Hi all - I hope this is the right forum for this post... I realize it's also related to the family room, but I figured it's an extension of the kitchen space and you all are always so helpful with layout/design ideas.

Here's a little background - I apologize in advance for the long post and hopefully it won't be too scatterbrained as that's how I feel lately!

The original design for our kitchen/family room addition contained a support wall that would have a fireplace on either side - one in the family room and one in the kitchen eat-in area (or "hearth" room). Here is an earlier plan with this feature. Please note that the kitchen layout was just schematic for permit purposes, we have since changed windows and sink placement, etc.

{{attachment:1053316}}

After going with this plan for a while, I then came across this photo on houzz.com and started thinking about how it would be nice to have the area between the kitchen and family room more open and that also we probably wouldn't use the fireplace in the hearth room very often anyway...

{{attachment:1053317}}

I really like how this is open to the family room but not wide-open. And doing something like this would still give us the support wall that we needed. So, I met with our architect and we changed our layout around to have the family room fireplace on the far wall and a similar area in between the two rooms.

{{attachment:1053318}}

Now, I really like the direction we're going in except that I don't like how this looks from the family room side (here is the backside photo from the same kitchen):

Here are my thoughts about this -

This house has their table on the other side of the wall so it makes sense to have that pass through. Does it still make sense for our layout?

If we do a mirror image of the cabinets on the family room side (which I like the idea of) we start eating into the family room space a few more feet and I don't want to make that space cramped. (In the revised drawing the family room is about 19x20 from wall to wall and the fireplace will then eat up a few feet of that)

So basically... what would you do? These are all of my other thoughts:

- keep the new fireplace location, keep the two walkways, but close up the wall in the middle and just have a hutch on the kitchen side

- have the opening be in the middle, so bring in the support walls from the side and have a large cased opening in the middle of the room

- do something like above and add pocket doors for interest

- go back to original plan with the hearth

- ...???

I really appreciate any thoughts on other cool ways to design this space. Thanks so much.

kitchen

COMPANY

EXPLORE HOUZZ

CONNECT WITH US