From the Kitchen File: A hopeful future kitchen designer meets with actual kitchen designer

    As I stated in my last blog, the cabinets in the kitchen of our new house are original to our 1991 home, but that’s not the reason we wanted to remodel the kitchen. The problem is that it has a tight U-shaped layout with 48 square feet of standing space inside our U of cabinets and major appliances. Overall the room is larger thanks to a generous breakfast area and room for sitting at the counter on one side. But as homeschoolers, we are home A LOT and are eating and cooking CONSTANTLY. And we are in each other’s way. All. The. Time. The first floor of our home is 1,100 square feet — more of those feet need to be in the kitchen!

I entertained a few different layouts, but our original idea remained our favorite. The kitchen is currently in the center of the house, bordered by the breakfast nook to the south and a closed-off dining room to the north. We will expand the kitchen into the dining room, move the dining room into the formal living room at the front of the house (which currently serves as a very large sitting room/office), and enclose the breakfast nook into a 10- by 10-foot office with the laundry area remaining in the closet of that room.

It will take rooms that look like this: 

Current view from the garage entrance into our kitchen with   
dining room in the distance.                                                      

And transform them (hopefully!) into this: 

Same view as above, with the wall removed and the kitchen   
spanning both the old kitchen and the future kitchen area in   
what is currently the dining room.                                           

I’ve written mostly about how this is a kitchen project, but I’m also really excited about the new dining room, which will be a couple of feet longer than the old dining room was. People keep asking if we will be sad to lose the breakfast nook, as most people tend to use their informal, in-kitchen eating areas more than their dining rooms. But we actually love sitting at the big table in a dining room!

Our old house had the perfect setup for open layout but still separate rooms as we had opened up the wall between the kitchen and dining room with a 12-foot wide opening. In this house the two rooms already have a 6-foot-wide doorway between them, which will give plenty of connection between the two.

Further, instead of putting the dining table in the center of the room, we’re going to put it closer to the external wall, hopefully with a 3-seater dining bench along the wall, which will allow lots of room to travel from the front door, through the dining room to the kitchen, and still allow a buffet on the opposite wall, and a coffee/reading nook in the bay window in the front of the house. Sorry, we don’t have drawings for this, as the only changes that will need to take place in this room are lighting and flooring.

For now, here is a picture of the current sitting room/office that will one day be the dining room, as we had it set up on Thanksgiving to accommodate the 20 of us: 

This is the view from the front of the house to 
the back, so this will be the future dining room
looking into the business end of the kitchen.    

Once Josh and I knew what we wanted to do with the floorplan, the next step was to talk with a designer/cabinet orderer about the specifics. Our friend who helped us with our basement at the old house introduced us to Emily, a kitchen designer in Timonium. We sent her the measurements and photos of my graph paper drawings of what we were thinking, then met with her in December to talk it over.

I was pretty nervous to meet Emily and hear what she thought of our plan. After all, designing my kitchen is a big deal to me, and now that I’ve been “retired” from the newspaper business for almost 8 years, and as my kids are getting better and better at covering their own basic needs, I’ve strongly considered pursuing a career in kitchen design. Last year I almost took a 6-hour course from the National Kitchen and Bath Association on kitchen design in the hope that it would help me 1) prepare for this remodel and 2) count toward getting me a job as a kitchen designer.* What would this professional designer think of my design???

My nervousness was completely unwarranted, our appointment went great! She loved my plan, and admitted that her kitchen is almost entirely drawers and that she wishes she had gone fully with drawers! Originally we had told her we wanted an 8-foot island with the sink, dishwasher, trashcans and drawers for the dish storage in it, but in my weeks of waiting to meet, I had decided I would really like some shallow, open shelves on the end that faced the stove and fridge where I could use baskets to store onions and potatoes and other pantry-like items that I want to breathe but not be seen, and that I kind of like those islands that have that “footed” look of solid anchors on the edges, and she totally agreed. We added the shelves, expanded the width of the drawers on the other side, and came up with a 10-foot island that will still be able to have a continuous piece of granite countertop (so long as we choose a slab that is at least 120 inches long)! The other change I made on the spot was to convert the utility/broom storage cabinet to the right of the fridge into a pull-out pantry cabinet, and move the microwave from under the counter to INSIDE THE PANTRY where it will be hidden.

Did I just blow your mind with that one?

It’s still pretty rare, but I knew some people put their microwaves in an appliance garage, I just wasn’t sure how safe that was. Do microwaves need airspace during operation? Emily confirmed that you can put a microwave in a cabinet behind doors, and that yes, some people are now doing this. Since we do not cook with our microwave, but are only heating up a dish of leftovers at a time, we decided this was a great option, particularly as I would love to have my countertops as clear as possible. (I have not yet figured out what to do with our toaster oven, which is stained and ugly but probably unsafe to put inside a cabinet because occasionally food smokes, but I’m hoping inspiration will strike sooner or later on that one.)

The last detail is I have no upper cabinets above or to the sides of the oven range…so what will go there? Josh and I did not use a vent hood in the old house, and we have decided we’re not going to install one here either. They just don’t do much considering the cost and visual space they take up, and we will have the sliding door just feet away if we need to get fresh air after a smoky broiler situation. So that leaves about 8 ½ feet of space that has nothing above counter level. 

Notice the lack of uppers. That big open space is a little
intimidating, but an opportunity to give the room some 
real personality!                                                              

Josh thinks floating shelves lead to clutter, but I see them as an opportunity to curate beloved objects and give the kitchen some personality. And not just Pottery Barn or “modern farmhouse” personality, but a real snapshot of who really lives here and what they like.

I don’t know what that wall is going to look like yet, but I did get (read: put) an object d’ art in my Christmas stocking this year that I foresee going on a floating shelf within reach: 

It is a toothpick dispenser. Yes, I bought my-  
self a toothpick dispenser as a stocking stuffer.
Welcome to adulthood.                                      

This little $12 functional knickknack may be my creativity jumpstart for this wallspace! And no, I'm not a deer lover, but I suppose I do love classy kitsch and it reminds me of my home design words: comfortable retreat. 

And by the way, I mentioned to Emily that I might like to be a kitchen designer in the future. “Oh cool, I can put your name in if you’re interested.” Whaaaaaaat??? Could it really be that easy??? Let’s hope that Future Carrie finds that it is!!!

Next time: I’ll start talking about choosing materials for the kitchen basics (cabinets, flooring, counters) in a world with endless choices!

 

*Side story: I ended up not taking the online kitchen design class because I was talking to Nanette, my kitchen department friend at Home Depot, and I had asked her how she got her job. She said she was working in flooring when she heard a position had opened up for a kitchen designer and so she applied for it and got it, with no experience, education or previous training. Once she got the job, the company gave her some training, mostly in the computer program the store uses, and now she’s been doing it for almost 10 years. So I decided to hold off on any course until I am closer to actually being able to pick up regular hours for a job, and besides, it seems like computer programs can change drastically within a handful of years. I’ve tried using the free kitchen design programs available online, and they’re pretty maddening. I asked an interior design forum I follow what program they would recommend a homeowner try, and they all recommended just sticking with graph paper.