Small Changes. BIG Difference.

Aug 20

“Sometimes, little things make a big difference.” - NinoVarsimashvili

Hey guys! Welcome back to my blog. I know it’s been a minute, hope you didn’t miss me too much! Lol. This week I want to talk about how by making a few small changes I was able to add major functionality to the Project Marwood kitchen. Let’s get right to it.

Limited Function.

You might remember the disaster the house was in the beginning; click here for a quick refresh if not. Being an older home, I wasn’t surprised to see that it had a traditional or closed floor plan. What did surprise me; however, was the lack of dedicated eating space. The previous owners had actually crammed a table into the kitchen! I didn’t have a lot to work with, but I knew that I would have to get creative to maximize the space and increase the limited function. After assessing the available space, to the left of the kitchen was narrow add-on that was being used as a den of sorts and to the right was the living room, I decided that it made the most sense to modify the den area and see if I could repurpose it to allow for a dedicated eating space.

In an ideal world; the solution would’ve been as simple as transitioning the “den” into a dining room. One problem, upon measuring the space I realized the den area was SMALL. At just under 86 Sq. Ft., it would not be able to accommodate a proper dining set up. For reference, a typical small dining room that will accommodate a basic dining set up (rectangular table with 4 – 6 seats with approx. 36” of clearance on all 4 sides) is about 120 Sq. Ft. Back to the drawing board.

Progress -Kitchen.png — Voila! We Have A Solution.

The original layout of the kitchen was a standard L-Shape with a window looking into the den over the sink and a doorway to the left leading into the den; weird I know. Turns out the den, laundry and mudroom were not original to the house but an earlier addition so that explained the random window. With that information in mind, I decided that the best solution to the problem was to modify that wall between the kitchen and den in a way that would open up the space and allow for added seating. After confirming with the contractor that the wall wasn’t load bearing, I proposed that the upper half of the wall above the sink be removed (Bye random window!) and the portion of the wall with the doorway be removed entirely.

Not only does the entire space feel much larger but by opening the area over the sink it allows for the addition of bar height seating overlooking the sink. Problem solved! With these proposed changes, I was able to add at least a 3-person eating area. I call that win. Now, what to do with the rest of the “dining room”? It’s still not large enough to accommodate a full dining set up BUT that doesn’t mean that it can’t be useful! Here are a few ideas:

Additional 2-Person Dining (36” Round or Square Dining Table)
Entertaining Space / Bar Area
Additional Kitchen Storage

That’s just a few but there are lots of possibilities! For the visual learners (or nonbelievers lol) check out the virtually staged renderings I did below showing the space used for additional seating and as a Dry Bar/Entertaining Space.