Laying out the Kitchen Footprint

If I actually told my husband what I had done all day yesterday he would probably flip his lid: I sat on the couch and reconsidered my whole kitchen design from the start.  On one hand, this was nothing more than an exercise in futility.  At this point we are so far into the kitchen renovation (e.g. walls have been knocked down and reframed, gas & plumbing have been roughed in, electrical is done, and all the cabinetry is already on site) that there is no going back.  Yes, off course, it's possible to make changes, and I see homeowners do it all the time mid-reno on HGTV, but it is extremely costly.  That's why it's important to get it right the first time.  We have already cracked our budget ceiling, even with the contingency fund, so going back at this point is just not feasible.

The desire to re-re-design the kitchen really arises out of anxiety.  Is this floor plan really going to work for me?  What if I've created a really poor kitchen design?  Have I really arranged the appliances in the best possible configuration?  Is the decision to move the laundry really the right decision?  How is this going to affect resale value?  Agh!  So many decisions must be made and I never weigh anything lightly.  I agonize over the details.  I think it is the fear of spending all this money and not getting what I really needed (and then not realizing it until after the fact).  But this fear also seems to be part of the process that everyone else who does a kitchen reno also experiences, at least to one extent or another.

I had really wanted to hire a kitchen designer to look over my plans and offer some constructive criticism.  Kitchen designers do this for a living, so they would know exactly what to check for in a good kitchen design and would ask all the questions I wouldn't even think to consider, right?  But given that my husband is an architect, and I have poured countless (seriously, countless!) hours into research and design over the last 18 months (Yes, that's right, I started planning this kitchen renovation in January 2012 -- six months before we even closed on the house!) that he talked me out of spending money on a CKD and putting that money toward something like beautiful lighting instead.

So today's exercise was really a process of reassurance in why I had settled on the design choices I had.  Thankfully, I can say that after sketching out five different floor plans, in addition to the one we actually settled on, I came to the same conclusion: the design we choose ticks off the most boxes on my must-have checklist.  What a relief!

As I've said, I've thought a lot about how I use my kitchen space and how I want it to function.  I've imagined cooking up some of my staple dishes in my sketch-ups and actually thought about the accessibility of the mixing bowls, or how far I have to reach to get the spices.  Some of the design choices I would be making would be the same, regardless of the final footprint, like having giant pull-out drawers in base cabinets instead of reach-in shelving.  Or putting the light switches at 42'' from the floor so little hands can reach them.  Actually, designing a kitchen with kids in mind was of great importance to me, but I'll talk more on that in a later post.

A quick sketch of the existing kitchen footprint in need of redesign.

So how do you design your own kitchen if you've never done it before?  Even after all my research and exploration I still don't feel qualified to answer that question, but I made the logical decision that the best design for me would be the one that checked off the most of my must-haves.  I think some kitchen design choices are more important than others.  For example, you can't sacrifice storage space just for the sake of gaining a minimalistic aesthetic -- that just wouldn't be practical.

There are two aspects which really made the design process agonizing for me.  First, compromise is inevitable.  Nobody, not nowhere, not nohow, ever gets everything they want.  (And, of course, this is only complicated by the fact that I am picky, picky, picky!  I hate compromise!)  Secondly, the opportunity to design anew, by taking everything down to the studs, opens up so many possibilities that it's actually overwhelming.  If we had kept the existing plumbing and gas, for example, a lot less decisions would have had to be made.  (Not that I would have ever really considered that.  The kitchen that came with this house truly was aweful and I will talk more about everything that was wrong with the existing kitchen later.)

So here are design criteria that I used in settling on a footprint.  This, of course, is not an exhaustive list of the design choices I made, but these are the ones that really guided the lay-out of the kitchen.  Furthermore, there are criteria which some professionals would advocate, but don't make my must-have list.  For example, most people would say the sink should be in front of a window.  This is tradition and is probably mostly about aesthetics.  However, in my kitchen, the view directly out the windows looks onto the back of the next-door neighbors' garage.  Now there's very little control I have of the view out of the kitchen and I just don't think a view of brown garage is worth it.  For me, placing the sink between the windows means I still get some perspective out of the window, plus I don't see the garage at all!  Instead I have a view of the greenery on either side of the garage and even a vantage point to the street corner, which I would not have if the sink were directly positioned in front of one window or the other.  Thus, the points listed here are a mix of "good kitchen design" minimum recommendations that are important to me, as well as some of my personal preferences (PP's) given the overall constraints and what I want to achieve in the space with which I have to work.

