Redesign my kitchen!

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Table and chairs or more cabinets?

Table and chairs

35%

[ 12 ]

Cabinets/counters

64%

[ 22 ]

Total Votes : 34

amother

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:01 pm

We BH bought a house a while ago from a non-Jewish family. Of course, the kitchen has only one sink (split into two tiny sinks) and is tiny in general. Although I used to love cooking and baking, I don't anymore because it means unpacking all my cabinets to get the pots/ingredients/mixer out. It is a very dark, depressing wood and the shelves collapse more often than not.

That said, I dream of tearing it out and starting fresh with a sturdy and clean feel!

Anyone have a tiny kitchen and can share ideas for design to make it the most practical possible? Should I use all space avail for cabinets/counters and not have a table and chairs or is that a must?

Also, what should I absolutely not do (please do share your horror kitchen stories:))?

nursemomma

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:03 pm

What would be in place of table and chairs?
Dining room, breakfast nook, eat-in table?

marvinkay

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:05 pm

Make one of your counters a place to sit with stools… my family loves sitting there over table

amother

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:08 pm

Most likely the dining room Can't Believe It

The other option is to do some sort of peninsula smack in the middle of my kitchen and use that as a breakfast nook. I can imagine that would be annoying to have to walk around.

amother

Aubergine

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:08 pm

I would put a counter with bar stools and then you can have both.

Rubber Ducky

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:09 pm

Maybe something in between. For example, perhaps you can have a peninsula with seating for 2 or 3 people and some pantry space beyond the seating.

And simply making storage more accessible with things like more drawers, rollouts, pot racks, etc can make all the difference.

amother

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:18 pm

Thanks everyone!

Anyone have experience with wall ovens? Will that save me space?

Rubber Ducky

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:25 pm

amother OP wrote:

..Anyone have experience with wall ovens? Will that save me space?

Well, no. A wall oven will take up 30"-33" of space that could be countertop or a second sink. For 2 ovens, consider a range with 2 ovens or a standard range with a microwave convection oven above it.

For example: https://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-.....d7a04

amother

Sage

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:45 pm

Rubber Ducky wrote:

I know someone who has a microwave convection oven above the range. She uses it as her dairy oven. It looks small but it can work as an oven. It fits a 9x13 (maybe more)

amother

Scarlet

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:49 pm

I have a very tiny kitchen, and a kah very large family. Double wall oven was here when we came. I actually took out the limited cabinet space and put in a bigger table. (Bar stools work if you have three or four kids. They don’t work if you like to sit as a family.) I came from a place without an eat-in-kitchen and Erev Shabbos was so hard. Setting the table was super last minute. Whenever we eat in the dining room, I feel like two rooms need to be cleaned up after dinner.
I have limited pots and pans and baking items. Limited appliances. And keep all my supplies in pantries that are outside my kitchen. It’s not ideal, but unless you have money to expand your kitchen, you learn to manage. Cooking and baking are not pleasant, but we BH always have delicious food and cookies. We have plenty of guests too BH.

amother

Aquamarine

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:50 pm

Can you share a drawing of the space so we can maybe help a little better?

amother

Amaranthus

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 10:51 pm

If you plan on having a pantry cabinet, a wall oven can fit in the middle between the top and bottom cabinet, and then you can have an island with a sink, one or two burners and two barstools for open living space idea and open up wall behind the island if it backs to dining room

amother

Opal

Sun, Oct 15 2023, 11:57 pm

My parents have a long narrow kitchen and when they redid it, they made the counter go super long and put bar stools.

amother

Honeydew

Mon, Oct 16 2023, 12:26 am

Rubber Ducky wrote:

I have this and am very happy with it

amother

Natural

Mon, Oct 16 2023, 7:14 am

Rubber Ducky wrote:

I can't comment on your kitchen as I bh never loved with such a small kitchen but I did just get an oven similar to this with two ovens as my milchigs and pareve. A couple things I would keep in mind.
1. The top oven is only one shelf so it's small. I use it for milchigs.
2. The bottom is super low, your basically on the floor putting and taking things out. It works for me as it's my pareve and isn't used every single day but I would find it hard it I used it very often (bh I have a full fleishig oven)
That being said, I do like it. I wanted it so I can have a separate pareve oven and I paid a lot for it.

In my old kitchen, the counter was made with space for three chairs around it without taking up lots of space and that may be an option for you. It kind of just went out a bit at the end with three sides and we had a couple stools.
.

spikta

Mon, Oct 16 2023, 9:06 am

What you should I absolutely not do- Do not redesign your kitchen without a kitchen designer!!

Certainly take the time to think about what you want and understand your needs and preferences in the kitchen, but I strongly strongly suggest you work with a kitchen designer if you're making an actual plan to redo it. Experienced kitchen designers will have done dozens or even hundreds of kitchens, so they know what solutions work, what saves space, what seems like a good idea but in practice is actually really annoying, etc. They know which materials are good, they know where it's worth investing money and where you can go cheap, and they can visualize what everything will look like together, so they can guide you towards a coherent design. They can also recommend contractors and suppliers that they trust and have worked with before, so you're likely to get a better price and you'll know you can trust them.
Note that I'm not talking about designers who also do kitchens, but designers who do only kitchens. I strongly recommend asking around and googling, to see if there's someone in your area.

Lest you think I'm a kitchen designer myself, I'm not Smile

I just worked with a really good one, and the extra money I paid for her we saved twice over in time, hassle and quality of work. The kitchen is beautiful, super practical for our particular needs and it's not huge - 10`X13`

To your specific question - if your kitchen is small, then don't put in a table and chairs, that takes up a huge amount of space. You could put in a whole island with tons of storage and prep space instead. An intermediate solution would be to have some of the island as a bar with a few bar stools that fit under the counter, so you get some kitchen seating without killing 12 sq. feet of space.

amother

Chartreuse

Mon, Oct 16 2023, 9:35 am

I had a small kitchen and redid it with seating and two sinks/two ovens and tons of cabinets.
https://I.imgur.com/ieNi2AL.jpg
One sink is near the fridge.
Either way. I had cabinets under the peninsula and a ton of counter space and storage.

amother

Lemonchiffon

Mon, Oct 16 2023, 11:05 am

Are you actually trying to redo your kitchen from scratch, or trying to improve around what you currently have?
In my previous house, we were renting it, so we weren't changing anything, we had a small and narrow kitchen. It was difficult. My fridge/freezer was in the room next door as there was no space in the kitchen. We had a long countertop that had bar stools under. It had space for 3/4 bar stools and I used some of the space to have an undercounter trolley to store stuff-It was on wheels, so I could pull it out if I needed the space for eating at. (it does only work if you don't have a lot of people eating at once)
I was also ruthless with what I owned. I didn't have many pots, everything really had to be accounted for.
I would consider what other storage space you have, and it might not be in the kitchen. I didn't have a pantry in my kitchen-I had a cupboard in the dining room next door and that's where I kept my stuff. I also kept my dishes and cutlery in the dining room as that was where we mainly ate.
If you have the money to replace, I would say go for it, and get a kitchen designer to help you, unless you want to spend hours on sites such as houzz.com for inspiration. Otherwise, I would look at basic fixes to make it more liveable-can you paint the fronts to make them less dark? And def have the shelves repaired so they don't fall.

honeymoon

Mon, Oct 16 2023, 11:30 am

amother Sage wrote:

I know someone who has a microwave convection oven above the range. She uses it as her dairy oven. It looks small but it can work as an oven. It fits a 9x13 (maybe more)

I have a microwave convection oven that fits a cookie sheet.

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