Small Kitchen design....

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Our home was built in the mid-1960's and the kitchen is extremely small. This week, the refrigerator in the kitchen died. It was 23 years old so it wasn't that we hadn't gotten our money's worth but...... There is only a 34" wide opening between on wall and the end of the counters for the refrigerator and the opening is only 65 inches high. Thus buying a new refrigerator became a real interesting event. We ended up ordering one and I still have to cut the opening larger in the overhead cabinets but that isn't a major problem.

Probably sometime next year, we want to remodel the kitchen and I want to build the cabinets. One of the things I am considering to increase storage space is removing the soffits and build the upper cabinets to go to the ceiling. Is this ever done?

Does anybody have any other general or unique ideas about increasing and/or maximizing storage space in a small kitchen?

Thanks!

[Kent A Bathurst]

......... build the upper cabinets to go to the ceiling. Is this ever done?

I did it - ca. 1920 bungalow. Be sure to check your max and min heights from counter to ceiling as part of detailed design - If you think face frames at walls need to be scribed, you ain't seen nuttin' yet.

OF course, you need a short folding step ladder to get to the stuff in the top.

.......... increasing and/or maximizing storage space......

The cabinets under the countertops - - these critters have depth you cannot conveniently access - even crawling around on your hands and knees. Install pull-out trays everywhere. FUll-extension, or over-extension, slides.

Also - think about what goes where - there will be certain areas that always hold the exact same items [pots & pans, for example]. Don't leave any extra/unused air above the items - rejigger the spacing to maximize use. Again, pull-out trays help a lot here - you only need 1" headroom at most.

[Bruce Page]

We also have a small kitchen in our mid 70’s home. When we remodeled 3 years ago we ditched the soffits and gained much needed storage. We are very happy with the end results.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Thanks Bruce!

[Judson Green]

Removing soffits is done all the time BUT be ready for unexpected surprises like electrical, HVAC and maybe plumbing to be running through that area. Often the electrician and other trades see this as a easy way to run thier wire or whatnot.

[Jamie Buxton]

If you really want to build a compact kitchen, start with smaller appliances. It is actually possible to buy dishwashers that are narrower than 24", and refrigerators that are only 24" wide, and so on. They're mostly metric, so it makes some sense to build your own cabinets exactly to fit. Google with "apartment appliances".

[Derek Stockley]

One of the things I am considering to increase storage space is removing the soffits and build the upper cabinets to go to the ceiling. Is this ever done?

Yes it is definitely done, and I just did exactly that in mine. I worked with a cabinet company who built and installed the cabinets and counters, and I did basically everything else. It was a huge job and by the end, I felt like I had narrowly avoided choking on the huge bite I had taken, even though I didn't build my cabinets.

You WILL find all kinds of mess in those soffits. When I took mine down, loose cables fell on my head and I discovered that they were a tangled mess that made rearranging them difficult. I ended up having to cut and re-join the vent pipe from my drain in order to be able to arrange the wires safely for my electrical inspection. There was also a bunch of loose insulation bats and such that needed to be relocated and affixed properly.

I also found some big toilet drain pipes protruding through the floor under the old cabinets just in the corner of the room. The original cabinets were notched around it, but the new ones didn't need to be because they sat on plastic levelling legs that I would definitely use if I were building my own. I would strongly suggest you *CAREFULLY* (watching out for pipes and wires...) open up the face of the soffit and look inside before you assume you can reclaim the space and design cabinets. Also, if you can, take out the toe kicks and look underneath the existing ones for surprises like my drain pipe. Basically if there's ANY space that you're not 100% sure is empty, try and get a look in before you start drawing, because chances are fairly good it's not. Also, your existing cabinets might not actually go all the way to the wall and you may find small cavities behind them you weren't aware of.

