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sienna2009_gw

question about galley kitchen layout

11 years ago

hello,

I am in the midst of planning a renovation of a galley kitchen. The kitchen is small - two parallel walls of about 100 inches each (8.5ft) with about 8-9ft separating the walls.

Because I do not want to do major work moving pipes, electrical, etc., most of the appliances need to stay about where they are. On one wall when you enter there will first be a refridgerator (30 inches wide). I am then thinking about a pull-out broom closet (about 6 inches?) (I think this will be useful, but also there is a large pipe along the wall after the fridge so I need something to cover it anyway). Then there will be the oven & stove top. This will leave approximately 34 inches of counter space after the stove.

My questions are: do you think this is the best use of those 100 inches? or do I push the stove down a bit so I have counter space on each side of the stove but then given up the possibility of 30 inch wide draws in the base cabinet (and also give up the large counter space after the stove for two smaller spaces on each side of the stove?

The other side of the wall is a dishwasher, sink, then 45 inches of counter and base cabinet.

I will have 40 inch top cabinets on both sides. I will also have a separate small pantry a little down the hall for some food and other storage.

do I give up cabinet space for a pull-out trash can given the size of my kitchen? my husband has proposed making the broom closet 12 inches so we could put a trash bin in the bottom and then have the broom stored above it. but I don't know about putting trash right in between fridge and stove? And also, if we made broom closet 12 inches we'd lose valuable counter space on the other side...

sorry I don't have a picture. hope its possible to visualize! my mind keeps going through all the different possible combinations, and I'm just not sure what is really best.

thanks in advance for any advice!!!

Comments (8)

  • 11 years ago

    I have found that having undivided counter top is more functional than breaking it up with a stove or sink in the middle. The square inches are the same but it makes two small work areas - not as useful. I made that mistake about 20 years ago, because it looked so nicely symmetrical. I have the opportunity to rectify it finally.
    A trash container in a cabinet between the stove and refrigerator wouldn't bother me, especially since the other items within that cabinet would not be food or utensil related. Having a place to put cleaning stuff close but out of sight would be worth losing some counter top area. Lots of non-food stuff will fill that cabinet top to bottom and make good use of the space. You could have a shelf above the trash container that may make you more comfortable that it's separate from the other stuff.

  • 11 years ago

    I've lived in many apartments and a few houses with small kitchens. The thing that irritated me the most was how small and cut up the counter space was. 9" here, 24" there, 30" over here, 36" on the side of this... you get it. It wasn't until I started reading this forum a few months ago that I learned about NKBA minimum recommendations. It was an aha moment - So that's why I never had a decent amount of continuous counter space!

    I know if I'm ever in a position to build/remodel my own small kitchen, it will be designed for how I actually prep and cook, not based on someone else's arbitrary 'recommendations'. In that spirit, yes, I would move the range down to have larger counter/storage space on one side, rather than have 2 skimpy counter/storage spaces on both sides.

    How much space you would want to devote to a broom closet or a trash pullout depends on what else you might want/need to store in the space those take up. A trash pull out is cooler than the typical (in my family) under the sink deal, but if you could store other things there is it worth it? How would you use the under the sink space if you didn't put the trash there?

    What would you be storing in a broom closet besides a broom? 12 inches is a sacrifice in a small kitchen. I don't have a broom closet. Broom lives in the coat closet. Vacuum lives in the clothes closet. Recently on this forum someone has posted pic's of very shallow broom closet on the side of cabinet. There are alternatives, but every thing comes down to you deciding what you really want accessible in your kitchen, and what can live elsewhere without making you crazy.

    Consider posting your questions also on GW's Smaller Homes forum. Might find some creative suggestions from others who have similar space constraints.

  • 11 years ago

    We have a small-ish galley kitchen that we remodeled last year. We also kept the same layout of the appliances and plumbing. Our kitchen is: sink side 12.5ft long with sink centered under the window. Range side is 6.5ft long and houses the fridge (30") and 30" range. The distance between the two walls in 9ft.

    We did shift our range over to the left 12 inches so I would have a small counter (13") to the right of my range. Being right handed I hated not having a counter there for spoons to rest + etc while cooking. The base cabinet, which is small, houses a special partitioned cookie sheet cubby, perfect for a small space. The counter space on the range wall is 33" to the left of the range and 13" to the right. The range used to sit at the end of the counter, which I hated. There was also a sofit of unused space above the cabinets and it was torn out so the upper cabinets could go all the way to the ceiling for more storage (we made them seeded glass doors with LED lights inside).

    We have a tall pantry space that sits just outside the kitchen door in our landing with shelves and pull out drawers. You can see the glass door nob to the landing in the left of the picture.

    I do agree that having as much large counter space as possible is very valuable in a small kitchen. You need room to prep and cook. Fortunately we do have that on our sink wall with 5ft of counters on either side of our 30" sink.

    The bottom pullout drawers widths on the sink side are 30", 23" and 30". On the range side they are 31"

    I hope that this helps you visualize and gives you an idea of what you might want in your galley kitchen.

  • 11 years ago

    Here is the range side photo.

  • 11 years ago

    Here is the range side photo.

    {{gwi:2138928}}

  • 11 years ago

    I took my narrow galley kitchen down to the walls and went from there. I knew I did not want to mess around with a lot of plumbing etc. due to the expense. When I first moved in the stove, sink and fridge were all on the one wall and there was absolutely nothing, just a big empty space (well, a very small space) on the other wall. I had an independent 24" base cabinet that I put in that space along with a microwave cabinet. I did put my newer, bigger fridge on the short wall after I replaced the broken one, before I did the reno because it wouldn't fit in the existing space. I moved the base cabinet to the fridge space. I put a shelf next to the stove to get a bit of counter space because I did not want the stove next to the wall. The old counter there was just over 7" and now it's 9".

    In the end, I decided to put the fridge back on the wall where it used to be, so I could get a long expanse of counter on the other side.

    Sink side, has 9" shelf, 30"stove, 24" base drawers, 24" domsjo sink (I put the matching cutting board and strainer for extra prep space), 24" dishwasher, 36" counter-depth fridge. The other side has 24" pantry, 18" pull out, 30" base cabinet and 18" pull out.

    Working side:

    Counter side:

    Shelf next to stove:
    {{gwi:2138929}}

  • 11 years ago

    I really like your kitchen MGMum.

    I lived in a condo for a time that had a small galley kitchen. The working wall was 24" wide range, bit of counter, sink, dishwasher, short 24" wide fridge, pantry. My then boyfriend and I had rented the place sight unseen and at first I was very disappointed, thought I would hate working in it. It turned out to be pretty comfortable though, I think mainly because across from the working wall was a 6 ft. peninsula.

    There is something about having one long stretch of uninterrupted counter that makes a small kitchen look, and feel more spacious.

  • 11 years ago

    I'd go with the larger counter space and 30" drawers. Put the trash under the sink maybe. You won't regret more counter space or drawers you might regret a broom closet. Jmo. Good luck!