Meredith and I both really like to experiment in the kitchen. Designing the kitchen floor plan for our new home was a very exciting yet difficult challenge. I have always dreamed about designing my own house, and this kitchen was a good first learning experience.

The breakfast nook in the original floor plan would have been rather cramped for a four person table.  So we decided to extend the kitchen into that area. Here is a picture of the original kitchen floor plan:

For the modified floor plan, I wanted to leave enough space to have a bar where the breakfast nook was originally. That way we would have a place to put some barstools and drink coffee in the mornings. I restricted my expansion of the kitchen to about four feet to preserve one of the two windows originally located in the breakfast nook.

The first thing I remember ever reading about on the subject of kitchen design is the work triangle.  The basic concept is that the refrigerator, stove, and sink should form a nice triangle with no obstructions. I also wanted to make sure that our pantry was easily accessible and that there was plenty of workspace close to the triangle for prepping food.

My design went through several revisions over the course of a weekend. The fact that the kitchen was a predetermined size did make life a little easier.

One thing I had always wanted was a kitchen island with a vegetable sink. This desire came from having dishes pile up in the sink while cooking, then running out of room for washing and chopping vegetables.

I placed the pantry and refrigerator next to the entrance from the dining room. I placed the counters down the side walls. I wanted to make a clear path from the dining room to the other side of the kitchen without disrupting the stove and prep areas. This made the decision of where to place the stove next pretty easy. Yup… it went into the center of the long wall running parallel to the pathway through the kitchen. To complete the triangle, I placed the dishwasher at the end of the counter / bar across from the pantry. The sink went next to this. And the counters filled in the rest. The island took up as much space as possible while still allowing about 3.5 feet of walkway (enough room for two people to pass) around the entire island.

I took my finished design to the realtor to be passed along to the developer’s draftsman. I was excited when I received the computer drafted renderings a few days later:

Feel free to share your ideas for a kitchen design or remodeling with us.