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I shared what I imagine is the ultimate structure for our addition a few days in the past. In case you missed that, you’ll be able to see it right here. Since we’ll have a giant, model new household room, and I’ll be turning the entrance front room right into a eating room, some of the requested questions was, “Kristi, what is going to you do with the breakfast room?”
Our breakfast room used to truly be a breakfast room, with a desk and chairs and fairly chandelier and the traditional stuff you’d anticipate in a room known as a breakfast room.
After which Matt’s occupational therapist insisted that he wanted to spend extra time away from bed, out of the bed room, and extra time sitting up in an precise chair through the day. So Matt determined he needed a recliner. I had simply completed the lounge, music room, and bed room, so I had no thought the place I used to be going to place a recliner for him to sit down in for lengthy intervals of time every day. And that’s after I determined to show our breakfast room right into a sitting room.
He can spend as a lot time as he needs to day-after-day stress-free in his recliner, watching TV, enjoying video video games, or on his laptop computer. He’s additionally fairly snug consuming in his recliner (as am I), so we didn’t actually lose the perform of consuming on this room, however we did lose any chance of this room being helpful to anybody apart from the 2 of us throughout a meal.
The plan has been to show this room again into a daily breakfast room, with an precise desk and chairs, as quickly as our addition is constructed. I really feel sure that Matt shall be spending his time within the new household room as a substitute of on this sitting room as soon as the addition is completed. And he’ll in all probability proceed to eat his lunch every day whereas sitting in a comfortable chair, which shall be within the new household room. So I don’t see that we’ll want this room as a sitting room anymore.
However do we want it as a breakfast room? Probably not. If Matt is extra snug consuming his lunch in a comfortable chair within the household room, I’m not going to sit down within the breakfast room and eat on my own. I’m going to affix him within the household room. We might eat at a desk if others are becoming a member of us, however we’ll have the eating room for that. In order that just about leaves the breakfast room/sitting room and not using a function as soon as the addition is constructed.
So what is going to we do with it? I truthfully do not know. However I can inform you what I’d do with it in a dream world the place I’ve a limitless price range. I’d double the dimensions of my kitchen.
Again in 2014 after I transformed our kitchen the primary time, I needed to keep inside the footprint of the unique kitchen to maintain value as little as attainable. There was no manner we may have afforded to develop the kitchen on the time. I needed to do all the pieces I may consider to redo that kitchen as inexpensively as attainable, together with utilizing the cheap inventory unfinished utility cupboards from House Depot.
I dressed them up by including ornamental toes, a lot of trim, a header that went all the way in which to the ceiling, and crown molding. However I did a complete down-to-the-studs kitchen rework for $10,000, and that included model new home equipment!
I keep in mind on the time that I had readers who inspired me to develop the dimensions of the kitchen and incorporate the world that’s now the breakfast room into the kitchen, however there was merely no manner we may have afforded that on the time. It wasn’t only a matter of getting to purchase extra stuff to suit a bigger kitchen, however there have been different elements.
The breakfast room wasn’t a part of the unique inside of the home. It was an exterior breezeway that related the home (which ended the place the kitchen peninsula at the moment sits) to the storage. In some unspecified time in the future, a earlier proprietor enclosed it and made it an inside room.
However that total part, from the entrance wall of the breakfast room to the again wall of the walk-in pantry, sits on a concrete slab basis, whereas the primary a part of the home is a pier and beam basis. And for those who’re aware of several types of foundations, you understand that pier and beam foundations are costlier to construct up entrance, however they’re fairly simple and comparatively cheap to make modifications to, reminiscent of working plumbing to a brand new space of the home, simply so long as there’s crawl house entry.
Slab foundations are cheaper to construct up entrance, however they’re an actual headache and way more costly to make modifications to later. With the intention to run new plumbing strains or restore issues in plumbing strains in a slab basis, it’s important to jackhammer up the concrete, run the strains (or repair the strains), after which pour new concrete. That may value 1000’s of {dollars}.
And suffice it to say that we didn’t have 1000’s of {dollars} to spend on that sort of factor once we purchased this home. I desperately wanted a brand new kitchen as a result of the unique structure was so inefficient that easy duties like making a sandwich within the unique kitchen felt like absolute drudgery. Right here’s a fast “then and now” 360-degree view of the kitchen in case you’ve forgotten the place this room began out.
The unique structure made no sense to me by any means. So I did the very best with what I needed to work with whereas staying inside the price range we had on the time, and staying inside the unique footprint of the kitchen. Due to that pier and beam basis, I used to be in a position to have the water and fuel strains moved at a really cheap worth in order that I may organize issues in a manner that made extra sense to me. And I believe general, I did a reasonably good job working with what I had out there, all issues thought of!
And whereas the kitchen feels a lot larger now with the cased opening between the kitchen and the entrance front room, and the aspect wall of the kitchen opened as much as the breakfast room, the room remains to be the identical small dimension it’s at all times been, at about 9’10” x 14’8″. After I’m on my own within the kitchen, the dimensions feels simply tremendous. However final night time once we had a home full of individuals, I attempted to concentrate to how all the pieces actually functioned, and my little kitchen begins to really feel fairly cramped actually rapidly with the addition of just some folks.
So in my dream world, I might double the dimensions of my kitchen, develop it into the breakfast room, and have a great deal of room for a giant island the place folks may collect, speak, fill their plates, and even sit on the counter, with out the room feeling tiny and cramped. I might love nothing greater than to have the sink proper in entrance of the home windows, and all the pieces else located round that space.
I’ve completely no thought how I might organize the remainder of the world. Sadly, the 2 rooms don’t go collectively completely. The entrance wall of the kitchen and the entrance wall of the breakfast room don’t type a straight wall by way of that entire house. There’s a clumsy little jog within the wall that works simply tremendous as it’s now with the peninsula in that house.
But when the peninsula is now not there, that distinction shall be way more noticeable. After which there’s the problem of the cased opening separating the 2 rooms.
That works simply tremendous with the present structure since these are two distinct rooms. But when it’s all one large room, that cased opening within the center must go. And that implies that some fairly vital (and costly!) structural work must be achieved.
I do not know if that is one thing that may simply keep a dream in my head, or if I’ll really get to develop my kitchen someday. If I do really get to do it, this isn’t one thing I’d do with out knowledgeable assist. Clearly, I wouldn’t do the structural work myself, however that’s probably not what I’m speaking about. I might really work with a kitchen designer who may assist me get absolutely the most out of a brand new kitchen. So long as I get the sink in entrance of the home windows, I’d be completely satisfied.
Maybe that is all only a dream, and it’ll by no means occur. But when I may do no matter I needed with this house after our addition is constructed, that is precisely what I’d do. However for now, I would simply must settle with turning that room again right into a breakfast room with a desk and chairs.
Addicted 2 Adorning is the place I share my DIY and adorning journey as I rework and embellish the 1948 fixer higher that my husband, Matt, and I purchased in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do bodily work, so I do the vast majority of the work on the home on my own. You possibly can be taught extra about me right here.
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