My Kitchen -
Sorry. Been having trouble with posting pictures. My kitchen is on the contractors web site.
Hijack away, it’s all good fodder for use down the line.
The thing that’s going to be possibly tricky aka expensive is that I have to move the sink and dishwasher. The sink is a HORRIBLE double basin corner sink that’s all one piece with the Corian? counter. (And that sucks because I actually love the counter). The dishwasher is next to the sink, but with the door open I can’t stand normally at the sink. There’s less than a foot from the edge of the DW door to the cabinets on the left. Stooo-PID.
I have pictures somewhere but not on a shareable site, I don’t think. I’ll have to fix that.
This is a weird little house, I think it started life as a 1990s modular (on a frame) and has been built over and around. Some things are cheap-ass mobile home grade, some things are high end and done right. I was really looking forward to rehabbing it when we bought it 
Effing pandemic put paid to that 
And yes I know it’s seriously small potatoes in the scheme of things … but they’re MY potatoes!
Anyway, lots of good points so far and I really do appreciate it all!
Does your home have a basement (guessing not). Maybe a crawlspace. That might make moving plumbing easier.
Mine is on a slab, that makes it much harder to move plumbing.
As long as we are talking, and you are moving the sink, consider an under counter mount. Not a drop in. You can see mine in the picture above.
The under counter mount is more work, but much easier when you clean the counter tops. Just wipe the crumps and what not right in. No lip to get over and get gunky.
I’m very fortunate to be on a raised foundation. It’s like an archeological site under there. When I had the incoming plumbing changed to copper, they just cut out the galvanized and shoved it over. There’s phone line, tv antennae line and coax from tech past. Now I just have one coax cable to my router. I got rid of so many connectors and holes as I painted walls.
Yeah, back in the day I’d help out the contractors to save on labor. They were always hesitant at first and then always complimented me on how good a worker I was. No more. Too old.
Oh absolutely under counter! Much better IMO.
The house is an odd mix of crawlspace and slab, but I’m pretty sure the kitchen has space under it - thank goodness.
And I very much want drawers rather than deep bottom cabinets.
The other challenge is going to be what to do with the upper cabinets since there’s a vaulted ceiling in the kitchen. Currently we have more or less standard cabinets with ‘pretty’ (not really) molding on top, and a whole lot of dust-gathering space. That may not change much, but it might give me infrequent-access storage options.
I also want to get rid of the island and the weird shallow closet that’s supposed to be a pantry and make an unequal U-shape counter & cabinets, with maybe a sitting area at one end I also have a wall oven I rarely use so was going to get a combined range instead. I don’t really enjoy cooking and almost never entertain, but I might as well make the cooking I DO do as easy and pleasant as possible.
It isn’t even for everyone who’s mostly using the kitchen alone. I want a table in the middle of my kitchen, damn it; plus space to feed dog and cats, and lots of counter and shelf for canning/freezing season. And I’d rather have more space in the kitchen than walk fewer steps in it.
It does work well for some people. But make sure any hired designer understands, and is willing to work with, what you personally need and want in a kitchen; because that varies quite a bit.
Yes. And if you can get windows on at least two sides, it’ll make a lot of difference to the light (and, in appropriate weather, ventilation) of the room.
If you’re an unusual height, and intend to stay put for some years, it may be worth insisting on suitable cabinet heights; as well as suitable height for at least some of the work surface. (As stove heights are pretty standard at least some of your counter will probably have to be standard height. That’s one reason I need a good table in the middle of the kitchen.) – of course if more than one person will be using the kitchen and they’re significantly different heights this can complicate things! I’ve seen kitchens with multiple height work surfaces; if there’s room this can be a good idea. My inclination is to adjust cabinet height to the short person, but then, I’m a short person.
Yes, definitely. Somebody will be glad of them sooner or later. It might well be you. [ETA: and it might be you on short notice, due to unexpected injury or illness; which might also make it difficult for you to do a belated DIY job.]
As I mentioned in the other thread my new kitchen/dining too, became usable a week ago. There are a couple of odds and ends still left like the door knobs and new dining room chairs arrive in a week. There’s a chip in the granite counter that needs to be fixed and a specialist is coming on Tuesday to do the repair.
