What Will I Do With The Breakfast Room? (I Do not Know, However In My Dream World, I might Do This…)

I shared what I consider is the ultimate structure for our addition a few days in the past. In case you missed that, you can see it here. Since we’ll have an enormous, model new household room, and I’ll be turning the entrance lounge right into a eating room, one of the vital requested questions was, “Kristi, what is going to you do with the 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 in the course of the day. So Matt determined he wished 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 once I determined to show our breakfast room right into a sitting room.

He can spend as a lot time as he needs to each day stress-free in his recliner, watching TV, enjoying video video games, or on his laptop computer. He’s additionally fairly comfy consuming in his recliner (as am I), so we didn’t actually lose the operate 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 an everyday breakfast room, with an precise desk and chairs, as quickly as our addition is constructed. I really feel sure that Matt can be spending his time within the new household room as an alternative of on this sitting room as soon as the addition is completed. And he’ll most likely proceed to eat his lunch every day whereas sitting in a comfortable chair, which can 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? Not likely. If Matt is extra comfy 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 with no function as soon as the addition is constructed.

So what is going to we do with it? I truthfully don’t know. However I can inform you what I’d do with it in a dream world the place I’ve a limitless finances. I’d double the scale of my kitchen.

Again in 2014 once I transformed our kitchen the primary time, I needed to keep throughout the footprint of the unique kitchen to maintain price as little as doable. There was no method we may have afforded to develop the kitchen on the time. I needed to do all the things I may consider to redo that kitchen as inexpensively as doable, together with utilizing the cheap inventory unfinished utility cupboards from Residence Depot.

I dressed them up by including ornamental ft, a number of trim, a header that went all the way in which to the ceiling, and crown molding. However I did a whole down-to-the-studs kitchen transform 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 scale of the kitchen and incorporate the world that’s now the breakfast room into the kitchen, however there was merely no method 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 linked the home (which ended the place the kitchen peninsula presently 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 should you’re conversant in several types of foundations, you understand that pier and beam foundations are dearer to construct up entrance, however they’re fairly straightforward and comparatively cheap to make modifications to, akin to operating plumbing to a brand new space of the home, simply so long as there’s crawl area entry.

Slab foundations are cheaper to construct up entrance, however they’re an actual headache and rather more costly to make modifications to later. As a way to run new plumbing strains or restore issues in plumbing strains in a slab basis, you need to jackhammer up the concrete, run the strains (or repair the strains), after which pour new concrete. That may price hundreds of {dollars}.

And suffice it to say that we didn’t have hundreds of {dollars} to spend on that form of factor after we purchased this home. I desperately wanted a brand new kitchen as a result of the unique structure was so inefficient that straightforward duties like making a sandwich within the authentic 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 in any way. So I did the perfect with what I needed to work with whereas staying throughout the finances we had on the time, and staying throughout the authentic footprint of the kitchen. Due to that pier and beam basis, I used to be in a position to have the water and gasoline strains moved at a really affordable worth in order that I may organize issues in a method that made extra sense to me. And I believe total, I did a reasonably good job working with what I had obtainable, all issues thought of!

And whereas the kitchen feels a lot larger now with the cased opening between the kitchen and the entrance lounge, and the aspect wall of the kitchen opened as much as the breakfast room, the room continues 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 scale feels simply nice. However final evening after we had a home full of individuals, I attempted to concentrate to how all the things actually functioned, and my little kitchen begins to really feel fairly cramped actually rapidly with the addition of only a few folks.

So in my dream world, I might double the scale of my kitchen, develop it into the breakfast room, and have a great deal of room for an enormous 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 things 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 that complete area. There’s an ungainly little jog within the wall that works simply nice as it’s now with the peninsula in that area.

But when the peninsula is now not there, that distinction can be rather more noticeable. After which there’s the difficulty of the cased opening separating the 2 rooms.

That works simply nice with the present structure since these are two distinct rooms. But when it’s all one huge room, that cased opening within the center must go. And that implies that some fairly important (and costly!) structural work must be performed.

I don’t 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 in the future. If I do really get to do it, this isn’t one thing I’d do with out skilled 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 comfortable.

Maybe that is all only a dream, and it’ll by no means occur. But when I may do no matter I wished with this area after our addition is constructed, that is precisely what I’d do. However for now, I would simply should 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 transform and enhance 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 can learn more about me here.