On Jan 5, 3:38*pm, N8N wrote:
On Jan 5, 3:45*pm, Jo Ann wrote:





On Jan 5, 10:28*am, Chris Hill wrote:

On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 07:09:03 -0800 (PST), Jo Ann
wrote:

Depends on how close to the kitchen the refrigerator could be placed.
Sounds to me like we're dealing with a sub-optimal situation here to
begin with. Last time I was in such I moved the refrigerator to the
dining room and put a portable dishwasher in its place. The main
advantage was that you didn't have to roll the dishwasher over carpet
to get it into the dining room that way. The second advantage is
that we could use the top for counter space, there was very little in
that kitchen. If the house would have been mine, I'd have knocked the
wall out and made the dining room into an eat in kitchen.

---
A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. -- Joseph Campbell

You're right that it's suboptimal no matter how it's approached.
Here's the layout: *Picture long, narrow kitchen with entry doors at
both ends. *At one end is the entryway from the utility room (houses
furnace, water heater, washer, and dryer). *On the left wall at that
end is the doorway to the dining room; on the right, the stove. *Going
through the kitchen from that end, on the right is stove, drawer stack/
narrow upper cupboard, sink, upper/lower cupboard. *On the left is
dining room doorway, refrigerator, upper/lower cupboard. *At the end
is another upper/lower cupboard and the door to the pantry, walk-in
closet, and bathroom (picture a small landing with pantry on one side,
closet straight ahead, and bathroom to the right). * The closet is
built from the space under the living room stairs and, if the house
had a basement, is where the basement stairs would be (house is on a
stone foundation over a deep dirt-floored crawl space that looks like
it was probably excavated as an after-thought when they installed
indoor plumbing).

How many bedrooms? *I guess for a single person, that kitchen might be
adequate. *For a family, it would reduce the value no matter how you
re-arranged it. *If I were in that position, I'd either leave it alone
and suffer, or see if the wall to the dining room could be disposed
of. *It would seem to me a decent-sized kitchen would be more valuable
than a dining room with a kitchen only fit for a submariner.
---
A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. -- Joseph Campbell

Technically, four bedrooms. *The one downstairs is very small and has
no closet. *I use it for a home office. *Of the three upstairs, one is
very small and has no closet, and I've converted it to a walk-in
closet and storage area (with easily undone closet kits in case
someone wants to change it back to a bedroom someday). *The other two
have closets, which are rare and welcome in this type of house; the
builder made smart use of a little bit of over-stairs space. *The
master bedroom takes up one whole side of the upstairs space, and the
other side is split into the two small bedrooms.

If I were going to take on a single big remodeling project, it would
be to convert part of the master bedroom into an upstairs bathroom. *I
think having only one small bathroom, which is downstairs, is at least
as big a drawback as the submarine kitchen, probably more so. *This is
actually on my to-do list, right after "finish plumbing replacement"
and "new furnace" (every fall my HVAC guy shakes his head when he
tunes up my 40-year-old furnace and makes dire predictions about the
so-far unexpanded crack in the heat exchanger. *Every year he decides
he doesn't have to red-tag it "quite yet." *Yes, I have CO monitors
and alarms in almost every room.)

My first choice for expanding the kitchen would be to move the
exterior wall out over the side screen-porch (porch is at a lower
elevation than the kitchen, matching the two-steps-down level of the
utility room). *It would be a much bigger remodel, but would be truer
to the house's design (not turning the kitchen/dining into a "great
room") and would still leave a screen-porch, albeit a small one. *The
porch walks out onto a big deck, so making the porch smaller isn't a
deal-breaker; I just need a little space to sit out on hot evenings
during skeeter season. *The space below the kitchen (between the
kitchen floor and the porch floor) in this imagined expansion would
also create some much-needed storage space. *And then, the second time
I hit the lottery, I'll turn the deck into a 3-season room.

Jo Ann- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

holy hell, are you living in my house? *Seriously, it's kinda creepy
how well you described where i live.

nate

LOL! I have a friend whose house is laid out just like mine, too.
When I bought mine, she could have found her way around it
blindfolded. I think it must have been a pretty standard plan at one
time.

Unless I AM living in your house...this whole think isn't some weird
Twilight Zone episode, is it? (Maybe I'll wake up and discover I
really have a huge kitchen and an upstairs bathroom!)

Jo Ann