Do you have a formal DR? Do you eat some or all of your meals in the kitchen? How many kids do you have? Do they need work space in the kitchen? Where do all the other doors lead to?

I love your table, but are you married to it? Can you sacrifice the table for a great big island with an overhang?

My first question to you would be about your budget. Moving walls (are any load bearing?) and closing up doors costs a lot of money. Are you able to DIY any of this, or are you relying on purchased labor? Average kitchen remodels are around 30K, without doing any structural changes. A good guideline for most people is 10-20% of a home's value, or how much money they'd feel comfortable spending on a new car. No point in planning out Ferrari changes to a Chevy Cobalt home. :)

Read the "New to GW, Read this First" thread, and give us a bit more info about you and your life and wants and needs. :)

Thanks for the replies. The home, downstairs is a basic 4 square, with a mudroom, and a sunroom. The sunroom acts as the kids playroom. We have 2 kids, 2 and 9 months. We are not married to the table and chairs. We do have a formal dining room.

I can do much of the work myself. I've installed floors, and hung cabinets, done sheetrock and demo work. I would have to sub out any plumbing work and I would probably sub out the electrical.

The house is worth (well who knows now with the economy) about 335,000. I would want to keep it under 40,000.

We eat all of our meals in the kitchen. We have a gorgeous dining room table that we have not used in the new house yet. When we have people over, every gravitates to the kitchen.

I am a stay at home dad who loves to cook. I need a kitchen that is functional and social. I want easy access to my kitchenaid mixer, to pots, pans, cookie sheets, spices, etc. As it is now, much of my stuff is crammed in to spots. I also like clean. I have more on my counter than I would want. The less stuff on my counter the better.

I really want double ovens. The last place we had, had it, and oftentimes, I am struggling to finish meals without it. We love the area, and I think we are in this house long-term, well at least for five years, so I figure a redo would be worth it.

Our downstairs has beautiful maple floors. The kitchen has pergo. Basically it was an 80s kitchen that they did a mini-facelift to. Put pergo over vinyl, refaced cabinets, put corian countertops.

I can match the maple. I am looking at about 300 sqft there and I can find it for 6 a sq ft.

I want lots of cabinet space, ,because I have alot of things :-). I am not married to our huge fridge. It can go in the mudroom as a secondary and the one in the mudroom can go in the basement.

As far as what doors lead where. The door on the 5 foot wall leads to the garage. The door next to it on the 8 foot wall leads to the mudroom. The door opposite that by the windows leads to the sunroom. The opening on the left side of the drawing is a hallway that leads to powder room, den, basement door. The door next to the fridge leads to the dining room.

We have a living room that we don't use. It is furnished but we don't use it. I was considering making that the dining room and making the dining room part of the kitchen. That would require pulling out the wall where the stove and fridge sit. I am positive it is load bearing, so we are talking alot of structural work, so I am not sure it is worth it. Also, I am not sure how it would adversely affect the value of the house, essentially eliminating a room.

The wall with the pantry is not load bearing. It would be simple to remove.

So that's it in a nutshell.

You space looks like it might fit an L with an island. Rip out the peninsula put the fridge where the peninsula was, put the sink and DW in an island at least 30" deep running parallel with the pantries, move the stove out of the corner a bit. You could put a wall oven in one of the pantries or get a bigger stove with two ovens.

Right side of your drawing shows 11'-3" plus 8'-10" for a total length of 20'-1". Left side adds to 16'-2 1/2". Is something missing, or am I not reading your measurements correctly?

{{!gwi}}

Other than it's more than crazy, moves all of your utilities and destroys your existing pantry closets, what's not to like? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention redoing the windows. 48" range is almost 1/4th of your entire budget - just so you know. Is there any possibility of keeping your existing range and adding one wall oven??

Here is a link that might be useful: Do you like this gismo?

mjlb

37+46+95+66.5=245...should be right at 20 or so.

Ah -- the 95 looked like 45 to me.

Here's an idea. The former pantry space is being used as a range niche. The range is kindof in a walkway which is not ideal, but a range niche is a nice look. I created a great big hidden pantry for all your gadgets. The prep sink is placed at the back of an 18" cab whose door faces up toward the frig. There would be a fake door panel on the range side of the prep sink cab. There is a filler panel next to the trash pullout so as not to interfere with the hardware on the hidden pantry door.

