Prior to Renovations Kitchen

John and I had about a month in between purchasing our home and getting possession of it.  This gave us oodles of time to hum and haw about how we might change our kitchen to better suit us.

Currently, our kitchen is an eat in and to be honest functions better than I thought it might.  There is room for all of our stuff (which is surprising because I don't feel like we have much more cupboard space than in the condo).  But it isn't exactly what we want (plus we don't even have a table to put in the space!).  So it's the first bit of major renovations we are planning for.

view from dinning room

dinning room

A few things..

That is a door to the bathroom on our one kitchen wall

We don't currently have a dishwasher

The stove is original to the house (not that you can see it)!.... and I think we have officially learned how to use it!

Yes, that's carpet in the dinning room

Yes, there isn't a whole lot of counter space considering the space that we have.

So, how are we going to change it?

We've drawn diagrams and we've used apps but in the end the best thing we used to help us design our kitchen was to use the Ikea kitchen planner... mostly because I knew the stove and the sizes of everything actually existed (and as a nice bonus the chairs and table that we added to our design are actually the chairs and table that we own!)

Do we plan to actually make an Ikea kitchen?

Probably not

But it is a good tool for planning for right now.

Anyways.... here are 2 options that I've come up with for what might work in our space.

Ikea's kitchen planner

The option on the left has us swapping the current dinning room and kitchen and taking down the wall that separates them.  The 3 white boxes along the bottom would act us our pantry and coffee bar area.  Probably a bit more money than the option on the right but I feel like it is the better option.

Then there is the option on the right.  The kitchen stays relatively the same size as it currently is, however, the wall separating the dinning room and kitchen still comes down to make room for the peninsula.  Not a lot of room for upper cabinets because there are 2 windows that run along the wall where the sink is currently located. 

We don't currently have a backdoor to our house (well we do, you just have to go through the garage) and so with the option on the left it might also give us enough space to add in a backdoor of some kind... eventually.

Of course, we can sit here plopping things into Ikea's kitchen planner all day but it still doesn't tell us what's in the wall we want to take down, how much will it cost to move plumbing or if any of this is even possible.  

BUT... since we are likely not going with an IKEA kitchen I also went to a store in our area to inquire about kitchen designs (and talk to someone who actually designs kitchens daily)

Here's what the girl at the store came up with:

swapping the kitchen and dining room

Pros: lots of counter and cupboard space, big fridge, lots of space in our new dining room

Cons: Those cupboards and counters that line the bottom of the top picture are only 12 inches deep... 12 inches!  That's the length of a ruler people... not too big

keeping the kitchen where it currently is

Pros: We don't have to move plumbing or anything, all cupboards are a regular depth, the kitchen looks very spacious.

Cons: small dining room, smaller fridge, 

I'm still learning towards the swapping of the dining room and kitchen if possible.

BUT, I'll definitely be visiting another store sometime and this time getting them to totally work their magic and come up with something they think would be best for the space we have.

Anyways, it might not be getting done any time soon... but hopefully within the next couple of years we'll have a kitchen that better suits our needs.

Anyone who has gone through a kitchen renovation and wants to chime in with their opinion is welcome to... we aren't married to either of the above 2 options yet.