The Kitchen Design

Now that we have a doorway in place, it is time for a design. We talked about several ideas, but we were having trouble visualizing how the space can be filled, so Kym did some rough 3D modeling in AutoCAD to help us visualize our ideas. The image to the left shows existing kitchen at the bottom of the image, living room & entrance to basement stairs to the right, dining room to the left and mudroom entrance at the top.

We started with looking at the alignment and location of existing walls and doorways so we could determine the best size cabinets. We decided to go with 12" deep cabinets along the mudroom wall because of the location of the opening to the dining room.

Then, to match the existing tall cabinets in the kitchen, we decided to move the temporary peninsula we had in place, and replace it with a 12" deep, barstool height base cabinet with an extended peninsula countertop. We really want to have some barstools in the kitchen for entertaining and an easy breakfast or dinner spot.

Since the dining room entrance is so large, we also decided a second peninsula would be a great addition to the kitchen - it would act as a great serving area. We decided to move the temporary peninsula next to the refrigerator permanently to add just a little more counter top space. We also thought it would help to enclose the refrigerator with panels so the new peninsula would connect.

After finalizing the peninsulas, we went back to planning the mudroom wall. After much thought and several variations (as you see in the images above), we finally settled on a simple but elegant layout that will allow for extra counter and storage space and add a little interest to the kitchen.

The above and this image are the final plans. Now we go shopping for cabinets :o)