Talking about layouts with no images in sight.
So, we've done it, the kitchen remodel is officially begun. Walls are intact, houseguest inlaw contractor genius doesn't arrive till Oct 26, nothing's actually changed, but as of last weekend, we're in motion. Why? The cabinet order is placed, and there's a $5500 charge on the credit card. Yikes!!
I guess my last post we were still hemming and hawing over how the best plan for the space was somewhat counter-intuitive. Got over that. We'll have a long cabinet run, and a peninsula that holds the stove. It's not a standard floorplan but it meshes with the space.
Since then we've gone through 3 different ideas of how to dance the trash can, sink, and dishwasher around, and come up with the 100% best workflow - made possible by pulling the cabinets 4" forward (flush with the large refrigerator) to create a pipe-run behind the cabs such that we can put the dishwasher between the sink and the pipe/drain/vent plumbing column. The minor-detail of this move? Now the sink isn't centered on the window. Ah, well, apparently symmetry is very low on our list of kitchen concepts.
Consider design quirk #3: the peninsula has a stove on one side, and seats on the other (4-feet wide, puts some countertop between the seating and the stove). 6 feet long, so a stove with a cabinet to left and right could easily face a run of 3 barstools. But 3 seats in a row is kind of yukky, not very conversational. So we slid everybody down a place, and wrapped the barstools around the corner of the peninsula, creating a drawer-bank by the entry door (for junk and papers and phone-charging, etc.) which is useful. But again, a giant leap away from symmetry. Was that a mistake?
Because that leads directly into design quirk #4: It's a good idea put lights over the seating area. I like pretty lights, dangley pendants that add some interest to the scene... except the seats are off toward one end. The stove, however, is very close to centered, and has a stainless+glass vent hood over it (sucking all the smoke out - yay!!). So do we center on the seating? on the hood? on the peninsula? throw up a long winding snake of flexible track lighting and just call it an asymmetric triumph?? To complicate that decision even further, we haven't 100% decided on whether we want to hang an upper cabinet on the wall to the right of the stove, or whether it will (a) not fit, or (b) look horrible, or (c) look fine but throw off all our lighting.
I would be posting images now, if it weren't that every time Dirk dumps images out of Sketchup (google product) he sends them to me in X.png form, and Picasa (google product) doesn't recognize them as images so I can't upload them to the picasaweb (google product) website that I link photos out of... But surely I can just change the file format, you say. No, no I can't. I couldn't do it at 11:30 at night when I started writing, and I can't do it now at 8 in the morning. Maybe at 10 after some coffee, but I'm not waiting around to find out.
I guess my last post we were still hemming and hawing over how the best plan for the space was somewhat counter-intuitive. Got over that. We'll have a long cabinet run, and a peninsula that holds the stove. It's not a standard floorplan but it meshes with the space.
Since then we've gone through 3 different ideas of how to dance the trash can, sink, and dishwasher around, and come up with the 100% best workflow - made possible by pulling the cabinets 4" forward (flush with the large refrigerator) to create a pipe-run behind the cabs such that we can put the dishwasher between the sink and the pipe/drain/vent plumbing column. The minor-detail of this move? Now the sink isn't centered on the window. Ah, well, apparently symmetry is very low on our list of kitchen concepts.
Consider design quirk #3: the peninsula has a stove on one side, and seats on the other (4-feet wide, puts some countertop between the seating and the stove). 6 feet long, so a stove with a cabinet to left and right could easily face a run of 3 barstools. But 3 seats in a row is kind of yukky, not very conversational. So we slid everybody down a place, and wrapped the barstools around the corner of the peninsula, creating a drawer-bank by the entry door (for junk and papers and phone-charging, etc.) which is useful. But again, a giant leap away from symmetry. Was that a mistake?
Because that leads directly into design quirk #4: It's a good idea put lights over the seating area. I like pretty lights, dangley pendants that add some interest to the scene... except the seats are off toward one end. The stove, however, is very close to centered, and has a stainless+glass vent hood over it (sucking all the smoke out - yay!!). So do we center on the seating? on the hood? on the peninsula? throw up a long winding snake of flexible track lighting and just call it an asymmetric triumph?? To complicate that decision even further, we haven't 100% decided on whether we want to hang an upper cabinet on the wall to the right of the stove, or whether it will (a) not fit, or (b) look horrible, or (c) look fine but throw off all our lighting.
I would be posting images now, if it weren't that every time Dirk dumps images out of Sketchup (google product) he sends them to me in X.png form, and Picasa (google product) doesn't recognize them as images so I can't upload them to the picasaweb (google product) website that I link photos out of... But surely I can just change the file format, you say. No, no I can't. I couldn't do it at 11:30 at night when I started writing, and I can't do it now at 8 in the morning. Maybe at 10 after some coffee, but I'm not waiting around to find out.