Here are some photos of the space

I have looked at this several times...that sunroom is sure in a “challenging” place. I didn’t come up with anything worth posting. Maybe this will bump up and others will have better ideas.

Also remember now you have a eat in kitchen and a formal dining room. If you combine the two, for resale you will just have an eat in kitchen.

Buehl- your response outlines exactly why we are doing the renovation. Our current table isn’t cutting it and the boys are all sure to be over 6ft tall like their dad before we know it ;)

The current dining room would essentially become the main dining area and the current dining table our kitchen table. It is 42 inches wide and has two Leaves. Currently one leaf is in place and there’s plenty of room to walk around. There would no longer be a table in front of the door only in front of the bay window.

I guess my idea is to make a galley kitchen from the two spaces. Is that what it would technically be called?

Functionthenlook- I have thought of that! But a few things made me decide it is worth it. First the dining room is the brightest room with the best view and currently it’s underutilized. It’s closed off and hardly used. Second we spend so much time in the kitchen I really want a nice big table to hang out at. Resale isn’t a big concern for us we mostly want to make this a house perfect for our family. I do want to maintain the same space and size we had in the dining room so we aren’t losing anything in terms of holiday entertaining etc. Although I do really appreciate your point!

Have you thought about switching the kitchen and DR, which would mean changing the location of the doorway between the LR and kit/DR? You could put the sink in the bay, and have a 'garden window'. The range hood would be a focal point on the exterior wall, and if you don't need all the uppers, you could put a window on each side of the hood.

If you add a prep sink to the island, you'd be able to prep facing the LR, but if that's not feasible, you'd still have a nice prep space between the sink and range. If main prep is on the island, dishes could be stored in cabinets on the range wall, and if no prep sink on the island, dishes could be stored in drawers in the island.

Aisles are cabinet-to-cabinet, so I'd suggest 1" overhangs.

Click to enlarge.

mama goose- I have thought about that and I'll think it through some more. My hesitation however is having a table in such a central spot in the house. That is where we access the basement playroom, family room, come in from the mudroom and yard sometimes via the sunroom. Everyone is always in motion around here! I really would like to maintain the dining area as is. I love the idea of finally having a table not in front of a main doorway.

Do you have any thoughts on making this a galley style kitchen? with stove on the current fridge wall? It's the layout I really want to make work.

Thank you I appreciate your help!

I have also debated keeping some of the lower cabinets on the dining room/kitchen wall, but fear that might leave me no good place for the sink? I don't think I want it in a corner. It would also not allow me to lengthen the island in that direction... which might be ok?

I think you will love havining one space for the kitchen and dining rooms.

Per mama goose’s idea...with all the entry points and traffic patterns you listed in your follow up post, I would prefer all that traffic to not be in the kitchen but that is me. All that hustle/bustle would not be in the working kitchen and you gain another family-friendly gathering area with island seating.

I'll just point out that with a living room *and* a family room, and a huge eat in kitchen -- it would be possible for the LR or the FR to become a dining room if an actual formal dining room was that important!

Yes Connie I agree! and we have the sun room - which although it's small is so bright with vaulted ceilings and is heated - so I think we have plenty of living spaces!

I actually love the idea of making the living room the dining room. The family room with the fireplace becomes the living room. The sun room plus old kitchen eat in area becomes the family space. The dining room becomes the kitchen as mamagoose suggested. Voila, done! :-))))

So looking closer at Mama Gooses plan it's too open for us. I really don't want the kitchen totally open to the living spaces, just want to combine the dining room and kitchen. I also would rather not deal with moving so much of a load bearing wall. I welcome any other thoughts please!

I’m not one of the layout people, but I came up with this just to spark any ideas. If you move the fridge to opposite side, island becomes what they call a barrier island blocking your work triangle. I put the coffee bar near sunroom. You’d have to make sunroom door a single door. You’d lose the bigger window above range and add one on either side instead, maybe same size as dining room bump out? Island has sink and dw. Possibly make island wider and then you can lose the high back. But depends on space for walkway behind. I moved it out a little to give a little more isle space then 48” on fridge side, giving more space for dw to fridge. Might not be great with them across each other. Again depends on space for island wider and walkway behind. Shallow pantry on other side where glass ones were. Ok not sure on this, but here goes.

