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caitlin_blaine

Newbie needing kitchen design help!

10 years ago

Hello there, so I'm totally new here and I need some design assistance with my kitchen. My husband and I bought a lovely 1960's ranch house and we have a huge bucket list of things to do to it, which includes updating the kitchen. The kitchen is fairly large as it is, but the placement of the fridge is annoying as heck! In fact, whenever we moved into the house, our fridge wouldn't fit in the spot the previous owners had their fridge. Ours was too big and my husband ended up doing an emergency hack job on part of the counter and pantry cabinets to fit the thing in. So my main goal is to get the fridge away from that corner. As you can see in the pictures, I can't even open one of the sides up all the way, making it difficult to get things in and out. Next to the fridge is a blind corner pantry cabinet. I couldn't even tell you what I have stashed back there right now, "out of sight, out of mind" right? Along the same wall is a custom built set of pantry cabinets, only measuring 17" deep. So! My initial plan is to move my fridge onto the wall that currently has my pantry cabinets and moving my pantry into the corner where my fridge and blind pantry cabinets are. A 4ftx4ft walk-in corner pantry would fit perfectly there! At least I think so, but that is why I'm posting on here. I'm curious what others think. We plan on DIYing most everything in this kitchen, which includes the design change but also re-doing countertops, painting cabinets, new lighting, and getting rid of the bulky hanging cabinets over the peninsula. I've included several photos of the kitchen as it is and I have drawn out some blueprints. The top blueprint is what the layout is currently, the bottom is my idea of having a 4ftx4ft walk-in pantry made. Suggestions and ideas are most welcome :)





Comments (7)

  • 10 years ago

    Can you post a drawing of the whole house ?

  • 10 years ago

    I could, but I'm not certain how that will be helpful? I'm not planning on changing the footprint of the kitchen. If you think it would truly be beneficial, I can try to do a mock-up drawing of the house. If you were wondering where that door leads, it's to the garage, so there is no way of extending the kitchen that way.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    This is what I would like to see in your space:

    But
    if that is not possible at this time, I'd do the least work/expense to
    make the kitchen functional and pleasant, and plan for the above
    kitchen.

    Plan B:


    If
    the pantry can't be separated, put it on the other side of the garage
    door, and try to salvage the hacked shelves/cabinet. Were there doors to the shelves?

  • 10 years ago

    Okay, so here is a rough mock-up drawing of the house. I don't have the exact measurements written down except for my kitchen and dining room, so the rest of the house is loosely guestimated. Not sure how this is helpful for my kitchen design, but here ya go. Thanks! - And for whatever reason it won't load this picture horizontally, sorry!



  • 10 years ago

    Thanks for posting that whole house layout. It just shows how your kitchen relates to the rest of the house.

    Sometimes a whole house improves by moving the kitchen, but it looks like yours is in the ideal location.

  • 10 years ago
    last modified: 10 years ago

    Can you move the garage door all the way down to the stair case?

    Here?

  • 10 years ago

    That's an interesting idea. I honestly don't know what is behind the walls there, but I don't think it would really work moving the door because of how small our garage is. Because it's an older house, it feels very very cramped with two cars parked. The doors are also double doors, so we don't have a lot of wiggle room moving our cars over. Neither my husband nor I have large vehicles, but we can't even walk in front of our cars when they are parked in the garage. We always have to walk around. Ah, the struggles of living in an older home :)