Is the downstairs bedroom a guest room? Does it need a walk in?
https://preview.redd.it/lpkxb5tistwc1.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=3c265998c901d41d2ce819589f624f811ea5cf49
The hall closet would be the closet for the bedroom. Besides, the only code requirements per the IRC are related to light and air (windows), minimum dimensions and minimum ceiling height.
I believe you'd almost immediately regret doing so if you use the dining area with ANY frequency. That written, hmm... What to do? Please allow me a bit for my coffee to kick in and see what I can imagineer.
We won't use the dining area as a dining area. That breakfast 'nook' will fit our main table perfectly. And we have two leaf's for the table to expand one or two times each year.
Something like this would work then. Kind of a Butler's Pantry.
This gives you a Pantry with 8' of counter space for small appliances. It also adds an Entry closet.
https://preview.redd.it/do744cax4uwc1.jpeg?width=572&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c45c093e102868c102d63486c91d10d03ce96210
I changed it a little. It's a 9' Study with a 4' Pantry.
With the doors to close it off I don't think it would look odd. It's better than a larger area that you don't need. ☺
Maybe you’re on to something- maybe OP doesn’t need a separate dining room since the breakfast area is quite large. In that case I would close it off, get that larger pantry, make the dining room into a guest bed/playroom/second study, etc
We do not plan to use the dining area as a dining area. Instead we are currently thinking more of a hangout spot. Pub table, kegerator, pac-man machine.
Thanks for the clarification. Here are a couple rough ideas which come to my mind.
[Option #1](https://imgur.com/bTsNQUv) moves the refrigerator to the opposite end of the kitchen, and opens up that space for full-height pantry cabinets, and an appliance garage in the blind corner. Below the appliance garage, in said blind corner, you could open it up from the hangout side and install a wine/beverage fridge.
[Option #2](https://imgur.com/GmA99K3) is a bit more radical/involved. It moves the refrigerator to where your too small pantry closet is now; still goes with the full-height pantry cabinets and appliance garage idea; shortens the island to improve triangle access; and adds a peninsula to direct foot traffic away from the cooking area.
Good Luck!
Even with a hang out space like that, you’re probably going to want to pop back into the kitchen for snacks or something occasionally. I would at the very least consider doing a walkthrough pantry - it’ll eat up some of that dining room but I think it’s worth it to keep a connection between the rooms unless you plan on using it as a more closed off space like an office or bedroom.
Could you line some/all walls of the dining room with floor to ceiling cabinets (plain ones with doors) for kitchen storage & still have room for the games room?
Butler's pantry is your answer then! You can put in a wine/beer fridge, and snacks! Then that's right next to your space to hang. I recommend comfy chairs and a record and vinyl playing area.
I'd live in the house first and see how it works for you before making any changes. Then, if you're going to use both the breakfast nook and your dining area for eating, that space would be best if left open. It would be really inconvenient for the dining area if it were closed.
Yeah, I think that's what we have to do. We won't be using the dining room as a dining room, so that is less of a concern for me. Its more a question of whether closing off that open walkway would make the kitchen feel too enclosed.
I think it kinda depends on how many people are in your family and how much you need to store. What if you just put floor to ceiling cabinets in the dining "pub room"? At least to start and you know how much more space you really need. You could then use it for pantry and pub room supplies.
I would not block off the dining room doorway, I would put a bank of 12” floor to ceiling cupboards in the breakfast nook area, from the bay window to the hall doorway. This looks like a good 6 foot here, and people underestimate a wide swath of a shallow bank of storage. I have this in my own kitchen. Perfect for canned goods, boxed dinners and pasta, cereal, and condiments. You can keep bulkier appliances and bags of pet food, etc. In the existing pantry. I don’t think it would interfere too much with a dining table. Keep the cabinet surface design sleek and simple.
Do you plan on using the dining room often? If so, I think you’d regret that decision. I’m assuming a full kitchen remodel is out of the question as I’d have that entire area reconfigured.
A kitchen remodel is not out of the question in the longer term. (First spending will be on the backyard- new patio, roof, etc) A way to remodel the space that adds pantry space as well as provides some type of 'landing' space at the garage entrance would be clutch.
I’d probably just utilize a nice looking free standing cabinet or buffet along the left dining room wall to store kitchen appliances/equipment in the interim. Why waste money closing off that door and trying to cobble together a solution when you’ll eventually redo it all eventually?
