This space is indeed very limiting.

It would be nice to see a plan of the surrounding rooms. Is it possible to for instance to expand into the eating area or is it possible to close off the door to the formal dining area and relocate this to the other wall that is shown in your diagram? If either of these options were possible, it could allow more opportunities to reconfigure you kitchen better.

Margrieta, is the pole a load bearing pole? Is there a second floor above, that requires it to be there?

Margrieta, I've had a very quick play with your kitchen. There are lots of other ideas that would probably work better, however this is what popped into my head as a starting option.

Pole - if it has to stay is a nuisance - but you could make much better use of it by making it into a wall. Also have you considered making the kitchen window smaller. Currently it doesn't allow good use of the 3500mm wall. I would like to see that entire area used to rehome the Pantry, Fridge and Wall Oven. I still need to give a bit more thought to sink and hob placement, particularly as I'm not sure how difficult it would be to relocate your plumbing. You didn't say what type of floor you had to work with.

You could, have a breakfast bar instead of the eatery space but you could equally have a dining bar set up under the freed up kitchen window where guests could converse with those out on the deck. It could also double as a servery to pass food through to the outdoor area.

Thanks Lynda and Austere - yes the pole is structural, it is the original corner of the house so we would need an engineer to look at it. That being said it is in a very awkward spot in terms of limiting ideas. I'll add in the surrounding rooms for context.

Relocating the door into the formal dining is not preferred, but again could be done and would open up that whole wall for better use.

We have considered making the window smaller so we had a bigger nib at the end and that would make quite a difference to how that wall can be used. If we did that we would probably incorporate a bifold system to bench height to act as a servery to outside as Austere also suggested.

Relocating plumbing I am told would be difficult (concrete slab) but the sink could move further along the window wall.

I had a play with moving the window along as suggested so as to have full depth back wall for fridge, wall oven etc and still leaving the sink under the window which I like. Do you think this allows for a narrow appliance cupboard/pantry arrangement on the wall opposite the window and a small island setup, or is it still too tight?

Margrieta, don't think the idea of an island is at all feasible within this space. You would need a minimum of 1200 clear area to work around and you really just don't have that luxury. Here is an idea I have been playing with. I've made the kitchen window smaller to allow for an overhead cupboard into the corner of the 3500mm wall and I've placed all your large units onto that wall. The fridge could be intergrated and I've included a small pull out breakfast pantry as well as a large pantry in to corner. You could make a larger corner pantry if you wished but personally, I feel it would detract from the clean lines of the kitchen.

By having the largest units against the back wall, the kitchen appears larger.

Dark Blue or similar coloured units also help to create the illusion of more space.

As you can see, I've relocated the hob and surrounded it with a small protective wall, initializing the load bearing pole.

This still allows you to be able to converse with guests. The only thing to be aware of is that the breakfast servery will have to be constructed so that it didn't encroach over the external sliding door space.

Finally, I've removed the sliding door into the formal dining down and made it a double opening door. I've also moved the opening down towards the corner more.

I would still like to see the entrance to the formal dining moved off the kitchen wall altogether but as you seem set against this, then by moving the door down slightly, it allows the kitchen to look less crowded.

I would leave the wall uncluttered in order to continue the feeling of space.

One burning question I have is: do you use your formal dining area much? As you have a space labelled eatery, then is it worth considering if the formal could be incorporated into the kitchen?

It would be nice for you to have a scullery and maybe this is area and option worth exploring.

Lynda, its good to put to bed any thought of an island arrangement and you have raised lots of questions. Having the big elements across the back wall looks good and I can see how a darker colour would help to make them disappear.

I'm reluctant to move the dining room door because that is a brick wall, however my thought is that given the work involved a move to the other wall would be more cost effective than a shuffle along the existing wall. The dining room is part of a larger L-shaped lounge/dining area, so closing it off to capture it as a scullery doesn't work and its a welcome oasis of calm when chaos reigns in the kitchen/family areas.

I am concerned that placing the hob in the peninsula and its surrounding wall will even more cut off the flow between the kitchen and eating area which is one of the key things I am trying to improve. I wonder how the hob would work on the wall opposite the sink and have the rest as open bench top with no overheads.

This is a very different floorplan, it will give you the walk in Pantry, an Island, keeping the existing window with wonderful northen light into the whole space. And retaining the support post

Please excuse the colours but it helps to make things stand out. You already have a dining room next to the kitchen so to sit up to the island should work really well for you, plus I'am guessing you have a table setting on the deck

My concern with placing the hob onto the wall opposite the sink and setting up the benches as suggested would be confusing and quite possibly dangerous. Taking hot pots and pans across to the sink whilst traversing across the entrance to the kitchen would not be my first choice.

The plan provided by siriuskey has merits that I hadn't considered but again, the door into the formal dining area is throwing up safety and traffic flow problems for you.

In all honesty, from the surrounding layout that you have so far shown us, the solutions to your space dilemma, appear to lie in the ability to relocate the door to the formal zone, to the wall around the corner.

As illustrated in my first - very quickly thought out - red kitchen and from the siriuskey kitchen, the solution lies in making better use of the total length of the formal dining wall space and at the moment the door where it is, limits the possible solutions.

