Kitchen thoughts and ideas please?

Question

We are getting ready to build our first home and I am totally lost as to ideas. This was not planned it just kinda happened and so here I am. The house is 2 stories, each story is about 1,000 sq ft. I am considering the downstairs to be a large open eat in kitchen that flows into a great room. The only seperate rooms will be a guest bath. I wonder if I am not wasting to much space with this plan. I am needing ideas on this. I live in Eastern Europe and I really want a big old world kitchen feel with lots of room for people to sit, help cook or have a drink. What are your thoughts on this...I have an engineer and builders to work out all the kinks all I have to do is come up with a plan. Please help I am lost...

Thank you. I cannot go to a library as there are no english ones here, only Romanian. Also my laundry room will be upstairs with the bedrooms and family bathroom.

Answer 1

The open plan is the most popular especially if you enjoy entertaining. Closing the rooms in will give your house a much smaller feel. There are so many choices and looks for kitchens. Spend some time in the stores that offer kitchen and bathroom cabinetry so you can put together the look that suits your style. Make room for an island however, I'm not a big fan of island cooktops. A small prep sink is much more desirable and allows your guests to help you cook if you want. Double ovens are important. I did a convection oven with a microwave/convection on top. Again, there are lots of choices. I'm sure you'll put it together.

Answer 2

You may also consider a large laundry area and possibly a coat room (or mud room) just before the laundry area coming into the laundry room. Other than that, I think it's a great idea. My old house had a 900 sq. ft. great room and I just loved it. Cathedral ceilings with wood beams, it was lovely. Only problem was the kitchen that was somewhat attached (sunken great room) was smaller, and the first floor also had a dining room, bath and another living room. All the space other than the great room, kitchen and bath were a waste of space for me. :) Best of luck!

Answer 3

You should look up home plans with "keeping rooms"
this is how they built homes years ago in order to have the whole family around the room, and it is coming back in again because of the way we live now. I think that it is also somewhat European which is fitting. I would suggest having one little separate room (den, study, office, formal dining, guest rm) you can decide on use later, build the "keeping room" in an L-shape around this little room and your guest bath.

Answer 4

Go to the library and look at books and magazines about kitchen planning. (free!)
Then make a list of all the activities you want to do in the kitchen. For example, if you do a lot of baking maybe you want counter space for rolling out pie crust, or double ovens.
If there are more than two people cooking most of the time maybe you would want more than one sink. If you cook a lot of pasta maybe you would want a pot-filler tap by the range.
Basically just collect lots of ideas and think about what your needs are, then forge ahead.
Don't forget to HAVE FUN!!
good luck

Answer 5

As long as you have plenty of storage you should be ok. Don't forget to make yourself a utility room! This way you can shut the door on it and not have your guests see the laundry.

Answer 6

i think you should put the laundry room downtairs because it is more quiet and it's another separate room. otherwise, everything sounds great! a suggestion for your big kitchen: light colored countertops! spills and bugs are hard to find and i'd rather see [and kill] bugs then eat them!