DIY Summer II: The Concept

Our cape cod style home has a pretty traditional layout.  Approximately 1/2 of the square footage is dedicated to three bedrooms, two baths and a hallway.  The other 1/2 is made up of a decent sized living room, and modest sized kitchen and dining room. Each of these rooms is completely enclosed with walls and small doorways. We cook a lot, and I do mean we.  Both Brooke and I share the cooking and now our four year old is getting into the mix.  The kitchen, which was redone shortly before we bought the house, has become the most crowded room in the home.  There is not enough counter space, so we are always running into each other.

Our first ideas about how to remedy this small kitchen was to take down virtually all walls between kitchen, dining room, and living room, creating a great room that would only be partitioned by furniture. This dream quickly died due to practicality and cost. But, we still wanted to make improvements.  Therefore, we came up with several scaled back versions of the project.

First, let's look at the before layout and pictures.

The layout is in 1/4 scale.  First one can see the cramped entrance.  Next, to get from the kitchen to the living room one either hast to walk through the dining room or walk into the hallway and make a U turn into the living room. Looking at the pictures, the first photo is the back door entrance to a very small vestibule with a small door to our minuscule pantry.  This always felt like coming into a small cavern.  The next photo is looking into the kitchen from the vestibule.

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Continuing into the kitchen, one can see the slightly dated appliances and the entrance into the dining room.

If we move toward the dining room and shoot back into the kitchen, one can see many problems.  First, is the cramped nature of the back entrance.  The second is the awkward cutout for the refrigerator.  To the left of the refrigerator is a wall (also you can see this area to the right of the small pantry from the back entrance and the X on the layout drawing).  The reason that wall is there is that, behind it is an old, unused chimney.  My best guess is that it was for an old wood burning stove.  It has long since been walled in. That chimney really eats up usable space in the kitchen and its removal will be a major part of the remodel.



Looking back from the Hallway, one can again see the outdated appliances and the slightly cramped nature of the kitchen due to the wall along the right hand side that encompasses the chimney.

This was the plan we came up with. There are several improvements included in this plan.  First and most extensive, is along the left hand side of the kitchen as you enter from the back. The plan calls for the removal of the small pantry, the walled-in chimney, and the refrigerator nook.  It also involves building a new pantry where the entry to the hallway was. We would have to make a new opening between the kitchen and living room. Then, along the left wall, we would install new cabinets and move the oven to this wall along with a overhead exhaust hood. We would move the refrigerator against the back wall and get all new cabinets and countertops throughout. It also includes removing the top half of the wall between the kitchen and dining room, making a peninsula and providing a more open feel.  Finally, we wanted to enlarge the 4 foot opening between the living room and dining room into an 8 foot opening. And, of course, what is a new kitchen without new appliances? So, that was part of the plan as well.

We were planning all of this during my spring semester and as the end of the semester drew nearer we were having a really hard time deciding on cabinets and countertops.  We just didn't want to rush the choice, so we decided to defer on the new cabinets and countertops and split the project into two phases.  We would make all of the previously named changes this summer (phase 1) except the cabinets, countertops, removing the top half of the wall between kitchen and dining room, and moving the oven to the left wall.  We will make all of those changes in Phase 2.

Stay tuned as I blog through the rest of the project!