Background
Krishna loves living in Broad Ripple, an area that fits his young, active lifestyle perfectly. After purchasing an older home in the neighborhood, he began working his way through the home, making updates to improve his everyday use of the space.
He tackled a few smaller projects before taking on the most challenging one: improving the function and appearance of the exceptionally small and dated kitchen.
The Problem
The frustrations in this space were limitless. Lack of storage. Lack of functional countertop space. An unnecessary circular flow to a kitchen that barely fit more than one person. The range up against the wall. An embarrassing entry point as you entered the kitchen from the driveway access to the house. The list could go on and on…
Enter The Lifestyle Group
- The key to this project was closing an entry point to the kitchen from a back hallway. This afforded us the opportunity to provide a lot more storage and countertop space. This very small kitchen now functions as a relatively normal size kitchen with the added cabinet and countertop space and the incorporation of the utility cabinet pantry storage.
- We flipped the location of the dishwasher and the range to eliminate the safety hazard of the range by the wall, gain countertop space on both sides of the range and give Krishna ample room to wash and load dishes into the dishwasher at the same time, saving him lots of time and hassle.
- Lastly, we added a small feature, but one that should not go unnoticed. Prior to the remodel, Krishna used a rolling cart to hold his microwave. We created a functional built-in microwave area with additional storage and countertop space, keeping it relatively shallow to maintain large walk space areas throughout the small kitchen. This improved the look and function of the kitchen and provided a visually appealing area that doubles as a coffee bar.
Additional Project Scope
In a perfect world, we would have given Krishna more countertop space around the sink. However, in reality, some limitations simply cannot be overcome. There are also trade-offs to consider. In this case, we believed keeping the sink under the window, with countertop space to the right was a better solution than losing prep space around the range. Plus, we really did not want to push the range back up against a wall.
Conclusion
Gaining function was an important focus of this project, but I would like to commend Krishna for his choice of colors. The white cabinets he chose work well with his selection of granite and contemporary glass subway tiles, while the combination of can and under cabinet lighting and the neutral wall color brightens up the kitchen, making it an incredibly inviting space!
Geoff Horen, Owner, The Lifestyle Group