THE MENU REVISED KITCHEN DESIGN

This design is for expanding a galley kitchen into a larger, more square, more practical, room for current cooking needs.

The wall running top to bottom in the existing diagram, and dividing the galley kitchen from a large closet on the right, has been removed. The wall at the bottom of the galley kitchen, running from left to right along the bottom of the closet as well, has been removed.

 

It can be generalized for a similar renovation regardless of the sizes before and after, and the location within a house. The principles remain more or less the same.

 

One principle is to maximize the opportunities for natural light with windows on whichever wall or walls are available. In this design the windows are along the left side of the diagram. They are kitchen garden windows. There is also a window at the bottom left corner of this kitchen. The room below, with wall removed, has existing windows on three sides, so there is natural light on two full sides of this revised kitchen design.

 

This initial window decision then tends to dictate to some extent the placement of appliances and cabinetry below and around this window arrangement elsewhere around the kitchen. With the North wall removed, all of the upper shelving is thrown to the right side of the revised kitchen, and to the south side where the orientation of an existing dining room buffet is reversed and converted to a kitchen pantry.

 

Another principle is to separate areas, or sides, of an open and in the round kitchen design, as either prep and cooking areas, with ample work stations around the kitchen, or cleanup serving and dish and glassware storage areas and work stations.

 

This makes it possible for two or more cooks to do different things simultaneously in different spaces, or even in the same space to some extent, without significant movement, appliance, or cabinetry, conflicts.

 

This is a possibility frankly almost impossible in a galley  design, where one busy cook needs to monopolize the floor space, and both cooking and cleanup areas are close together if not on top of each other.

(A galley kitchen can be redesigned to accomplish somewhat what is described here, but the arrangements have to be even more carefully laid out. Cooking and prep on the window side if there is one, cleanup and storage on the other. Oven, DW, and fridge doors need to arranged, so far as possible, not to conflict with each other or with kitchen entry doors or openings. This alone is a major challenge.)

 

Because of the mazimization of window space, cleanup and storage areas should be thrown to other walls of the kidchen design, and to an island if space permits. Cooking and prep can be done along the windows at countertop level.

 

Having a prep sink on that window side, and the main sink in the island on the cleanup and storage side, next to the dishwasher, better satisfies and also keeps conflicting sink needs separate.