In my case, I was able to reroute the various pipes I found to reduce the 11" soffit to a 5.5" to 6" open space above the cabinets. The cabinet installers then put a 4" tall fascia board along the top of the cabinets (leaving a gap for the ceiling not being perfectly flat and level), then they used that to affix crown moulding along the ceiling and it looks quite good. That additional 6" along with the fact my kitchen ceiling is 9' high allowed me to add an extra bank of 15" tall boxes above the main bank of uppers. With a standard height ceiling, that 6" might best be used to increase the height of your uppers, but it might look a little strange if the doors get really tall and narrow so you may want to consider that in your design.

Avoid the temptation to try and wring every inch of space out of the room. You need clearance for scribing, corners not being square, doors opening, and other installation-related headaches. I pushed my luck on this in several places and it was a constant source of aggravation. In my space, the boxes couldn't be much closer than 1" to any corner of the room.

One other thing I discovered when I took down some drywall was that one of my walls was actually almost 10" thick. The stove was originally on that wall, and to accommodate the range hood vent pipe, the framers had set a 2x6 wall right against a 2x4 wall. I was swapping the location of the fridge and stove, so I didn't need to accommodate that pipe any more. That allowed me to basically remove a small section of the 2x6 wall to build a little alcove and inset the fridge. I have a rather large 36" wide fridge and the end result was that it appears to be counter-depth, until you open it and find that it seems to go on forever inside. There's a cavernous upper cabinet above the fridge that is flush with the fridge case sides that is terrific for storing large cookie sheets, roasting pans and other rarely used objects, but we need a step ladder to get into it.

[Sam Murdoch]

The other issues with going taller is that stuff just gets out of reach unless your are all of the tall human (and flexible in your age)variety.

Designing base cabinets with pullouts and if you have a blind corner spend the money on a Hafele Magic Corner helps to fully use the space of the cabinetry. I have seen a lot of bad installs of pullouts (that waste a lot of space with side fillers) so let's talk if you go that route. Doors swings and projections need to be factored.

Upper cabinets can be more useful space wise if built a bit deeper than standard (13" outside is a good target). The dinner ware cabinets can have full depth shelves but a selective few others could just have 1/2 shelves (all adjustable) but with shelving systems hanging on the doors. When you open such a cabinet lots of stuff comes to you on the door and the remaining on the 1/2 shelves are easily accessible without digging through the depths.

Also good to try to incorporate at least one tall - floor to ceiling "pantry" cabinet. This does not need to be very wide if you install a full height pullout sized according to your needs - even a 2 tier pullout system with an upper and base door can work well.

I have added some costs to your kitchen with these built-in systems but also a greater degree of efficiency and economy of space. In my mind an easy compromise. Will be more fun to help you design when we see a floor plan .

[Andrew Gold]

Ken
I run a design/build firm in Portland (meaning this is my area of "expertise") and think you're well on your way to the right changes for the space.

I basically assume soffits are coming out when I look at a kitchen. The folks above are correct that sometimes we find things in the soffits that need to be dealt with, all in all I'd guess 1/3 times. Stuff in toe kicks is much less common, I think we've found a drain line running through a toe kick once in a decade...

Pull out lower storage is nice, I would debate drawers versus doors with trays behind. In reality, each waste space but are a net gain as you pickup really useful storage. I'm not partial to any of the "blind corner" solutions, though I know some people are. It's my experience that most of the more elaborate pullouts for the corners have fairly low weight ratings, and once exceeded they start to fail in a hurry. In general, I'm designing those corners with deep shelving, knowing everyone has some heavy stuff they only access once a year (if ever)...

The top most shelf in cabinets that run to the lid are harder to access, but still provide storage you're not going to find if it's a soffit! To help deal with ceiling issues we usually use a two or three piece cornice, it can help mask changes in the height around the space.

I would stay away from the apartment sized appliances, unless you have a really small kitchen. The possible exception there are the tall 24" wide fridges from Liebherr, they're nice, but expensive.

Just my two cents, YMMV