Could you post some pics of all the walls in the space . My first thought is open the basement stairs so there is no door if the basement is finished . A blank canvas is great but seeing the space is really important to get a feel for the size . I actullybuilt a whole stogae cube around a chimney in our house that I love BTW. Sometimes nessessity is the best designer . When you post the pics of the space make sure yo include the DR and also is that wall going into the DR a loadbearing wall .

Thank you! I am pretty sure they are all load bearing, It's a small house - the first floor is a circular floor plan, living room, kitchen, dining. We are always looking for a bigger house but we love our neighborhood and the one con for this house if we sold would probably be the kitchen. The basement isn't finished, and I wouldn't want to open that up. While the peninsula has an overhang, no one ever sits there.

If you would use a bifold door at the basement stairs, it would not protrude so far into the kitchen.
That would only allow you to add a small amount of storage and probably would not be worth it.
You just need to work around the chimney as best you can, maybe putting a deep pantry into that corner.
More photos, please.

What are the dimensions for your refrig? Is your range 30-in or 36-in or larger? Must you, or do you want to retain the opening into the living room? What type of storage wraps the chimney? I am picturing narrow shelving similar to spice cabinet?

My current fridge is 30" - I would like to be able to have at least 33" even if it's counter depth, just to have more options. Range is 30" and I'm fine with that, I have a new induction range coming later this month (we've upgraded appliances, faucet, etc because those are easy fixes! - anything else involves dealing with the metal cabinets which is a challenge. IE, I can't do anything about the range hood (the one that is there works ... ish - but taking it out or trying to replace it would start a chain reaction, because it's not a current standard size.

Here is how the chimney is wrapped:

Both are shallow pantry/storage. The cute one is where I keep less used dishes and such because it is not in the flow of the room, because of the peninsula. The skeleton one (we are clearly a family that isn't too bothered by letting kids decorate anything and everything) is about 12" deep and where I store food, canned goods, spices, tea, etc. It was fine when it was just my husband and I, with a teen and a tween they seem to need more food than two adults, apparently!

(and ignore the heat vent for the most part, we rarely use our furnace because our heat pump is so much more efficient, so I figure I can extend the duct and integrate into open shelving or something like that if we ever hang cabs on that side of the room, which is something I've tried to envision)

The pull out pantry is interesting! I don't think we can reconfigure the basement steps, unfortunately. It is the only access to the basement where our laundry, furnace, oil tank etc is, and we would need the straight shot to get things in and out. I have wondered if I could put a fridge on that exterior wall, though, with the idea that we could always slide it out of the way when the need to move something large and heavy in or out of the basement arose, at least if we didn't frame it in... Thank you for taking a look!!

You said your floor plan is "circular," so is there a way to get to the living room through the dining room? If so, why not close the door to the living room, as well as the exterior door? Put a stacking oven and microwave with drawers underneath for pots and pans in the location where mama shows the fridge. Put an induction cooktop where your range is with more drawers underneath outfitted for dishes/silver to be near the dining and DW. Induction gets lots of points on Houzz. Slip a smaller scale fridge in where the living room door is. Can you move your big fridge to the basement for overflow food storage? Get a deeper sink, with drawers/pullouts under it for more storage. And add drawers to every spot you can to increase accessibility and volume of storage,

Stacking oven/micro with drawers underneath.

Neighbourly relations · More Info

Small fridge

Contemporary Small Kitchen · More Info

Pullout under sink

Under the Sink Roll-out Storage · More Info

My neighbor has the same house, and closed off that wall, but did an addition off the back to provide access to the kitchen. In my house it would make it very awkward - the front door goes right into the kitchen, if we close that off, it means traipsing through the living and dining room to get to the kitchen (and means taking the trash out that way, etc ). I also don't have a basement that will accommodate a fridge, getting just the front loader down was a challenge. I do have a small chest freezer there, but I don't have space for (or want) a second fridge. I 1000% agree on pull-out/roll-out everything! My base cabinets (both of them) are just big boxes and a cave of storage. One holds glass storage dishes and water bottles/ travel cups and one holds pots and pans, and I've done what I can to organize but I hate the dark caves that they are. I would love drawers and rollouts if I had my way!

Since you are looking to move when a home becomes available, every dollar you spend on changing this house will reduce the money you have to spend on the next house.

You will get a percentage of what you spend back, but your not going to increase the value by more than what you are spending.

I would make the kitchen more functional while doing as little as possible to change the footprint. Moving/adding/changing doors and windows are all more expensive changes.

