I Had A Brilliant Idea For My Kitchen

A few weeks in the past, I shared what I’d do with the breakfast room (after we construct our addition) if I might do no matter I needed with no constraints. You possibly can examine that right here, however the very brief model is that I’d double the dimensions of my kitchen, increasing it into the breakfast room and transferring the sink in entrance of the home windows within the breakfast room.

There’s most likely no approach that might ever occur, however as I’ve been excited about how I need to use this area as soon as we have now our addition completed, I feel I could have provide you with a solution to maximize this area with out doing a significant ground plan shift.

Let me again up and clarify a couple of issues.

First, the entire thought of adjusting something in my kitchen happened some time again as a result of I desperately need to eliminate my concrete counter tops. They’ve lengthy outlived their welcome (I’m so bored with preventing stains), and I need quartz counter tops a lot that I dream about them.

However I’ll be actually trustworthy with you right here. I don’t see any approach that these concrete counter tops may be eliminated with out destroying the cupboards. It’s not like they have been poured elsewhere, after which moved into place like another stable floor and easily glued right down to the cupboards.

So it’s not like I can simply unscrew one thing and transfer the counter tops out. No, these screws are buried beneath concrete. I can’t even think about that they are often eliminated with out destroying the cupboards.

With that realization, I’ve resolved myself to the truth that if I ever need to get new counter tops, it is going to most likely contain getting new cupboards as properly. Whereas it’s a bummer, I’m not too unhappy about that, both. The cupboards I’ve are low cost (it was all we might afford a decade in the past), and a few of them are so slim that they received’t even maintain a dinner plate. I’ve made probably the most of them, and I’ve had enjoyable including my very own group to those plain inventory cupboards, however I received’t cry about eliminating them.

So the entire thought of redoing the kitchen is one thing I resolved myself to a very long time in the past. That’s why I’ve felt the liberty to mess around with concepts like including a passthrough from the kitchen to the brand new household room, which might require all new cupboards, new counter tops, and many others. Since these items appear inevitable, I could as properly dream about precisely how I need it to look and performance.

So I began off with the concept of a full opening between the 2 rooms…

After which that developed into this concept with a passthrough between the 2 rooms with “pocket home windows” in order that the rooms may be closed to one another when the passthrough isn’t wanted. A reader did this wonderful mockup for me.

Anyway, our kitchen could be very small. It appears and feels open because of the cased openings I added to the kitchen, however the precise room is one thing like 9.5′ x 14′. The cupboards and drawers which are truly within the kitchen maintain issues like pots and pans, skillets, spices, cooking utensils, cooking oils, cups and ingesting glasses, plates and bowls, consuming utensils, plastic wrap and foil, and many others.

Do you discover what’s lacking from that listing? FOOD! Now you would possibly suppose that the meals goes in our pantry, proper? Flawed. The pantry does maintain our upright freezer, the place I retailer meat and Cooper’s meals. However the remainder of the storage is crammed with issues that I don’t need to eliminate, however I don’t use typically sufficient to maintain within the precise kitchen — meals dehydrator, juicer, Prompt Pot, meat grinder, air fryer, massive soup pots, baking pans, and on, and on. However there’s no meals in there.

So the place do I retailer the dry meals, canned meals, and many others? Proper right here in these cupboards on the breakfast room aspect of the peninsula.

To say that it’s not handy can be an understatement. It’s a really small space again there behind the chairs, so when Matt is definitely sitting in his chair and reclining whereas I’m cooking, it may be an actual ache.

I’ve determined that I’m not going to maintain this as a sitting room. I need to flip it again right into a breakfast room, however even with a desk and chairs there as a substitute of recliners, it’s simply not handy to have our meals pantry in that space.

However I’ve come to appreciate that I don’t want an entire kitchen growth with main transforming like transferring water traces to the room with the concrete slab basis, which might additionally require messing up loads of the hardwood ground. All that I want is a extra environment friendly space for a meals pantry.

So now my thought is that I can take away the cupboards on the again of the peninsula and create an precise bar with bar stools there. I feel that space will match 4 barstools. After which I can add cupboards right here to make use of as a meals pantry. That might be a lot extra handy!

I really like these areas on both aspect of the walk-in pantry, with the lovable lights, the colourful paintings, and the bench. However these benches are by no means used, so proper now, that is simply wasted area.

And if I’ve wasted area sitting proper subsequent to a kitchen the place I don’t have sufficient storage, it could make a lot extra sense so as to add a pantry right here!

And I wouldn’t simply do it on one aspect. Y’all learn about my want for symmetry, so if I add a pantry on one aspect of the walk-in pantry, then I’d need to have the identical on the opposite aspect.

So the present walk-in pantry (which not has these French doorways as a result of I used these right here) can be flanked with cupboards.

They’d be the identical cupboards I take advantage of within the kitchen, painted the identical shade because the kitchen cupboards, so it could simply appear like a continuation of the kitchen. No structural modifications wanted.

And there’s additionally the potential for including the identical decrease cupboards to this wall as properly. As of proper now, I wouldn’t need to change the cabinets or TV. Since these are above countertop top, I feel they’ll keep. I really like the colour they add.

As a lot as I’d miss the colour that the paintings, pillows, and credenza add to the present sitting room…

I simply preserve envisioning what it could appear like to show this complete space into an eat-in kitchen with a great deal of helpful pantry storage, and with cabinetry persevering with into the present sitting room to create the look of an enormous kitchen with out truly spending the 1000’s of {dollars} it could take to vary the structure utterly. I can envision the cupboards flanking the present walk-in pantry, and I feel it could look nice!

I’m fairly enthusiastic about this concept. It feels much more peaceable to me than doing one other enormous transform that might require tearing up the flooring and the concrete basis. And whereas I’d love to have the ability to stand at my sink and look out of these home windows, I additionally actually like that my present sink faces the TV, and can, sooner or later, face the small breakfast desk and chairs. That approach if somebody is sitting there, I can simply converse with them as a substitute of getting my again to them like I’d if my sink was on the home windows.

So these are my newest ideas. I completely love pondering by the assorted plans and prospects, and dreaming about methods to use these areas. And it could take me a couple of extra tries earlier than I land on the proper kitchen plan, however as of this second, that is my favourite thought to this point.

Addicted 2 Adorning is the place I share my DIY and adorning journey as I transform and enhance the 1948 fixer higher that my husband, Matt, and I purchased in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do bodily work, so I do the vast majority of the work on the home on my own. You possibly can study extra about me right here.