I would leave it the way it is. The space between the range and the sink is the most valuable prep space you have and what you will use 90 percent of the time simply due to convenience, so do not reduce its size . Also if you move the range as he said and have 2 people, the person at the range and the person at the sink will bump into each other.
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junicb
Original Author
14 years ago
I get the GCs reasoning, though - that it's nice to have more wiggle room in the corner next to the range. Our kitchen is small enough that I don't mind having to take two extra steps to the other run of counter to prep.

Now the big question is what to do with all of that open space. Open shelving? Pot rack? Some cool idea I haven't thought of yet?
rhome410
14 years ago
In our last kitchen, we had 11" between the range and the fridge, with our prep space between range and sink to the right, as you show. I wish you could move the sink away from the corner, so prep person isn't blocking the sink, but it's not possible. I think you've done well with the space you have. I prefer the first idea of having the open shelves from narrow cabinet to wall on the stove wall, instead of on the window wall as shown in one of the later renderings.

Or maybe forego the narrow cabs, and run open shelves on the wall space to the left of the hood, and when you get low enough continue one (or 2?) across under the hood, so it's positioned as some do when they incorporate shelves into the range backsplash.