Gayle28607

Hi hathor - Quick reply, as I have to run, though I'd rather stay and play with these ideas! I'll be back to this later this evening. scale on the drawing is 1/4 inch = 1 foot. Using photoshop I set it to 50 pixels = 1 foot , or tried to. The grid I could show in an update of the draft plans is set at about 1 foot. I'm not sure how exact I was as I'm not a PS pro, just decent amateur. My flat-space-itis isn't congenital, unless it is emerging post-moving to this house. I DO need vertical storage! Maybe some vertical storage/kitchen desk flanking the window in the upper part of the drawing? Staircase goes downstairs. The door that runs smack-dab into the downstairs door in the "now" drawing goes outdoors and is my main entrance though it is the back door. blue is imaginary counter space mostly with cabinets underneath. I'll have to think about the sink move. It is a possibility. I just measured the space between the edge of the current picture window on the wall abutting the bathroom. 31 inches, so this could be doable? I've imagined that huge (low) window becoming french doors or a slider to a patio outside... Gayle

I'm thinking I would get something like a Vent-a Hood installed through the roof, which is over a standard low slope, small ranch attic. I haven't been up there to look yet, but that seemed like a good place to start my thinking on this. They do vent these things through the roof, don't they? How are they usually installed? My current hood is recirculating and a piece of crap. But since the stove can barely get hot enough to boil water for more than 5 minutes this has not caused any interior environmental hazards. (I make raspberry jam on this stove and always have to face the possibility my temp on the burner will drop. Many is the time I have three burners going so I can move the pot from one to the other as the big burner gives up the ghost; I move the jam to give the first one a "rest" or face jam that won't set up!) And thank you so much for the welcome, Darienne! Looks like you read the plan just fine. Gayle

And I'm a Mac person. Love my Mac, and have Photoshop, which is my usual solution. I could run my Mac to emulate a PC. I will try that later. Great thought baroness!

I've got a restaurant supply stainless table maple top worktable on casters right now. It's the only thing that saves me from complete insanity in this kitchen. Well, I may already be hopeless in that department. Anyway, it's only 2x3, so really isn't big enough for me, but I work with it. Oh why didn't I get 2x4!? (I even cut out a piece of cardboard that was worktable sized before I purchased it several years ago.) It butts up against the stair wall most of the time because it also holds the microwave on the bottom shelf which I usually leave plugged in. I haven't put an outlet in the floor for it, though could. Truly, this is, and has been, the best cheap, down and dirty do-it-yourself solution! But it still leaves me with that run of floor to ceiling cabinets with the cut-out above the stove that blocks the table. I'll take some pictures of what I'm talking about later today and post so you can see the problem better. Our minds were definitely thinking alike on this one. The table has been sweet, other than my booboo on size. Gayle

Thanks, Leslie. My thoughts exactly - it's a big space, but somehow it feels all wrong the way it is. When I first moved in I took a Rotozip to the area above the cooktop so I can at least see the dining table, which is in that lower area next to the bathroom. The run of cabinets that currently houses the cooktop is just that - a run of cabinets and not a real wall. Why it's placed right there, I don't know. It makes it impossible to (un)comfortably seat more than about six at the dining table - that is, once I clear all the papers off of it! Your point about corner cupboards has been one that's troubling me, too. As for your other point, I definitely want full slide out drawers rather than shelves in the cabinets (Blum, probably?). I'm not all that fond of granite. My main interests right now are... -get the kitchen to function better -open up the space somehow -new range, maybe a dual fuel Monogram? The area I live in doesn't really have kitchen designers, other than the ones a Lowes. Maybe that would be a good idea? Gayle

Not so great for a first real post, eh? Well, I'm trying again. Existing: In my imagination:

I'm a new member here and have just finished living vicariously through the many fascinating pages of "Story of Varmint's Kitchen Renovation," and "Varmint's New Kitchen: This time, it's really happening." About three years ago I asked an architect to do some plans for my house because at 1200 square feet there was not room in it for both a child and my work, work which often occurs at home and involves incalculable reams of paper and piles of books. Just as I paid the architect for the preliminary plans there was an article in the local paper that said my huge neighbor, the university, wanted to open up my dead end street and use it for mass exoduses from the stadium on game day. Needless to say, I dropped my plans. Three years later, same house. I have no where to sit and eat because I work at the big dining table now. No where to cook: I HATE my cooktop which is GE, glass, with huge steel disks that have idiosyncratic, metallic mindless minds of their own. No where to REALLY work because I have to keep moving my stuff off the dining table. No where for my books. (This is the easier fix, as I bought some amazing hardware which is already installed in the living room. I just need to make the shelving in my spare time.) Oh yeah, and the child. She has space, sort of. Anyway, after all my reading on this site, which prompted me to join it, I thought I might present my floor plan for your amusement. I know there are great minds here. I hope you will be willing to help a stranger and a newbie think about her space. I've begun to take the advice of, I think it was fifi, who kept a diary of her ways of working in her kitchen. It has already inspired me to send some pots and pans to the thrift store or to friends. As I think about what I've enjoyed in kitchens with far smaller floor area than my current one, I've always had room to make pies. I love pies, love to bake them, love to eat them, love to give them away. In this kitchen, I don't like to make pies. I think this state of affairs has gone on long enough! I love to make soups and stews, and roast huge turkeys for crowds. But again, not in this kitchen. I've only done a huge turkey once or twice in 10 years. That is just too sad, and should be changed. I bought the house originally because it's close to work, has some nice trees in the yard, and a sunny space for a garden which is something of a rarity in the close-to-town part of the mountains where I live. I'm also a block from a 40-some acre environmental study area (read "huge unkempt park"). I also bought it in one day, but that's another story. Every time I consider moving I decide to stay because of the location, and because with a 1200 square foot living area and 1200 square foot basement-cum-shop/storage there should be enough room. There should be. This plan has two parts. One, where I take out some walls that I hope aren't load-bearing, and rearrange the kitchen to make better use of the existing space. Plan two would involve adding on a mud room, study, and second story master bedroom with bath. Here is the house floor plan as it is currently: And here it is after some erasing and thinking in Photoshop: I hope some of you will take a look at this, and tell me what's wrong. Thanks! Gayle PS I left the blanks for the images but can't insert the links, which I posted as PDFs on my own site. I'll do it when I learn how!

Hi Tim, I hope after you get the bird cooked you will report back on your feast. It sounds wonderful. I've had the opportunity recently to reserve a heritage turkey, but I'm not roasting the bird this year, so turned it down. I want to try Snowangel's suggestion for the leg. That sounds like a wonderful trick.