I've been looking for a house where the kitchen could be redone, and
finally found one. In this case, the kitchen would have to be built up
from scratch since the old one was completely dismantled. I believe
they also tore down some walls and generally opened up the floorplan.
It has all the right things wrong with it.

It seems like the best place for the kitchen is now in an area roughly
12ft by 12ft. There's a tall window midway along the left wall. The
right side is open halfway down; the wall only comes roughly halfway up
to the ceiling there. The bottom side is open halfway to the right. If
you're viewing this with a fixed-width font, it would look something like:

+-------------------+
| ]
| ]
| ]
W
W
|
|
|
+--------

Where the W is for the window, and the ] is for the half wall. Without
anything else to try for dabbling, I've been using the Ikea kitchen
planner to dabble and get an idea. I've been told other cabinets can be
near the cost of Ikea cabinets if you assemble it themselves. That and
Ikea cabinets supposed came in 4th out of 12 in a Consumer Reports study
makes me think they aren't so bad. That hasn't been chosen yet -- I'm
just using it for a layout.

I'm curious what experience people have had with laying out a kitchen.
All the lines would have to be rerouted from the old kitchen area to
this new spot. It looks like I can follow the perimeter of the walls,
but put nothing by that window. The window cannot be changed easily
because it's along the front of the house, symmetrical with a window in
another room, with masonry around it.

I've come up with a few ideas and then realized I had no idea how pipes
would reach the right spots. On idea was dismantling the right
half-wall, and putting in a long island of cabinets with a sink. Since
the whole mess is sitting on top of the slab right now, the pipes
certainly cannot come from underneath. That makes me wonder if I should
raise the kitchen up. I assume that would be very costly, but would
afford me a nice view of the rest of the house.

Any thoughts?

Adam Preble wrote:
<snip>
>
> I've come up with a few ideas and then realized I had no idea how pipes
> would reach the right spots. On idea was dismantling the right
> half-wall, and putting in a long island of cabinets with a sink. Since
> the whole mess is sitting on top of the slab right now, the pipes
> certainly cannot come from underneath. That makes me wonder if I should
> raise the kitchen up. I assume that would be very costly, but would
> afford me a nice view of the rest of the house.
>
> Any thoughts?

Do you have a professional kitchen store in your area? And, no... I'm
not talking about Lowes, HD, etc... I used to design kitchens quite a
few years ago. To do a good job and design a kitchen which will
compliment the home you really need to visit the home to look at the
nuances, decor, as well as the condition of whatever is there to
evaluate what is possible for a reasonable amount of money and what
"could" be done if money isn't an object. Plus while doing this you get
a "feel" for the tastes and preferances of the owners which can make
quite a difference obviously in the final design.

As for the cabinets, while somewhat pricey I liked Quaker Made.

Bottom line, get a trained professional to help and provide ideas.

--
Steve
Ever notice that putting the and IRS together makes "theirs"?

Adam Preble > wrote:

Adam, a 12x12 area can be rather small for a kitchen. Remember that
counter depth is about two feet, so you could have very little open
floor space once cabinets and counters are installed. This makes it
hard to move around.

Appliances, especially fridges, are often deeper than the countertops,
making the problem worse.

And don't forget the usual 1.5" countertop overhang past the edge of
the cabinet; this makes your counters 25-26" deep. Every inch counts in
a small space; if possible, give yourself an extra inch here and there.
Things conspire to steal those inches back during construction, so it's
good to be conservative.

Have you considered making the kitchen part of a larger open area, e.g.
a family room, great room, or something like that? Since you're going
to reroute plumbing and electrical, you aren't tied to the area you
mention.

Regarding electrical, be advised that current codes require several
circuits to kitchens. As a guess, you'll probably need about four 20a
circuits. An electric or dual-fuel range will also require a 240v
circuit, as would an electric oven.

Will you need a gas line for the range?

Drain lines can be a problem, because, with the slab, you may have to
run a long horizontal distance to the sewer line. Naturally, these runs
need a little slope, which creates height limitations. You'll also need
to plan for vent lines, which usually go up through the roof. Local
plumbing codes will determine vent routings, lenghts of drain runs,
etc.

