would you renovate to make the kitchen bigger and the living rooms smaller in a small colonial?
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Anonymous
| a contractor suggested us 'push back' the wall between the kitchen and living room by 2 feet in order to fit in the fridge and to add more cabinets. This would increase the kitchen footprint to 13 x 13, but of course means the living room shrinks from ~ 20 x 13 to 20 x 11. we've been trying to visualize the impact of such reconfiguration, but felt that they'd be minor. what do you all think? a good idea or are we missing anything? tks! |
Anonymous
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I think it depends on if you have a family room and the living room is a formal room. 11 feet seems kind of narrow but if you have built ins and a good decorator, you won't notice the missing two feet.
If you cook a lot and the extra two feet makes a difference, it may be worth it. |
Anonymous
| Can you open it up and make it one big room instead? |
Anonymous
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we have a family room but in the basement so yes it's the only formal living space on the main level. i'm hoping, of course, with a newer/bigger kitchen we'd actually spend some family time there instead of in the living room.
i guess we can open up the wall, but that'd make the entire main level one big open space - living/kitchen/dinning/hall... not sure we'd want that. tks! |
Anonymous
| No |
Anonymous
| Depends: how does the layout of furniture work in the living room now? Would that still work if you lost the space? |
Anonymous
+1 my couch runs parallel to the wall that you would be pushing out although not on the same plane (I'm guessing you have the standard 40's era colonial found everywhere in DC area). If I pushed out my wall 2" it would run parallel to the couch and there would no longer be enough room to walk between the two. So the couch would either have to be moved to the back wall or closer to the fireplace. If you don't have a full sized couch, it could probably work. Fwiw, I had built in bookshelves put into that wall facing th LR side with cabinets underneath that I use for additional storage. |
Anonymous
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Yes, I would do that if I could still have a usable living room space (not an awkward, small room). Our living room doesn't get much use, but I like to have it there for when we have guests. I don't know if you can ever have a large enough kitchen!
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Anonymous
| Contractor tried to make some cash! |
Anonymous
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Yes the furniture layout would largely still be the same, with the full-size couch stays at the opposite wall but the lounge chairs would be two feet closer to the coffee table nut not cramped I hope.
And yes this would increase the budget by 25% + but also made a decent sized island and a bigger fridge possible. |
Anonymous
| No. In time, living in kitchen space will go out of fashion and your home will be the one with the tiny family room. |
Anonymous
i actually kinda agree with this, though the current layout from the 40's/50's makes very little sense TODAY: 60% of the main floor is the living room, while dinning room takes up 25% and kitchen 15% enclosed! this reconfig would balance things out yet still leave living at 50%, dinning 20%, kitchen 30%. i just don't get the 'formal dinning room' idea in such small houses... |
Anonymous
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Measure it out and try the furniture arrangement, OP. Use some cardboard or tack a sheet to the ceiling or something to simulate the new wall location. Get your whole family in there and see what it feels like.
I'd be really tempted to do it, if I were you. Kitchens in colonials can be so tiny! |
Anonymous
| 11 feet is very small. 13x13 is smallish. It sounds like there is a lot of wasted space on the 20 ft side. Any way you could take from the 20 foot side by making a pantry? Cut off the end of the room and have an L shape? I saw that in a house recently, and it did add a lot of storage space. GL. |
Anonymous
| Lose the dining room. |