Center hall colonial- kitchen in a front room

[Anonymous]

We have a 3k square foot center hall colonial. Classic layout- walk in the front door to a hallway and a center staircase. Left side is a long living room. Right side is a dining room. Straight ahead at the back of the hall is a powder room. Back room, behind the dining room, is the kitchen.

This is not open concept, there are French doors scattered around the downstairs from hallway to living, hallway to dining, hallway to kitchen, and kitchen to dining.

We are doing a renovation of our kitchen and , due to an awkward footprint of our current kitchen- which is also quite small- we are going to take out the wall separating kitchen and dining. We will keep up all the other walls so we will still have the classic hallway down the center.

Due to natural light factors, wanting lots of windows to look out into our backyard, and due to some awkward things about the kitchen footprint that can’t be changed, we are considering putting the kitchen stuff in the front of the house (current dining area) and dining stuff in the back of the house. It will be open, regardless, from kitchen to dining.

This layout makes perfect sense with the awkward footprint of our kitchen (weird alcove area can become a bar/ coffee station/ china display area for example) but my husband is hesitant because it does seem strange to have the kitchen in a “front room” as opposed to at the back of the house. He isn’t wrong, but I guess I don’t see the big deal. Due to the hallway, you won’t see “KITCHEN” as soon as you open the front door: and we come in through the garage 99% of the time regardless (which ironically brings us right into our current kitchen).

Sorry so long. Any thoughts? Has anyone seen a kitchen in a front room of a center hall colonial? Is my husband right that this is too weird to be acceptable?

[Anonymous]

A few things to consider.

Most kitchens have a picture window above the sink. Will this window face the street? I know one family who redid their kitchen and the huge picture window faces out to the street. It's pointless to add blinds/shades as they would detract from the beauty of the window and hard to reach over the sink, but at night the whole neighborhood can see right into their kitchen.

Will there be any eat in space in the new kitchen? if the kitchen stayed where it is now, the new eat in space will become the default hanging area, and that's where you want the light and privacy of facing the backyard.

Also, there's nothing ironic about a garage door going right into the kitchen: the idea is that that's where you bring in your groceries.

[Anonymous]

It would be weird to have the kitchen in the front of a 4 on 4 colonial. Could hurt resale value. But if you are staying there and it is what you want, by all means do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few things to consider.

Most kitchens have a picture window above the sink. Will this window face the street? I know one family who redid their kitchen and the huge picture window faces out to the street. It's pointless to add blinds/shades as they would detract from the beauty of the window and hard to reach over the sink, but at night the whole neighborhood can see right into their kitchen.

Will there be any eat in space in the new kitchen? if the kitchen stayed where it is now, the new eat in space will become the default hanging area, and that's where you want the light and privacy of facing the backyard.

Also, there's nothing ironic about a garage door going right into the kitchen: the idea is that that's where you bring in your groceries.

Yeah, garages usually have a door to the kitchen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few things to consider.

Most kitchens have a picture window above the sink. Will this window face the street? I know one family who redid their kitchen and the huge picture window faces out to the street. It's pointless to add blinds/shades as they would detract from the beauty of the window and hard to reach over the sink, but at night the whole neighborhood can see right into their kitchen.

Will there be any eat in space in the new kitchen? if the kitchen stayed where it is now, the new eat in space will become the default hanging area, and that's where you want the light and privacy of facing the backyard.

Also, there's nothing ironic about a garage door going right into the kitchen: the idea is that that's where you bring in your groceries.

With the current layout, the window over the sink looks out over our backyard . Which I do love, but, the window is small because the kitchen footprint is small. In the new layout, there would be 4 large windows along that wall and our dining table would be set up there, so we would have the nice view from the dining table.

Current kitchen doesn’t have room for an eat in area (part of why I dislike it, it’s isolated when you’re in the kitchen). New kitchen will have a long island with 4 stools because the space is much larger but the primary eating spot will be the dining table. New kitchen sink will be on the island and would be looking towards the driveway and part of the front yard. So, not as nice of a view, true. But not open to a busy sidewalk or street (we are in the suburbs on an acre of land).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few things to consider.

Most kitchens have a picture window above the sink. Will this window face the street? I know one family who redid their kitchen and the huge picture window faces out to the street. It's pointless to add blinds/shades as they would detract from the beauty of the window and hard to reach over the sink, but at night the whole neighborhood can see right into their kitchen.

Will there be any eat in space in the new kitchen? if the kitchen stayed where it is now, the new eat in space will become the default hanging area, and that's where you want the light and privacy of facing the backyard.

Also, there's nothing ironic about a garage door going right into the kitchen: the idea is that that's where you bring in your groceries.

Yeah, garages usually have a door to the kitchen.

I just meant ironic because my DH is against being able to see the kitchen when you come in the front door, but he uses the garage door 99% of the time which leads into the kitchen- so, he is ALWAYS seeing the kitchen first thing when he walks in with the current layout

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be weird to have the kitchen in the front of a 4 on 4 colonial. Could hurt resale value. But if you are staying there and it is what you want, by all means do it.