The slab makes life tough, so the utility planning is important.

On my web site, you can see my kitchen design thoughts and photos, from
our new kitchen in 2002. Because the room was an addition, I had the
luxury of planning it the way I wanted it, rather than fitting an
existing room.

Feel free to email me with questions; it's been a couple of years since
I was really active with the design and construction, but I remember a
lot of the issues.

--
- rick http://www.cfcl.com/~rick/
Rick Auricchio Macs Only: Macintosh support
I acknowledge the existence of a higher power, and have therefore installed
surge suppressors.

Steve Calvin wrote:
>
> Do you have a professional kitchen store in your area? And, no... I'm
> not talking about Lowes, HD, etc... I used to design kitchens quite a
> few years ago. To do a good job and design a kitchen which will
> compliment the home you really need to visit the home to look at the
> nuances, decor, as well as the condition of whatever is there to
> evaluate what is possible for a reasonable amount of money and what
> "could" be done if money isn't an object. Plus while doing this you get
> a "feel" for the tastes and preferances of the owners which can make
> quite a difference obviously in the final design.
>
> As for the cabinets, while somewhat pricey I liked Quaker Made.
>
> Bottom line, get a trained professional to help and provide ideas.
>

I might have to because the home doesn't give away much secrets. It's a
HUD foreclosure that looks like it was halfway through a remodel.
There's traces of cabinets in a very narrow space that has since been
opened up. I think there used to be a crummy galley-style kitchen in
there. I now see lots of markings on the wall where I think they were
planning to put the kitchen, and it's where I started to ponder. The
alternative to me is converting the space I mentioned above into a
bedroom, and converting out one of the larger rear bedrooms into the
kitchen. I think this would be a logistics nightmare with all the lines
that would need to be installed.

Adam Preble wrote:

> Steve Calvin wrote:
>
>>
>> Do you have a professional kitchen store in your area? And, no... I'm
>> not talking about Lowes, HD, etc... I used to design kitchens quite a
>> few years ago. To do a good job and design a kitchen which will
>> compliment the home you really need to visit the home to look at the
>> nuances, decor, as well as the condition of whatever is there to
>> evaluate what is possible for a reasonable amount of money and what
>> "could" be done if money isn't an object. Plus while doing this you
>> get a "feel" for the tastes and preferances of the owners which can
>> make quite a difference obviously in the final design.
>>
>> As for the cabinets, while somewhat pricey I liked Quaker Made.
>>
>> Bottom line, get a trained professional to help and provide ideas.
>>
>
> I might have to because the home doesn't give away much secrets. It's a
> HUD foreclosure that looks like it was halfway through a remodel.
> There's traces of cabinets in a very narrow space that has since been
> opened up. I think there used to be a crummy galley-style kitchen in
> there. I now see lots of markings on the wall where I think they were
> planning to put the kitchen, and it's where I started to ponder. The
> alternative to me is converting the space I mentioned above into a
> bedroom, and converting out one of the larger rear bedrooms into the
> kitchen. I think this would be a logistics nightmare with all the lines
> that would need to be installed.

That's why I recommended getting someone in there who sees this kind of
thing more frequently than anyone else. They're going to be aware of all
of the new techniques, codes, etc that would be involved and be able to
provide you (probably) with some alternatives which you haven't thought of.


--
Steve
Ever notice that putting the and IRS together makes "theirs"?

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 13:13:47 -0700, Rick Auricchio >
wrote:

>Adam Preble > wrote:
>
>Adam, a 12x12 area can be rather small for a kitchen.

Actually, I don't agree, although first we have to define the terms.
If you're including a dining area in the thinking, then, yes, 12x12 is
tiny. But I just finished remodeling a 12x24 space for our
kitchen/dining suite, with the kitchen part of it in about 12x12½, and
it's the most room we've ever had in a kitchen. Now part of that has
to do with layout and part of it has to do with the size of the rest
of the house.