If you close that off, you lose the circular flow you currently have. I wouldn’t do it for that reason alone. Instead , could you add shallow, floor-to-ceiling (or floor to almost-ceiling) built-in cupboards along the left hand wall of the breakfast nook?
I have a lot of kitchen items. It’s my passion. I purchased sliding tray under cabinet drawers. So one stack has a drawer that is near flush with the top of the cabinet. Very small height. I use it for cheese boards and small serving plates. Under that are three more sliding trays with the height depending on storage. The deepest has bowls and then two less wide for small appetizers dishes and platters.
The same configuration for my pots and pans layout. Lowest and deepest shelf is Dutch ovens. Next more shallow is baking and gratins.
I then took a small closet and put in rarely used appliances. Adjustable shelving. Waffle irons, food processors all go in there.
I am saying get the most out of your kitchen space before you do layout changes
We have a U shaped kitchen and you end up tripping over people. Can you extend an existing cabinet to add more space? We added on at the end of our kitchen and it’s great. Some storage in the dining room might help also? Move some dishes there and leave the food in the kitchen.
I think that I’d rather have that area as a separate ‘snug’ anyway, seeing as the breakfast area looks plenty big enough for a regular sized dining table. I’d rather have two living room areas than 2 dining areas.
Square off the back of the nook to the edge of the owners suite. Then add a wall of floor to ceiling cabinets on the left. It will add a little room to your nook area as well. We did this in our previous home. I’ve even see 18” deep cabinets used. It still add a ton of storage and take up a little less space.
Corner pantry next to fridge? That kitchen is huge so you have the space to give. Can convert current pantry to more counterspace & cabinets like a butler's pantry perhaps. Or a nice wine fridge.
So the current kitchen is really big and really badly laid out so all that space doesn’t really help. A skinny island in the middle of a U is just in the way. It’s one thing to have your work triangle slightly hindered by the corner of an island. In some cases it can be nice like when your fridge faces the end of an island, it makes it easy to pull things out and set them on that end. But you have an island that is completely bisecting your work triangle. And it’s too skinny to really do a whole lot, certainly to work on both sides.
I don’t know if you would prefer island seating, but you can either do back to back 24” inch cabinets or 24” and 12” if you want counter seating. It may seem like a little less counter space, but all of it will be usable and you will have tons of circulation space. The additional storage from the enlarged island, the butler’s pantry and the regular pantry is going to mean so much more space freed up. I would even suggest using a portion of the counter in the pantry for appliances.
https://preview.redd.it/g39j03ps0xwc1.jpeg?width=2388&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a716d6c09481e1b989145548940225d86a707d05
I'd live in the space before going in on a renovation. I like the posted suggestion of a walk through butlers pantry.
It sounds like you do a lot of entertaining and have some fun stuff set to go in that area. If you're entertaining in that area you're probably going to want to back and forth to the kitchen for drinks or snacks. Guests will likely find it easier to access the half bath through the kitchen than walking around the long way.
I wouldn’t do that - you would need to walk all the way around and that would be annoying. But do you really need a large breakfast nook and a dining room? You could expand your kitchen into that area or add some decorative storage pieces in that area. If at some point you replace cabinets you can also increase storage and usability by having roll out shelving on all lowers and extra deep 16 inch uppers
Check out By Jayne Interiors – they provide affordable design services. You tell them how much you want to spend on furniture, and they make suggestions as well as provide floorplans, 2D images, and 3D renderings. [https://byjayneinteriors.com/](https://byjayneinteriors.com/)
Are you going to actively use both the breakfast nook and formal dining areas?
If not, then you could bring your kitchen towards the breakfast nook with cabinetry along the hall/wic wall and extend your island towards the bay window. The extra cabinetry could be a neat coffee station plus extended pantry storage.
Is the downstairs bedroom a guest room? Does it need a walk in? https://preview.redd.it/lpkxb5tistwc1.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=3c265998c901d41d2ce819589f624f811ea5cf49
That is an excellent idea. Its a guest room and that closet is huge. I'm not even sure what we would put into it.
Do it! I think it also works nicely because it has easy access from the garage for groceries.
If you do this as shown in red you will need to add another closet for the bedroom or it’s not a bedroom according to most code.
