We have a single floor rancher built in the 1970s. It is a very choppy home with lots of walls separating the rooms. We wanted a more open concept for ease of flow, entertaining, and resale. We took down the wall that separates the living room from the kitchen, and now we are looking to remodel our kitchen and sunroom.

The sunroom is not insulated and is unusable most of the year due to how hot it gets in the summer months and how cold it gets in the winter. However, we simply love this space as its right off our pool! Our electric also does not support any time of external heating source during the winter as it blows a fuse each time (that is a separate issue we are addressing).

Our kitchen is L-shaped with hardly any cabinet space. The cabinets that are useable (some of them are “faux” cabinets and just for show as they are blocked by the oven door, garbage disposal, or dishwasher) are too small for our pots, pans and plates. We also have no pantry, so we store all of our food in our garage. We are currently using our old pub table from our previous house as a kitchen island.

We are thinking about knocking down the wall that separates the kitchen and sunroom, extending the kitchen cabinets and counter tops straight out along the far wall (eliminating the L-Shape) and then constructing a long kitchen island that would follow parallel with the counter and cabinets. We would then remodel and insulate the sunroom as a sunroom combination dining area, since we currently have no are for a dining room table. Currently, you enter the sunroom through a sliding glass door.

Our original plan was just to redo the cabinets and maintain the existing layout of everything, but it’s very limiting. In this scenario we would eliminate the sliding glass door and add dual French doors.

Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated!