Designing A Kitchen // The Plans

Sharing the kitchen plans I designed for our new kitchen!

When I started designing the kitchen there were a few things that I KNEW I wanted to include…and one of them was a big island. This was tricky because the kitchen area is long and narrow so adding a large island would mean I would have to lose a whole wall of cabinets. So we decided to extend the kitchen lengthwise and turn the window wall above the sink into a second bank of french doors.

(See pic below)

This would take advantage of the view outside which is one of the main reasons we bought the house. Then I placed the 10 ft island in front of the doors so I can wash dishes while watching the the 50 ft trees swaying outside. We also love being outside so the idea of having both sets of french doors in the kitchen open to the scenery outside seemed very dreamy…

I also moved the placement of the stove. (it was in the island before… don’t know why someone thought this was a good idea) so instead we ran a new gas line to the wall opposite the sink for a range since our old one was electric.

current kitchen situation

I used Adobe Illustrator to design our kitchen just because I’m familiar with it. Kitchens are actually pretty simple to create in Illustrator in my opinion since they are mainly made up of lines and boxes. The nice thing about Illustrator is when you create a line it has the measurement for you so you can draw the whole thing to scale accurately.

I did a drawing of each side of the kitchen, as well as an overhead view so that I could easily see the layout. The only thing that really changed from my original drawings is the small set of drawers between the fridge and freezer. We ended up doing a slot for large cutting boards instead, since the space we had to work with was narrow.

The other detail I was sure of was to have “inset cabinets” (its when the drawers sit inside the cabinet box) It is pricier and you lose a little space inside each drawer, but for the look… it was worth it to me. I loved the idea of the kitchen cabinets looking more like furniture so I had our cabinet guy add feet to the front of the boxes as well.

Overall I did mainly drawers on the base cabinets anywhere I could and even added outlets in a few. Last minute we decided to add a large warming drawer because we had an small one in the old kitchen and used it a ton! The fridge and freezer are separate towers so we added a prep sink in between. All the applainces will be hidden with panels because I really wanted the space to feel more like a “room” and not just a kitchen.

The shelves on either side of the range will be a solid stone (same as the backsplash)
We are in the final stages (paint, trim, countertops) So stay tuned to see the full reveal !