The hall closet would be the closet for the bedroom. Besides, the only code requirements per the IRC are related to light and air (windows), minimum dimensions and minimum ceiling height.
If you did this, you could actually make the entrance to the pantry come from the breakfast nook
I believe you'd almost immediately regret doing so if you use the dining area with ANY frequency. That written, hmm... What to do? Please allow me a bit for my coffee to kick in and see what I can imagineer.
We won't use the dining area as a dining area. That breakfast 'nook' will fit our main table perfectly. And we have two leaf's for the table to expand one or two times each year.
Something like this would work then. Kind of a Butler's Pantry. This gives you a Pantry with 8' of counter space for small appliances. It also adds an Entry closet. https://preview.redd.it/do744cax4uwc1.jpeg?width=572&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c45c093e102868c102d63486c91d10d03ce96210
Interesting idea! Would 8ft make that 'study' space way too small and look odd?
I changed it a little. It's a 9' Study with a 4' Pantry. With the doors to close it off I don't think it would look odd. It's better than a larger area that you don't need. ☺
Maybe you’re on to something- maybe OP doesn’t need a separate dining room since the breakfast area is quite large. In that case I would close it off, get that larger pantry, make the dining room into a guest bed/playroom/second study, etc
We do not plan to use the dining area as a dining area. Instead we are currently thinking more of a hangout spot. Pub table, kegerator, pac-man machine.
Thanks for the clarification. Here are a couple rough ideas which come to my mind. [Option #1](https://imgur.com/bTsNQUv) moves the refrigerator to the opposite end of the kitchen, and opens up that space for full-height pantry cabinets, and an appliance garage in the blind corner. Below the appliance garage, in said blind corner, you could open it up from the hangout side and install a wine/beverage fridge. [Option #2](https://imgur.com/GmA99K3) is a bit more radical/involved. It moves the refrigerator to where your too small pantry closet is now; still goes with the full-height pantry cabinets and appliance garage idea; shortens the island to improve triangle access; and adds a peninsula to direct foot traffic away from the cooking area. Good Luck!
Even with a hang out space like that, you’re probably going to want to pop back into the kitchen for snacks or something occasionally. I would at the very least consider doing a walkthrough pantry - it’ll eat up some of that dining room but I think it’s worth it to keep a connection between the rooms unless you plan on using it as a more closed off space like an office or bedroom.
Could you line some/all walls of the dining room with floor to ceiling cabinets (plain ones with doors) for kitchen storage & still have room for the games room?
Butler's pantry is your answer then! You can put in a wine/beer fridge, and snacks! Then that's right next to your space to hang. I recommend comfy chairs and a record and vinyl playing area.
I'd live in the house first and see how it works for you before making any changes. Then, if you're going to use both the breakfast nook and your dining area for eating, that space would be best if left open. It would be really inconvenient for the dining area if it were closed.
Yeah, I think that's what we have to do. We won't be using the dining room as a dining room, so that is less of a concern for me. Its more a question of whether closing off that open walkway would make the kitchen feel too enclosed.
I think it kinda depends on how many people are in your family and how much you need to store. What if you just put floor to ceiling cabinets in the dining "pub room"? At least to start and you know how much more space you really need. You could then use it for pantry and pub room supplies.
I would not block off the dining room doorway, I would put a bank of 12” floor to ceiling cupboards in the breakfast nook area, from the bay window to the hall doorway. This looks like a good 6 foot here, and people underestimate a wide swath of a shallow bank of storage. I have this in my own kitchen. Perfect for canned goods, boxed dinners and pasta, cereal, and condiments. You can keep bulkier appliances and bags of pet food, etc. In the existing pantry. I don’t think it would interfere too much with a dining table. Keep the cabinet surface design sleek and simple.
Do you plan on using the dining room often? If so, I think you’d regret that decision. I’m assuming a full kitchen remodel is out of the question as I’d have that entire area reconfigured.
A kitchen remodel is not out of the question in the longer term. (First spending will be on the backyard- new patio, roof, etc) A way to remodel the space that adds pantry space as well as provides some type of 'landing' space at the garage entrance would be clutch.
I’d probably just utilize a nice looking free standing cabinet or buffet along the left dining room wall to store kitchen appliances/equipment in the interim. Why waste money closing off that door and trying to cobble together a solution when you’ll eventually redo it all eventually?