Yeah, I know you and DH are right, it’s a little weird. Ugh. But keeping the kitchen in the back room/ even opening up the wall to dining area- will limit what we can do and eliminate the option of having the 4 big windows looking out into our lovely backyard since we will need that wall space for kitchen stuff.

My thought is, we have been here 5 years and know our current annoyances with the kitchen, and we plan to stay for another 20 so resale value isn’t as big of a concern, the kitchen will be outdated anyways when we sell it. But I don’t know if I’m being blinded by just wanting the kitchen stuff in that larger space.

[Anonymous]

The change doesn’t fit the style of the house, so I think it will feel weird and may not age well. A rambler or more modern style house could pull this off.

Having the kitchen in the back is nice for privacy. You tend to use the kitchen at night and early, and sometimes in pajamas. You don’t want visibility from the street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be weird to have the kitchen in the front of a 4 on 4 colonial. Could hurt resale value. But if you are staying there and it is what you want, by all means do it.

Yeah, I know you and DH are right, it’s a little weird. Ugh. But keeping the kitchen in the back room/ even opening up the wall to dining area- will limit what we can do and eliminate the option of having the 4 big windows looking out into our lovely backyard since we will need that wall space for kitchen stuff.

My thought is, we have been here 5 years and know our current annoyances with the kitchen, and we plan to stay for another 20 so resale value isn’t as big of a concern, the kitchen will be outdated anyways when we sell it. But I don’t know if I’m being blinded by just wanting the kitchen stuff in that larger space.

The trendy solution would be a big island and no upper cabinets, just big windows. Would that work?

[Anonymous]

Our house (Dutch colonial McLean) was built with kitchen immediately to one side of entrance with living room to other side. I was surprised when we first saw the house, but we love the house and have gotten used to it. It is not a problem at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The change doesn’t fit the style of the house, so I think it will feel weird and may not age well. A rambler or more modern style house could pull this off.

Having the kitchen in the back is nice for privacy. You tend to use the kitchen at night and early, and sometimes in pajamas. You don’t want visibility from the street.

This is true. I wasn’t considering the privacy aspect as much. I’m worried with the kitchen staying in the back, we will continue to not hang out there though. The second option was to put an island between kitchen and dining once it’s opened up (current kitchen has no room for island) So people will hang out at the island . It will be sort of in the middle of the front and back of the house. Right now, we hang out in the dining room for homework/ drinks/ chatting etc before and after dinner so I’m imagining that would be nice to do in the back of the house with the nice new large windows looking out back. But if we had a new large kitchen towards the front you are right, we’d default hang out there more.

I think whichever thing we do, hanging out is going to happen more in the front anyways, just like we currently do. Because the space is bigger. I know our house is 3k feet but probably 1k of that is the finished basement. The main floor footprint is not massive.

[Anonymous]

Put the kitchen in the back. You don't want to walk into the dining area from the garage. If it is in the budget, move the powder room from the back of the house to the hall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be weird to have the kitchen in the front of a 4 on 4 colonial. Could hurt resale value. But if you are staying there and it is what you want, by all means do it.

Yeah, I know you and DH are right, it’s a little weird. Ugh. But keeping the kitchen in the back room/ even opening up the wall to dining area- will limit what we can do and eliminate the option of having the 4 big windows looking out into our lovely backyard since we will need that wall space for kitchen stuff.

My thought is, we have been here 5 years and know our current annoyances with the kitchen, and we plan to stay for another 20 so resale value isn’t as big of a concern, the kitchen will be outdated anyways when we sell it. But I don’t know if I’m being blinded by just wanting the kitchen stuff in that larger space.

The trendy solution would be a big island and no upper cabinets, just big windows. Would that work?

So yes- one option from the designer is the kitchen stays put, sink at the back stays put, and the 4 big windows still go in. Then the fridge is sort of awkwardly in the corner alcove (it works, but it’s the part that seems weird to me) and the oven/ range is along the other side wall next to the garage door. Then the big island between kitchen and dining. On paper , to me, this loses almost all of our overhead storage and loses half of our pantry space next to the fridge. But if the island is big enough- we could put a lot of our kitchen storage items under there you’re saying?

[Anonymous]

I have a rambler so not exactly the same, but the kitchen is in the front of the house, with the dining and living room behind. The garage opens into the kitchen via a laundry room, which is standard. The kitchen is closed off so visitors don’t see it when entering from the front door but it has a wall of windows overlooking the front yard. We live on a large lot and the house is set way back so no one on the street can really see us. It sounded odd when we saw the listing pictures but it works for the space.

[Anonymous]

So when you walk in the front door, will there be an opening on your right into the kitchen?

Usually there’s a big window in that front room. Are you keeping that window(s) the same? How is the kitchen to be laid out? Counters on that front wall? I’m just having a hard time picturing this.