ETA moved island down so fridge accessible if dw open.

Rebunky thank you! what do you use to edit the floor plan? I’m going to try and draw up my vision and see how it goes.
If I️ place the fridge on the living room wall but right where the wall is coming down between the dining room and kitchen and I’m sure not to extend the island over so far that it’s in front of the fridge would that still be considered a barrier island? I️ certainly don’t want to make the kitchen less functional ! But I️ would like the fridge on the other side of the island so people going in and out of it don’t clog my work area.

So you are thinking something like this?

It’s still a barrier island because what if you are cooking and need an ingredient from the fridge? You have to walk around the island. I also think it is too far to the sink, about 14’. They joke and say you’d want to wear roller skates. Also you have to go across a walkway where you said has kids going thru constantly. They would technically be in your work zone which goes fridge, sink, prep counter, stove, back to fridge. Yes it would not be functional. I suppose you could do some undercounter fridge on the island for most used ingredients for cooking. Then you’d have the triangle correct. Hope this makes sense. And others can certainly explain much better.

Oh and it is an app called you doodle. I have to cut and paste off the original photo. I need to learn all the tricks to it still.

Ah I get it that makes sense about the barrier to the refrigerator. I keep staring at my kitchen trying to imagine the dining room table in there like mama goose suggested! If I did flip it I could put the hutch/secretary desk over where the kitchen table is now and perhaps build in glass cabinet/coffee bar area where the pantry closets are now. It's so hard to visualize I wish I had the luxury of gutting the space then walking around measuring to decide. So much to think about!

Here are a few bay window kitchen sink photos. The first one has been a favorite of mine for a long time.

Are you totally against the dining room / new main family dining relocating to the now existing living room? Is the living room used or is it only used occasionally for formal guests? Do you actually hang out in there as a family? Or is the family room the main hang out space?

I ask because I had a formal living room in one house that sat in pristine condition except dusting because no one in our family of 5 used it. It was just in case the occasional unannounced guest happen to stop by! How much do you use the formal living room compared the family rrom?

I️ love those first and third photos! I’ll show them to my husband because he’s having trouble picturing what it would look like. We don’t have any formal spaces in our house. We use the family room to hangout in mostly with the kids. The living room is where the tv and our family computer is - I️ like having those in a separate room from the family room so we have one tech free space. I️ think if we flip the spaces I’d just prefer to have no formal dining room unless we needed to stage the house to sell (which we have no plans to do). That’s why I️ originally was hoping to keep the dining room mostly ‘as is’ so we still had plenty of space and a dining room type feel when we host holidays but could also eat there daily for family meals.

Think I could swing a one wall kitchen layout? Then the fridge would be near the dining table. Similar to this except instead of double ovens I would have the stove with counter next to it (would make sunroom door smaller to fit the stove). I even like the shape of the island where seating would go.

I know you said you did not want to switch rooms; but since you like the look of the sink in the bay (the outside views are awesome), it may be worth exploring. If your DH is like mine, change is hard, but he comes around eventually. Perhaps posting another thread that asks people to weigh in on the two kitchen locations with a mock layout for each might get DH to consider the possibility if he can read what others have to say concerning the positives and negatives of each kitchen location.

Many people are remodeling to get a larger kitchen space by eliminating two sit-down eating spaces in their homes. Thus, If you switch the rooms, I do not think you would have to “stage” a formal dining room if the time comes to sell. The larger, well designed kitchen would be a major selling point.

Keeping the kitchen in its current location does not gain you a whole lot more space for the kitchen because of the traffic patterns; moving the kitchen to the dining area gains you much more kitchen space. You gain the space for family friendly island seating, and the kitchen does not have to be in a location that “fights” with the traffic patterns of your home. The generous dining space combined with the larger kitchen space would be awesome to entertain in.

One negative would be carrying groceries a tad farther but not a whole lot more.

;

Good idea rantontoo, I'll work on that! I need to spend some time measuring and drawing things out. I really want to get this right.

I'm laughing about your groceries comment because I did that today and was thinking hmm this would be a little farther to go! Maybe I need to start shopping on the weekends so my kids can start carrying them all in for me ;)