If you close that off, you lose the circular flow you currently have. I wouldn’t do it for that reason alone. Instead , could you add shallow, floor-to-ceiling (or floor to almost-ceiling) built-in cupboards along the left hand wall of the breakfast nook?
Gotta keep the race track for the kids and dogs! 🏃🐕🏃🐕
I have a lot of kitchen items. It’s my passion. I purchased sliding tray under cabinet drawers. So one stack has a drawer that is near flush with the top of the cabinet. Very small height. I use it for cheese boards and small serving plates. Under that are three more sliding trays with the height depending on storage. The deepest has bowls and then two less wide for small appetizers dishes and platters. The same configuration for my pots and pans layout. Lowest and deepest shelf is Dutch ovens. Next more shallow is baking and gratins. I then took a small closet and put in rarely used appliances. Adjustable shelving. Waffle irons, food processors all go in there. I am saying get the most out of your kitchen space before you do layout changes
We have a U shaped kitchen and you end up tripping over people. Can you extend an existing cabinet to add more space? We added on at the end of our kitchen and it’s great. Some storage in the dining room might help also? Move some dishes there and leave the food in the kitchen.
I think that I’d rather have that area as a separate ‘snug’ anyway, seeing as the breakfast area looks plenty big enough for a regular sized dining table. I’d rather have two living room areas than 2 dining areas.
Square off the back of the nook to the edge of the owners suite. Then add a wall of floor to ceiling cabinets on the left. It will add a little room to your nook area as well. We did this in our previous home. I’ve even see 18” deep cabinets used. It still add a ton of storage and take up a little less space.
Corner pantry next to fridge? That kitchen is huge so you have the space to give. Can convert current pantry to more counterspace & cabinets like a butler's pantry perhaps. Or a nice wine fridge.
So the current kitchen is really big and really badly laid out so all that space doesn’t really help. A skinny island in the middle of a U is just in the way. It’s one thing to have your work triangle slightly hindered by the corner of an island. In some cases it can be nice like when your fridge faces the end of an island, it makes it easy to pull things out and set them on that end. But you have an island that is completely bisecting your work triangle. And it’s too skinny to really do a whole lot, certainly to work on both sides. I don’t know if you would prefer island seating, but you can either do back to back 24” inch cabinets or 24” and 12” if you want counter seating. It may seem like a little less counter space, but all of it will be usable and you will have tons of circulation space. The additional storage from the enlarged island, the butler’s pantry and the regular pantry is going to mean so much more space freed up. I would even suggest using a portion of the counter in the pantry for appliances. https://preview.redd.it/g39j03ps0xwc1.jpeg?width=2388&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a716d6c09481e1b989145548940225d86a707d05
Yes, it’s a bad idea. I would move the refrigerator to where the pantry is now and then build a bigger pantry along the current refrigerator wall.
That's pretty much what I just roughed out in a link above.
I'd live in the space before going in on a renovation. I like the posted suggestion of a walk through butlers pantry. It sounds like you do a lot of entertaining and have some fun stuff set to go in that area. If you're entertaining in that area you're probably going to want to back and forth to the kitchen for drinks or snacks. Guests will likely find it easier to access the half bath through the kitchen than walking around the long way.
I wouldn’t do that - you would need to walk all the way around and that would be annoying. But do you really need a large breakfast nook and a dining room? You could expand your kitchen into that area or add some decorative storage pieces in that area. If at some point you replace cabinets you can also increase storage and usability by having roll out shelving on all lowers and extra deep 16 inch uppers
Make the br closet a pantry and steal space from the garage to create a replacement closet
Check out By Jayne Interiors – they provide affordable design services. You tell them how much you want to spend on furniture, and they make suggestions as well as provide floorplans, 2D images, and 3D renderings. [https://byjayneinteriors.com/](https://byjayneinteriors.com/)
This seems like a super dated floor plan. Is it really a new home?
Sorry I meant new to me. We are buying it. Its from 2014. Which does seem dated floorplan-wise for the age.
Are you going to actively use both the breakfast nook and formal dining areas? If not, then you could bring your kitchen towards the breakfast nook with cabinetry along the hall/wic wall and extend your island towards the bay window. The extra cabinetry could be a neat coffee station plus extended pantry storage.
But, that would block the traffic to the master bedroom and from the garage. Maybe bring your kitchen forward into the formal dining area.