Little Brick Cottage: Kitchen Final Plan

 **Please Note** The little brick cottage renovation project took place and was originally posted here in 2012! It was my first project I posted on as well. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see posts on this entire project.

If you’ve been following along, this picture is not new to you, we had to completely remove the wall between the kitchen and bathroom.

And rebuild it, only a few inches in toward the kitchen, build the new doorway between bathroom and kitchen a few inches over towards where the range was going to be. 

Doesn’t sound like much of a change, right? Wrong. Because of those couple of inches, we lost the adequate space for the range to be on the right side of the bathroom door, (in the area of that orange bin you see in the pic above). Just to clarify, the first picture of the missing wall is from the kitchen looking towards the new tub area; the second picture, above, is from the kitchen looking towards the new vanity, the bathroom window is now just out of the shot on your left. Both are looking into the bathroom from the kitchen, but two different angles.

This is what the ‘old’ new plan was:

At the top of this sketch plan, you can see where the bathroom door was, with the stove on the right side and the fridge tucked in the corner on the left wall. I really liked that plan, but I have to remind myself about my first post on the Little Brick Cottage.  I referred to how compromise would be the secret to success on this project.

So now, with the new space we have, here is the revised and finalized plan:

Now at the top of sketch plan, you can see that there is only 44” of space between the bathroom door and right corner of the wall. That’s not enough space for the range. So given no other feasible choice, the fridge will have to go in the right corner with a small cabinet to its left, still, but just barely, enough counter for setting fridge items on when putting in and out of fridge.

So then that leaves the left of the wall space for the range, with enough room on each side of the range for adequate counter space. (It’s not allowed by code and it’s not a good idea to have the range up against a side wall, so space for the cabinet between wall and range is essential.)

When planning a kitchen floor plan, the first consideration must be function. In this room, it doesn’t matter how pretty the space is, if it doesn’t function well, the pretty just can’t make up for the lack of function. The ‘work triangle’ is commonly talked about in kitchen planning. The 3 points of the triangle are the 3 main areas needed during food preparation: Fridge, Stove and Sink. Many studies have shown that for a single cook, (ha ha,  I don’t mean unmarried, I mean only one cook at a time, the rules obviously change with more cooks in the kitchen at the same time) the most efficient amount of space in between those 3 areas is 21 feet. Ideally you would have 7’ between each area. So 7 feet multiplied by 3 areas is a total of 21 feet. That will give you enough room to move and counter space to use, but not so much that you have to traipse across the whole kitchen to get to one of the 3 key areas.

Miraculously, given all the obstacles in this kitchen, we have exactly 21 feet from the front of fridge to the front of the stove to the front of the sink. That’s one of the ways I know this kitchen will be an efficient layout for working in. And because we have the peninsula off a little further, for sure two cooks could still work in this kitchen together and have their own space.

With my finalized floor plan in hand, I set up an appointment with Debi at the Maplewood, MN Home Depot Kitchen and Bath department. I worked with her on a previous project and her expertise is invaluable on a project with the detail of a cabinetry plan.

She whipped together on her computer the measurements of the kitchen. I had selected some stocked cabinets that were on sale. They’re pretty basic, traditional looking, in a white painted finish. They’ll be great for this simple kitchen. To invest in anything expensive would not be money well spent. The cabinets I selected, Debi agreed, are good quality, but they keep the price low due to the lack of choices. So with the sizes they made available, Debi did this plan for me:

It’s still laying the same way as my plan with the range and fridge on the top of the sketch.  This plan shows exactly the sizes, model number and placement of every single cabinet for the kitchen. Then, if you’re having a challenging time ‘visualizing’ what your new space will look like, they’ll print off an elevation of each wall. Here’s what Debi printed for me:

The sizing of the window and cabinets are correct, but the little details of the windows etc. obviously aren’t in it. But still, this elevation view can really be a benefit to ‘see’ what the newly planned space will look like.

I put my notes on it during my meeting, to help remember points for when the installation day comes.

The cabinets are ordered, as well as the laminate counter tops. Yes, we went with laminate, remember, compromise and invest wisely, but it’s a really pretty dark olive/brown/blackish color and looks like soapstone.

Hopefully within a few weeks, the kitchen will look very different than it does today! Now back to the dining room stripping wallpaper project…

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Here are all the posts from 2012 showing the entire renovations projects on the little brick cottage: