Kitchen Design for a Small Kitchen

We moved into our home five years ago. We had fallen in love with the location of our new home. We live on a beautiful lake. The master bedroom was gorgeous, which is the upper loft of our A-frame home. The master suite has its own deck over looking the lake, what a wonderful way to wake up each morning. The greatest drawback of our home was the kitchen design.

The cabinets of the kitchen were in good shape, but they were stained a very dark walnut. The walls were covered in floral wallpaper with a garden scene border. The kitchen design was set up so cooking was done on one side of the kitchen and food prep and clean up was done on the other side. This is commonly known as a galley kitchen. The kitchen design did not allow for more than one person to comfortably work in the kitchen. This was a problem for us because we enjoy preparing meals together and I also host a Christmas cookie exchange each year. We did not like the kitchen design but we also did not want the expense of a major remodeling project.

After we had lived in the house for six months we did a face-lift on the kitchen.  We painted the cabinets off-white and purchased new hardware for them. We stripped the wallpaper and the border and painted the walls yellow. We put in a ceramic backsplash by the sink and stove area. We also put in a new exhaust hood over the cook top. This greatly improved the looks of the kitchen; however the kitchen design still needs some help. There is still limited counter top space to work on.

Now that we have been in the house five years we have adapted to the kitchen design, but we still get frustrated at the cramped quarters, especially when entertaining. No matter what size your kitchen is, it always seems that this is the room that guests congregate in. We try to prepare as much of the meals that we are going to serve to our guests ahead of time, but there are always things that need to be done last minute. It is during these last minute preparations that the kitchen design really limits us.

We are now considering a full remodeling project that will improve the kitchen area. We do not have a way of enlarging the space, but the building contractor feels that by rearranging the kitchen design we will be able to accomplish our goal of having a more efficient kitchen area. He has suggested moving the stove to the same side as the sink. This will eliminate the back and forth from one side of the kitchen to the other. He has also suggested a portable butcher block that we can roll into the kitchen during food preparation and then store in the entryway off the kitchen when it is not in use. This will give the entry area another surface also.

We begin on the new kitchen design next week. It will be interesting to see if the minor changes we have planned will make a difference.