Thank you Sirilusky, what a different approach. Will take some thinking through but opens up lots possibilities. What would the minimum pantry width be to be workable? Would 1.5m be doable?

Depends on how deep the cabinets are, normal 600, so 900 walk way and then wall thickness I have used 100. I am just about ready to post another idea to see if you would prefer it. It's difficult without more of the floor plan, but I'am working with keeping entrance into the formal dining, the support beam and both window and door sizes.

Just trying to get the program to do what I want.

This without the WIP

Back wall fridge/WO/cooking space/narrow pantry as you mentioned you love and I agree, but depends on the depth of the return

It would be lovely to replace the window with a sliding door to fit that space and to match the other door. This all opens up the kitchen to the Northern Deck.

The Island and can be configured to suit, ie draws,rubbish bin.MW and could be either 1200 or 900 deep both having a 300 overhang for stools.

If you went with an under bench oven & cooktop that would free up another pantry space

A general idea of what the changes could look like

Could you modify siriuskey second plan (without pantry) to keep sink under window? So keeping an L shaped kitchen with an island bench instead of a table in eating area? That way you save on plumbing and also on reconfiguring window area?

Sorry I do know how to spell window!

In both suggested floor plans the current window can be kept but by replacing it with a sliding door opens up the small 3.5 wide kitchen and will be fantastic if the Deck goes across that Northen Wall /

The sink and sitting can be flipped to the other side of the island, but I think having the view when standing at the sink is my choice, also I think it works better to have the stools next to the external doors/window for better flow. This layout will work with the formal dining door access as well

Thank you for all the feedback. This is what I love about Houzz - it forces you to relook at your spaces and how you use them.

Below is more context about how the kitchen sits in the overall living area (and also highlights how small it is compared with the rest of the spaces and questions my initial desire to keep in within the original footprint).

The deck runs the length of the kitchen, eating, family L-shape with bifolds across the family room and a big table which we use a lot in fine weather. Sliding door access to the deck is at the family room end of the north wall with a fixed full-length window section butting up to the kitchen window. Currently we have a 1mx2m table in the meals area. Replacing the kitchen window with sliding doors would open it up, however given the existing full-length glass and openings I feel the wall space under the kitchen sink is quite precious real estate.

Can you mark the deck out please, The floorplan shows how small your kitchen is compared to the rest of the house. The sliders were just a thought to expand the kitchen to include the Alfresco area. You could match them to the bifolds. Any chance of showing more of the floor plan. It is totally your decision as to what you do we just put ideas up for you to consider and as you can see I'am not a "Meat and 3 Veg" person, I like to think outside the square and keep it simple. The large island gives you great benchtop space whiich could include both cooktop and sink leaving the end wall for all tall units, my cooktop is in my island and we love it.

This by Autm8 solutions, very modern example of what I'am trying show you

Lighting Automation · More Info

my suggestion would be: keep U shape kitchen, add a center island as dinning table.

Apologies for taking so long to come back into the conversation but I have been busy arranging my own kitchen redesign and renovation..... as you do.

Thanks for supplying the overall living layout... I think.

Your layout confuses me more so now than before. I could be completely wrong but I'm getting the sense that the house has probably seen a series of remodels and extensions in it's time. Each extension has probably disrupted the natural flow and layout of the previous living zones and made more problems, rather than solve them.

Am I correct to think:

The double doors are the front entrance?

The single door next to them, leads to a bedroom or office or something similar?

If my hunches are right, then

The SNUG / LIBRARY

This appears to give you the greatest solution to making a generous new kitchen.

I go back to my first RED kitchen as the inspiration.

I liked the siriuskey suggestion to have a walk-in scullery at the very end of the kitchen, so my suggestion would be to incorporate that with my red kitchen U design where the kitchen is on the opposite wall to where you currently have it.

[YES, I know you would have to cut through the concrete to get the plumbing across to that side but in the overall scheme of things, you would end up so much more usable bench area and entertaining opportunities.

I'm having to do just that to reconfigure my kitchen but by biting the bullet, I'm getting something that works, not something that just 'makes do'. ]

Move the door to the dining room around onto the snug wall as I previously suggested and use the whole of that dining room wall to get a huge kitchen worthy of entertaining your guests.

When I look at your plan, the fact that you have a lounge, a family eatery, a family room and outdoor entertainment all in close proximity - these all scream that the snug/ library is probably a very under used space.

I would do away with it altogether and knock through into the lounge. You would then have a proper flow between that and your family living areas.

I'm getting vibes that the lounge is another very under utilized area of your house......or at the very least an area that you have to make yourself go to .....because on the plan, it feels so isolated from the rest of the living spaces.

With all of this in mind, I think the remaining snug area and [if I'm correct] the entrance could be combined to make a grand entrance.

I would even go one step further and suggest that by extending the entrance into the snug space, what ever the space is beyond the single door off the current entrance, could benefit by relocating the wall closer to the double doors.

I'm going to make the suggestion that, as we currently don't have a full picture of your house plans, you will probably benefit greatly by having an architect take a proper look at the layout of the house.

Architects don't come cheap but in this instance, I get the feeling they will be able to resolve a lot of the inherited problems in a much better way than this forum is going to be able to do.