You'll be able to save tons of $ by DIYing so much. The plumbing stays on the same wall just the frig water line would have to be moved a little and that's not a pay a plumber job usually. By drywalling the pantry and just paying for the hidden pantry door, you save a ton on cabinetry.

Here is a link that might be useful: hidden pantry

Doesn't solve all your issues, but a couple of floor plans that might spur some more ideas.

In both cases, I assumed that you could move your pantry to the mudroom, which would leave a nice expanse of wall to balance all the window and door openings. I extended the wall near door to garage, which extends the countertop, and also blocks the view into the mudroom. Because you are short on wall space, I placed the second oven below the counter -- either in a prep island or a seating island. It would have been nice to use the former pantry wall for cabinetry, but that would then route foot traffic thru' the middle of your food prep area.

I like mjlb's 2nd layout better than the one with the U plus island, because I think traveling around the eating penninsula to the mudroom for a forgotten pantry item while cooking would get old after awhile. Although, who know's, maybe dishiki is a much better organized cook than I am.

Hey guys, thanks for all the great drawings and ideas. Mjlb, I like the second drawing and I think I have an idea as far as pantry space.

The 8 foot wall between the mudroom and kitchen. On the mudroom side is where the Washer and Dryer are. I could flip the door and move it by the window. Then the wall you put up to extend the counter goes all the way to the window wall, with an opening by the window. I then have a "butler's pantry, that is 8x5 (wonder if 40 sq ft is enough). And I can either close off the door to the garage or utilize it to bring in groceries.

Also, in the second pic, I have 4'6" to the pantry from the island. If I demo the pantry, can I get away with ovens and or cabinetry there. It would reduce the pathway to 4'2" (24" deep cabs). Is that too narrow or would that work?

I think mjlb's layout measurements are with the pantry already demo'ed and the space annexed into the kitchen, because it's offset from the other wall from the hallway.

I like your pantry idea with the mudroom door move and closing off the other entrance door to the garage.

Dishiki, the 4'-6" is the dimension with the pantry already demo'd, so there would not be room for oven cabinetry. You could conceivably add 12-in. deep cabinetry there for pantry space, but it would make the passageway narrow when people are seated at the island. You could reduce the island width from 4-ft wide to 3-ft to maintain a wider walking path.

If you can flip the mudroom door to near the windows, and close off the garage door, I think the walk-in pantry idea might work. But it would be more like 5-ft x 5-ft, because the remaining floor area would be the path to the mudroom. At 5-ft sq, your shelving would probably be L-shaped.

If you did not do the walk-in pantry, there still is room for perhaps 4-ft of built-in on the mudroom wall, or better yet, a nice furniture type hutch as a highlight of the beautiful window wall walkway. I really like that area, even as it is now. But I understand that you would like to maximize kitchen storage, counters, etc.

Dishiki, do you have a drawing of your mudroom current configuration and dimensions that you could post to help with layout planning?

Here's a variation with the direct garage door removed and the mudroom door moved closer to the windows. I kept the hidden pantry from a previous layout because I don't think you'd get enough shelving in a 5x5 walkin by the mudroom to accommodate what you describe as a whole other kitchen worth of gadgets.

If you narrowed this island by 10", you may be able to fit some very narrow display type shelving behind it on the wall where the demo'ed pantry stood.

Here is a link that might be useful: another look at hidden pantry ideas

Lax -- I like your updated plan -- especially that there's room for "friendly circulation" down by double ovens. Minor point: door to pantry looks a little narrow, but could easily widen if moved refrig over to left.

Only drawback may be cost related, since water lines for sink and refrig would need to move. And it looks like OP would not be using existing refrig and stove in this plan.

mjlb, you might be right about the pantry door. We have a 24", but a 27" would probably be better. The OP might be able to reuse his current frig if he recesses it into the wall. We did that with ours, because we didn't want to spend more for less space. Since it would be new framing for the wall and not at all load bearing, he could just frame it out that way.