I went from a wall oven and separate cooktop to a full range but that’s a personal choice thing.
The designer that I used is brilliant and she did pretty much everything that has been suggested including the drop in sink, under counter LED lighting and pull out drawers in the pantry and storage of pots and countertop kitchen appliances.
The one suggestion that I didn’t take from the designer was to have the microwave be built into the shelf where it sits. My sister and a good friend both did that and regretted it. It looks better but it’s a huge pain in the ass if you need to replace the oven.
I am more and more realizing how blessed I am to have chosen my contractor and designer. They were extremely competent and enjoyable. I think they liked me because while I kept on top of things, I was very easy going and made my choices quickly.
Is that the below the counter Microwave?
To each their own, but I don’t like that and do like the over the stove units.
I see the utility and space saving of the over the stove units. But I’m tall, my wife is short. I would not have it because my wife could end up spilling blistering hot whatever on herself.
And a countertop microwave is <$100.
Trivia question: when does a triangle have four sides?
It’s one of those interesting semantic cases where it makes sense to call it a “modified triangle” or something like that, because the word “triangle” here captures a design/ergonomics concept rather than just a geometric shape.
Exactly, to each their own. The counter top space is fairly valuable to me. We’re retiring a good countertop microwave once the kitchen is done.
Our kitchen is still fairly small. We’re increasing countertop space quite a bit but I begrudge the Microwave countertop space.
Understand that completely. Counter top space is very important. The most important for large meals. We where lucky to have room to work with.
Uhh. In a kitchen in a submarine?
If you have any plans to live in this house for the rest of your life, I recommend designing to allow you to age in place. My parents bought their house when they were in their thirties and are still there, with my father in his nineties and mother in her eighties.
(And if instead you’re thinking you’ll just move when you get older, think about how much of a hassle and stress such a move will be.)
I certainly understand. And it is about an ergonomics concept. I look at it this way, there is cold, heat, and water. My kitchen does have the heat separated (stove/oven). The stove needs much more attention than the oven when cooking. The oven, not so much.
I have a stand-alone microwave that sits on a chest high shelf above a small counter. There is a cabinet above the shelf so it’s more like an alcove. There is a drawer below the counter and cabinet below the drawer.
I’ll say this- the Kraft-Maid cabinets from Lowe’s are awfully good. We’ve got them in our master bathroom, and they’re definitely high quality.
But if you do go the custom cabinet/drawer route in your kitchen, make sure and specify the hardware. Don’t let the cabinetmaker cheap out on the drawer slides- do something like specify KV or Accuride slides that are about 50% heavier than what you’d expect. We didn’t do that, and we had problems with ours starting about 4 years later. Ended up getting KV slides put in by a local cabinetmaker, and they’re SO much better than the cheap Chinese crap the original guy put in that I regret not specifying that up front.
I mentioned this in another thread on kitchen renovations, but IKEA cabinets are known to have very good “bones” with Blum hardware (apparently a high-end brand), so some people buy IKEA cabinets but, for a higher-end look, replace the doors, drawer fronts and panels with ones from companies that specialize in this.
It’s been over 20 years since our top-to-toe renovation, so, we’re almost ready for a few refreshes. But overall, we’re very happy.
Once we started seriously planning, we would go to places like Expo (Home Depot’s higher end “design center”), or the Great Indoors. The latter is where one of my friend’s found the designer for his kitchen renovation, and she did an excellent design for his tiny condo kitchen. I don’t know if there are places like this still around (I know Home Depot pulled the plug on Expo), but they were great for us, because we spent nearly 18 months in the planning stage. They also had lots of model kitchens and baths which were perfect for getting the feel of a particular design.
We found our gc through a recommendation from our plumber, and he was great to work with. He made sure we got what we wanted, but also made suggestions along the way. Sometimes we agreed with him, sometimes not, but he never got his panties in a bunch if we didn’t like his idea.
So my main advice is to plan. Know what you want. Have an idea of what he think will work to give a designer or gc something to play with.
My regrets? Mainly that soft close cupboards, French door refrigerators, and LED lights became mainstream very shortly after we finished our renovation. Damn.