You can increase storage and working space by moving the fridge and expanding the counters into that space. Expand your shallow storage out as far as the fridge - doubling the space.

In the small space next to the fridge store your baking sheets and tall skinny stuff. Do some shelves 12" deep shelves above and use bins to hold spices, cookie cutters, Flour, Sugar, coffee - whatever easily fits in a narrow space.

You will loose the little storage space by the chimney, but double your shallow pantry and add 3' of uppers, lowers and counter space on the long wall.

You could do a small wheeled cart that can be next to the basement door when closed and roll out of the way when you are going into the basement to do laundry.

Changing the hood over the stove to a microwave hood will also clear some counter space.

Yes, I struggle with that, too because we thought the kitchen was adorable when we bought it as a young married couple (and it was!) and as we added people it started to show it's weaknesses! I go back and forth on doing a relatively basic but modern upgrade or just including a 'credit' if we sold or priced it with 'yeah, this is a 1955 kitchen, okay?' idea in mind.

I've been playing in the ikea tool just to get some ideas. If I moved the fridge 90 degrees and kept everything else basically the same, what would/should I do with the bottom left corner (chimney zone). I have this set up with a lazy susan corner, wide pull out trash to the left of the sink, and swapping a hood (though I could do OTR microwave just something I don't like.) The induction range we purchased will help our exisitng kitchen have some plating space/ counter space, is the idea as well.

(I can't get IKEA to take the dishwasher off legs, this is very much a rough idea! I know that part is wrong )

I feel like I may have misread or misinterpreted doors / wall openings. The exterior kitchen door (not drawn on plan) needs to stay? And that door is the front door of the house?

Is there no exterior door into the living room? Would your house benefit by the addition of a vestibule entry?

Does the opening to the living room have to stay, or may that wall be closed up? If that wall opening may be filled in, I think most of your kitchen wants could be achieved. If the living room wall opening must remain, I think Jennifer Hogan's plan is a winner. IMO, it is preferable to the IKEA layout.

As I look at the photos, I certainly see the charm of your 1955 kitchen (possibly influenced by the fact that's my year of birth), and sort of want to conserve it. I particularly like the built-in cabinet and drawers wrapped around the chimney. I'd try to save those and install elsewhere if you go with a plan that would cover that up.

AH, sorry for the confusion. The front door of our house opens directly to our living room (no mudroom or foyer) and it's the main entrance and you walk straught forward about 22 feet and you are at the kitchen sink. There is an exterior glass door in the kitchen on the left wall that we used to use fairly often. This summer we did a 16x20 deck and added a glass door off the back of the house from the dining room to the deck, and that has become a much easier route to the backyard, so we don't need that kitchen door anymore (but, it does let in a lot of light.) If I were doing a basic rtework of the kitchen I would probably just leave it for a new owner to decide wha they wanted to do with it, but it isn't a necessity and isn't being used and not part of the traffic pattern, if that makes sense. The living room opening needs to stay.

Have you given thought to the fact that corner cabinets are inaccessible unless you have a back opening, which you will not.

I know you said you are looking for another home. How long do you actually plan on being in this home? What upgrades have been done to the other homes in your neighborhood that have sold? You want your home to be comparable if you want to get a comparable price. If the other homes do not have new kitchens then you don't have to adjust for the kitchen and it will appraise equally to the other homes.

Take a look at the data for your area and see what type of ROI people are getting for their kitchen upgrades. Remember - this kichen was cute enough for you when you bought the home. You will be selling to another 1st time home buyer.

https://www.remodeling.hw.net/cost-vs-value/major-kitchen-remodel?y=2020

Thank you! I do not know what you mean about corner cabinets needing access from the back, though (I've never had one). As far as ROI, probably a toss up. The deck was a no-brainer, added value to our lives and will easily recoup the costs if we sold. We also aren't 100% on selling as there's a strong market for nice rental homes in our neighborhood - professionals that want the schools but want some time to find a house, for instance - and we don't owe that much on it.

Ironically, we are hoping to find a dated house to make our own because I would rather save on the buying price than buy someone else's design ideas! If we did anything here it would be builder basic to improve functionality. (The door to the sink base for instance is ziptied in place because the hinge has rusted out.)

Corner cabinets are only inaccessible if you blind the corner. You have a Susan in your corner so there’s no lack of accessibility to your corner cabinet as you have designed it in the ikea planner.

She has a blind corner on the bottom

Here is my blind corner cabinet that will go away when I renovate the kitchen.

Nothing is stored in the back because you can't access anything back there.