kitchen & powder room reno, Kitchen island or Powder room?

[Anonymous]

We have an old house with a small kitchen (12 *8) with attached coat closet and some little dead space in between.
We are planning to renovate and sadly don't have a lot of options. We are in agreement that the closet must go and here are the option.
- we turn the closet (4x4) into a small powder room with no window, kitchen stays the same but new everything, a bit of dead space in between (we have tried different option with an architect and it doesn't work unless we move the powder room too close the kitchen, or living room, which doesn't sound appealing)
- we forget about the powder room and make the kitchen a bit bigger with a small island (14 x12). We already have a 3 bathrooms (one in the basement and 2 in the 2nd floor).

None of this sounds optimal, but our kitchen is falling apart and buying a new house in not an option right now.

What would you do?

Bigger kitchen or powder room?

Ps: the house is about 2800 sqrt.

TIA

[Anonymous]

14 x 12 is a huge island!

[Anonymous]

That is the whole kitchen not the island!

[Anonymous]

Definitely a powered room!

[Anonymous]

How much cooking do you do? Entertaining? How easy is access to the basement powder room?

It's sometimes awkward to not have any kind of bathroom on main living floor, depending on layout.

[Anonymous]

Powder room and smaller kitchen

[Anonymous]

We actually cook a lot and entertain sometimes (maybe twice/month) but I can remember how many time people actually asked to use the bathroom. I feel like the kitchen is kind of small for such a big house.

If i wasn't considering resale value, i will probably skip the powder room, DH is from Europe and find the powder room so close to Dining room/kitchen awkward. But I do know powder room is a big deal in the US.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a basement bathroom? A basement bathroom can work okay as a powder room imo and is a step better than having guests go upstairs to the family bathroom. If there's only one other bathroom I would keep the powder room.

If you do the bigger kitchen, consider not doing an island. There's nothing worse than an island jammed into a kitchen that people have to shuffle around and a spacious U is great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have a basement bathroom? A basement bathroom can work okay as a powder room imo and is a step better than having guests go upstairs to the family bathroom. If there's only one other bathroom I would keep the powder room.

If you do the bigger kitchen, consider not doing an island. There's nothing worse than an island jammed into a kitchen that people have to shuffle around and a spacious U is great.

Oh sorry, I missed the bathroom parts. I would make the basement bathroom the "powder room" and do the bigger kitchen, sans island. It seems like empty space but it's so great as soon as you have three people in there.

[Anonymous]

I would do powder room.

[Anonymous]

I'd go for larger kitchen, especially if it opens the flow to the rest of the house. I don't like powder rooms that are right on top of guests. And a large kitchen is good for *all* your use of the house--both when you entertain and the majority of time when you don't. And when it is just you, do you really care about a powder room? I'm decidedly with bigger kitchen and open-it-up option.

I doubt that impacts your resale negatively, too. Folks like larger kitchens.

[Anonymous]

We were in the exact same position 10 years ago (with a smaller overall house but a little bit more space in the kitchen). Once we’d removed the pantry (which sounds like it was similar to your coat closet) I realized I loved the size and openness and decided to not to a bathroom, even though it had been in our original plans.

I don’t regret it, exactly; our kitchen is bright and open and large for a row house. But for resale, adding a powder room is the right answer. Also, we have elderly parents and while they don’t visit often (we go to them, usually) it would be great to have a main floor powder room for them.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a bathroom on the main floor? If not, do the powder room. If so, do the kitchen.

[Anonymous]

Powder room on main floor (if you don't already have a bathroom on the main floor) beats a bigger kitchen. Speaking from experience.

[Anonymous]

Definitely a powder room. My parents already can't do stairs and a powder room on a different floor would be too hard. It's also really bad for resale.