1.  Minimum 4-ft. work space between the sink and range, big enough for 2 cooks.  (Note: the professionals say that the best prep space is between the sink and the range, but Tom and I like to cook together, so I wanted more than the 3-ft. minimum recommended prep space.)  (PP)
2.  Sink and Range located on the same wall. (PP)
3.  Sink next to dishwasher.
4.  Range located on exterior wall.  (This is best for exterior venting.  Putting a cook top in an island results in more grease everywhere because of cross-draft.  Skipping ventilation with an island cooktop would be the worst, and yet I notice this in too many kitchens!)
5.  Provide shut-off access to the new waste pipe in the south wall (ironically, the "north" wall in the sketch above!) that will serve the future 2nd floor master bath. (PP)
6.  Minimum 10-ft. of upper cabinet storage.
7.  Minimum 10-ft. of lower cabinet storage.
8.  Work triangle (fridge-sink-range) of 12-23-ft.
9.  Minimum 2-ft. on either side of the range for "emergency landings"  (Note:  The professionals say it is preferable for one side to be 3-ft., but it seems to me that you could do 18'' on one side and 36'' on the other and still be okay.)
10.  Minimum 2-ft. on each side of the sink.
11.  Minimum 2-ft. counterspace on the side of the fridge that opens (Note: The professionals say you should plan for 2-ft. counterspace on each side of the fridge if you're going with a french-door model, but I hardly ever see this done.  I can understand having a countertop next to the fridge for setting down groceries, or for retrieving big heavy casseroles, but needing this space on both sides seems excessive.)
12.  Do not locate fridge next to ovens.  (This gets into energy efficiency).
13.  Placement of appliances and cabinets does not block streams of natural light.  (PP)
14.  Placement of appliances and cabinets does not block sight-lines through the kitchen.  (PP)
15.  Storage for what goes into the dishwasher located next to dishwasher.
16.  Protect the range area from walk-ways, allowing for the least number of interruptions at the range (i.e.  keep the range out of the way of another user using the fridge-to-sink area and also the sink-to-workspace area).
17.  For two cooks: locate the sink between two separate prep areas.
18.  Minimum 4-ft. wide walk-way between work surfaces in galley style kitchen or if there is an island (Note: 42'' would be minimum industry standard).  (PP)
19.  Laundry space is located separate from the kitchen. (PP)
20.  Sink located between fridge and range.  (Note: this only seems to be an issue if you have a single wall or an L-shaped kitchen.  If you have a galley or island, and thus an actual triangle, this issue usually resolves itself.)

Sketch-up of the future kitchen footprint.

When I look at the sketch-up of the future kitchen on paper, it doesn't strike me as good design.  In fact, it looks like it's too big and everything is too spread out.  The kitchen space is large in my opinion (and it is large compared to what I lived with in rentals).  So I'm hoping that even if it feels big at first, it will be well designed for increasing the size of our family.  I want a space that a family can grow in.  Save knocking down the existing load-bearing walls, the space we have to work with is about 10' x 16', which is larger than the American average, though not unheard of either.  I fear that there is wasted space.  After all, we could have made some different design choices.  But when I go through the checklist above, the design we settled on hits almost every box.  In fact, it gets a score of 18.5/20.  (I take off 1/2 point for #11 since there is only counter space on one side of our french-door style fridge, and also a point for #14 since we could have switched the location of the fridge with the counterspace on the same wall, thus opening up the sight-line a bit more from one end of the kitchen to the other.  However, if we did this then #16 would be compromised and the distance between the sink and fridge would be greater.  Both those aspects seem to be more important that the sight lines, which is really more aesthetic.  Compromise is inevitable, remember?)  The most reassuring aspect to me is that this design gets the highest score of any other design I could come up with.  And believe me I've tried!

By the way, if you're wondering how the old kitchen design measured up against my 20-point checklist, it only got 7/20.  That's an F!