Excited About 2x4s!
This is the carriage house first-floor plan when I purchased the property. Note the large bathroom protruding into the dining room. Oh, the horror.
Way back in 2015, in a reality far far away, I created a new plan for the kitchen. The offending bathroom was removed (of course!). The kitchen was now to be entered through a 5-foot-wide hall from the dining room. A north-facing deck will be created at the same level of the kitchen floor. No steps! The only thing that I now plan to do differently is make the powder room (lower left) into a full bath. The top of the drawing is north.
And this is how things have looked since I demolished the kitchen in 2015. Looking east.
The dining room (left) has been open to the kitchen (right) ever since. You can see the remains of the oh-the-horror bathroom. Note the large 2×12 beam upper right.
The beam is structural. It is vital in holding up the second floor and roof load. Yet, when the bathroom was installed in the 1990s, the vertical support for the 2×12 beam was simply lopped off when the bathroom was built. Yikes! You are looking east, into the kitchen.
Today. The 2×12 beam has been rebuilt, and is structurally sound. Whew! And 2x4s now infill the wall between the dining room and kitchen. Squee!
In the dining room. There is a wide opening to the living room (left). Adjacent (right) is the new 5-foot-wide opening to the kitchen.
The rebuilt 2×12 beam is at top. You are looking from the dining room into the kitchen. This ‘hall’ is 5-feet-wide, creating a kinda sorta somewhat ‘open plan’ so favored today, while not actually having the kitchen fully open to the dining room. This is…if I must say…one of my more clever ideas.
You are now in the kitchen. The ‘hall’ is, thus, more like a foyer. It offers wide and easy access to the kitchen, and same for access to the door leading to the deck. See the window?
It was repurposed from elsewhere in the carriage house. In 2015 I reglazed it…and then it sat. And sat. And sat. It is now painted and back in place! Squee!!!!!!!! It is hard to imagine that, one day, this corner will look good! (I painted the trim green in 2015.)
More new 2x4s! Squee!!!!!!!! This is where the refrigerator will go (see ‘REF’ on plan). The new rear wall is zig-zagged to allow for the refrigerator being deeper than the adjacent counter that will be to the left. Note the new HAVC duct to the very left. In order to offer comfort to the sun porch, and to NOT go through a basement window, and to NOT cut into the foundation, I devised this manner of ducting the porch. The duct will have a base cabinet to its right, and the counter will kiss the left wall. A vertical infill panel will then cover the duct.
Fridge location to the left, and ‘foyer’ to the right. I installed double dropped ceilings so that the new work will not feel stuck in the corner, exactly as the arch accomplished in the new bathroom in the big house. The dropped ceilings will define the plane of the high kitchen ceiling, and its centered ceiling light. Without a dropped ceiling in the ‘foyer’, for example, the space would read, uncomfortably, as part of the kitchen. Now, the space will read as a separate space, with the added bonus of making the whole area seem larger. I fuss over such stuff.
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A fabulous revision! A wine fridge/bottle shelves to the left or right of the door could be a fabulous addition. To the right if you don’t want to clutter up the kitchen foyer, to the left if you could see the kitchen foyer as a sort of modern-day butler’s pantry for entertaining; a sort of hub between dining, kitchen and deck. If the long-term plan is Air BbB, in a college town, you’ll no doubt have families who want to entertain and celebrate on graduation weekends or just when visiting their kids.
On that note, I envision some kind of counter on the northwest corner of the deck by the kitchen foyer window, running to a big natural gas grill positioned against the fireplace brickwork. Perhaps tap into that old bathroom sink plumbing for an outdoor sink. String lights strung above the deck could give a nice feel.
That wide opening from the dining room to the living room. My house from the living room to the dining room and back looks just like that. My neighbor told me the house was built in 1919 and the county tax records say 1922, but now I am starting to question exactly when my house was built. When I first moved in I stripped just a bit of trim by a window and none of my trim was varnished or shellacked. It was all originally painted. I have really wide baseboard trim too, also originally painted. High ceilings, maybe 10 feet. I have a similar set back for the refrigerator in my kitchen, with two cabinets to the left, one holding the hot water heater and the other the breaker panel. Because of it the hallway takes a zig zag to the bedroom.
That is a great plan and good progress. Especially replacing/repairing that beam. That deck is the perfect addition to the house, making the entrance easier and more pleasing to the eye. The wide passage to the kitchen is also a good idea. You could put a narrow sideboard or table or just hang artwork in that space. Nice place for a rug too.
You aren’t really going to put a washer/dryer in the breakfast nook, are you? With the range backing the breakfast nook, where are you going to vent a hood?
I am loving this!!! It is going to be SO nice!! Great ideas, Ross, as always. 😁
I, too, am loving this! I love wide hallways. It’s really going to look great. You really do plan everything out. Nice.
Fun to see the progress you are making in the Carriage House! Can’t wait to see how things evolve over the coming weeks as the Countdown to Cody begins (or maybe continues 🙂
Bravo on the amazing progress!
So much to take in! How exciting! 🙂
So…is the finished “new” opening from the dining to kitchen hall not going to be trimmed out at the same height as the wide opening from Dining to LR to match? Or is it just taller in its currently, only-framed-out state?
Is there any salvage floor material on reserve to do away with the lower framing remnants of the old bathroom that are right inside the door to the deck?
Hi, Cody!
The new opening will be the same height as the existing opening, and trimmed out the same. Of course, dahlink!
The foyer flooring will be replaced to match kitchen flooring.