Project Overview

This kitchen remodel and addition was done to increase the size of both the kitchen and dining room while also making the kitchen, family room and living room more accessible to the back yard and patio for entertaining and daily living. They had just done a major landscaping upgrade of the back yard and wanted to tie in the new back yard to the home. We also added a patio roof over the entire back of the house to enhance the usability of the patio. Also, on their list of details to add to this project were a cat door to the garage and a storage closet area to be used as a drop off catch all when the family members entered the home from the garage door, their main entrance during normal daily activities. This closet area was to house keys, cell phones and chargers, the main home phone station which sent the wireless signal to the rest of the handsets, shoes, coats, handbags, etc.

To accomplish these changes we captured some space under the existing homes roof system that was originally a covered patio that created a niche in the back wall of the home (see before pictures) There was also and old dilapidated patio enclosure which we removed and replaced with a 10 foot deep patio roof over the entire back of the home. This covered patio combined with the kitchen addition and new doors to the kitchen family room and living room invite everyone to use the patio and back yard as an extension of the homes main living spaces. As you look at the new kitchen be aware that the old exterior wall was almost exactly at the center of the new island. Since the old sink was in that wall it was relatively easy to keep a prep sink in the island and also adding a main sink on the new outside wall. This second sink makes this new larger kitchen highly efficient for one or more food preparers. As you can see from the kitchen photos we added may common and custom storage features like role out shelves, recycling center, tilt out sink fronts, tray storage at the top of tall cabinets to make better use of hard to access areas, and the custom lift out Kitchenaide mixer storage shelf with accessory role outs below.

When we moved the back wall out to move the kitchen and make it wider to accommodate the new island, we also moved the wall between the kitchen and dining room closer to the back of the house to enlarge the dining room which was one of this clients objectives. This move created a small area in which we were able to add the catch all closet on the clients original list. This closet had a counter top with electrical outlets, shelving above and below and coat hooks on the sides. It also has lighting.

The new dining room is now large enough for them to use the multiple table extensions they never had the room to use before when they entertain. We also added an additional door to the living room, so it is more convenient to access the kitchen from the living room. This new door was placed so traffic through it does not interrupt anyone working in the kitchen while making it easy to access the refrigerator. The door location also helped create a natural break between the kitchen and dining room so when we connected in the new and different kitchen and family room tile flooring to the existing dining room tile floors (which we did need to patch due to the alterations) their connection was done at points that made visual sense that maintained the continuity of the flooring throughout the home.

The cat door added to the left of the garage door leads to a boxed in area of the garage in which the cat litter box is kept. This box has a hinged handled flip up door that helps keep the area closed off, but easy to access for cleaning. Also on the clients original list was to modernize the fireplace. They never liked the original rough stone surround, so we used leftover granite from the kitchen counters to make a clean simple modern granite fireplace face. There was no need for a granite hearth since the new tile floors were fire rated and meet all building code requirements of a hearth. But we did change the layout of the tiles in front of the fireplace to more clearly define the fireplace itself as a specific element in this design. Small details like this cost no more but, when added together, make a huge difference in the appearance and feel of a room.

The entire project had new LED ceiling lighting added which will save this homeowner hundreds of dollars per year in electrical bills.

Could any of these changes help your kitchen or home? Let me know what you think.