Three of the houses we've lived in were approx 2400 ft^2. The others
were smaller. Our current kitchen is huge for a 2400 ft^2 house. But
for a 3500 or 5000 ft^2 house it would probably be "cramped." You can
see pictures of the remodel at my website link below in my sig. To be
honest, I think the singular feature that contributes to the large
feeling in our kitchen is the fact that there is a peninsula at one
end opening into the dining area. Even though there's a hood over the
range in that peninsula, the openess really expands the kitchen.

Also, although I have a Metro shelf unit for storing appliances and
accessories, it is unobtrusive and takes space that I wouldn't know
what else to do with. We also have a built in pantry for foodstuffs
that doesn't intrude on the 12x12½ footprint.

>Have you considered making the kitchen part of a larger open area, e.g.
>a family room, great room, or something like that?

Yes, that helps, as mentioned above.

>Regarding electrical, be advised that current codes require several
>circuits to kitchens. As a guess, you'll probably need about four 20a
>circuits. An electric or dual-fuel range will also require a 240v
>circuit, as would an electric oven.

Two 20 A GFCI circuits for the countertop receptacles, and be
generous. I replaced the single duplex receptacle at each original
location with a pair of duplex receptacles, and added a pair of duplex
receptacles on the backsplash of the peninsula near the range. I can
plug in a LOT of stuff.

One 20 A for the dishwasher, and although I don't think it's required,
it's smart to have a separate 20 A circuit for a disposal (you might
put a big unit there, it would also be handy for hot water dispenser,
etc.). An aside, I bought an air operated switch for the disposal. The
switch button goes in one of the sink cutouts. The air operated relay
mounts under the sink and needs a receptacle, so you might as well
wire one in and use the disposal circuit for it.

Then, as Rick said a 60 A range circuit and whatever circuit the oven
(if separate) would require.

You also need a 15 A circuit for lighting, and be generous in branches
for undercabinet lighting (you will love it if you put in a good
system). There is no such thing as too much light in a kitchen. Light
it like an operating room. We have four 4-foot 2-tube fluorescent
fixtures, which wouldn't have been my first choice, but they were
there, they worked, and the kitchen is bright. But have varying levels
of light available. The undercounter lights work great for that (we
used Kichler xenon fixtures; expensive but this is our last kitchen).
I also put a couple of cans over the peninsula bar, a couple of cans
over the sink, and a couple of cans over the dishwasher (you'd be
amazed at how handy they are).

I also decided to run a separate 20 A circuit for the refrigerator and
powered the microwave off that, too, since I was wiring that whole
area and they're adjacent to each other. Finally, and my application
is unique here because of the remodel, I ran my hood on the same line
as the single remaining (20 A) receptacle in the old dining room.

We won't be wanting for electrical service in this kitchen.

>On my web site, you can see my kitchen design thoughts and photos, from
>our new kitchen in 2002. Because the room was an addition, I had the
>luxury of planning it the way I wanted it, rather than fitting an
>existing room.

It'll be good to contrast Rick's with mine, at least for some ideas.

>Feel free to email me with questions; it's been a couple of years since
>I was really active with the design and construction, but I remember a
>lot of the issues.

I actually did all the work in mine except for the installation of the
cabinets and countertops. So I REALLY remember those things.

Good luck.

--
LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

Proud participant of rec.woodworking since February, 1997

> On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 13:13:47 -0700, Rick Auricchio >
> wrote:
>
>>Adam Preble > wrote:
>>
>>Adam, a 12x12 area can be rather small for a kitchen.
>

If you plan to use it as an eat in kitchen, it is a little smallish, but if
you don't, it is H U G E. My first house had a kitchen that was 7 x 12 or
so. I had a tremendous amount of cabinets, all the nice appliances, and 21
(yes, twenty one) feet of counter top.

Friends had a 16 x 16 kitchen that was a nightmare. It had four doors, on in
each corner of the room and the work flow world get you exhausted making a
bowl of cereal.

Get someone that knows kitchens to help with a layout. Some of the better
kitchen stores have good people that do this for a living.
--
Ed
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/