apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

1. The expensive solution would be to move the kitchen into the living room part of the apartment. You may ask the building managment to see if others have done this or inquire about whether water and gas lines are available in that half of the apt (with buildings this old you may be shocked to find water/drainage lines in places you least expect them).

2. The no cost solution would be to make the larger room the bedroom and the small room attached to the kitchen the dining/living space.

If you're willing to move around gas/water lines to the living room i think it would be nice to have the kitchen in the living room, with the appliances up against the left wall of the living room and a low counter separating the kitchen from the LR (an open kitchen). Assuming the kitchen is 7 ft wide, that would leave you with a 12x13 living room. I would then take the big space in the hallway to the bedroom (where the kitchen WAS) and put in an extra closet or two along the walls.

If you're not willing to move gas/water around, i think you're basically stuck with what you have since the sink and stove can't move. In that case i would agree with the comment above and swap the bedroom/living room space (which also keeps ppl from having to go through your bedroom to use the bathroom)

I agree that the easiest solution would be to switch your idea of what's the bedroom and living room. Anything else is going to be a very expensive solution.

i wouldn't do anything! it's a weird layout, but is it so bad? if anything, i like the idea of switching the living/bedroom, but then you'll be getting dressed in your living room every day hehe.

if anything, i'd install nice new sleek stuff in the kitchen, to make it feel less like a kitchen and more like eyecandy. i love the sara kate/maxwell kitchen because it looks like furniture, not crummy kitchen cabinets.

wow, that is a bit weird. My first instinct is to swap bedroom and living room. You could potentially subdivide the living room area to make it a dining room/bedroom with some sort of bookshelves or screens to divide the space.

Ideally, if money and water/gas locations aren't an issue, I'd do what someone else suggested of putting the kitchen on the left side of the living room space. With just an island to divide it (or even just a big dining room table), it would not make the living room feel too pokey. And you could reclaim that hallway space for some nice built-in storage or bookshelves.

it would be expensive, but if possible, look into extending the kitchen window along the wall into the living room. (even doing a bay window/window seat sort of treatment). that way it would visually connect the rooms, plus add tons of light. If you kept the window at its current height (or even moved it upwards), you could also add a low cabinet (you could custom-build one to match the odd angles of that corner) to visually link the kitchen, foyer and living room.

I would keep things the way they are, and renovate the kitchen when you can to make it more modern, with sleek cupboards and appliances, and keep the counters cleared when you're not using it -- it will be less "kitcheny." Oh, and match the floors to the living room.

I live in an apartment where the kitchen is basically the hallway between the bedroom and the living room. Our bathroom is also off of the bedroom rather than off the living room, so people have to walk through the bedroom to get to the bathroom. Suffice it to say that I feel your pain. So what to do? Absent a renovation to move the kitchen into the living space, I would highly recommend the suggestion made by others to swap what you think of as your bedroom and your living room. The biggest problem is that then you'd have a huge bedroom -- but that's not so bad. If you need a home office space or some casual living space, you can definitely divide the new, huge bedroom into a multi-use space. I love having a cozy armchair in my bedroom, and if you divided the space properly, it could be a lovely and spacious retreat with a relaxing settee and home office on one side and the bedroom on the other. If you leave the rooms as they are, then your kitchen will always be bleeding over into your bedroom, and guests will constantly be traipsing into your private space to find the bathroom.

Good luck!

What about extending the kitchen further into the bedroom? You could extend the bathroom wall out and make an eating area/pantry where the closet is now. When you expand the bathroom wall you can build a new closet. Then open up the current kitchen into the new space. I think it would seem more intentional and less like a pass through.. plus who needs a seventeen foot long bedroom?

I couldn't get the image to show here, but here's the links.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a137/sheellah/APT.jpg

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a137/sheellah/APT2.jpg

I've enlarged the kitchen from some of the bedroom and part of the closet, and added another small closet, and one in the living room, and made a little entry into the bedroom. In the second one I added a little desk area, and enlarged the living room closet or made another. You would have a good sized kitchen from part of the bedroom that would be unused.

Let me know what you think!

And another where you don't have to go through the bedroom to get to the bathroom. You have to give up a lot of the bedroom to get this, but you get a better kitchen, and good closets but in the living toom. It's all a matter of what you want to give up, but this works much better.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a137/sheellah/APT3.jpg

I like cookware junkie's solution - but it does make the bedroom quite small. Perhaps you could install the kitchen along the eastern-most wall of the living room... in a way that it just takes up one wall, and so that it can be closed up to look like cupboards. If you put your dining table on that side then you can then use it for extra benchspace. see the dada tivali kitchen

It would also be good if you could knock down the closet and wall to the foyer so that your lounge area becomes a larger space. You can then relocate the closet to where the kitchen was, and possibly add a bathroom door so it opens to the new hallway.

Thanks Amilelka. Yes, it is much smaller, but the space it had before wasn't usable as it needed to be clear as it was an entry point into the bedroom, and you also needed clear access to the closet. It was also hard to place the bed before as you had the bathroom opening. That space though is usable in the kitchen, and makes it much larger and more functional. I love playing with floor plans. Wanted to be an architect at one point ;-).

Was hoping the gal whose apt. it was would see it. I had wanted to see her reaction. If it were mine and I had the funds I would do this. I didn't like the idea of having to go through a bedroom to get to the bathroom, and this solves that, and placed the bedroom away from the kitchen.

You would though not have your clothes near to the bedroom, but I guess there's give and take, and that's one thing you have to give up.

I would go for the switch. Get some substantial sized wardrobe units installed to divide the current LR space into LR & BR. You have then managed to cure the clothing issue. You can retain part as LR and turn the narrow former BR into a dining room/office.

Thank you all so much for your help. I really appreciated all of the ideas...it has opened up our eyes to some awesome possibilities. I'd like to especially thank cookware junkie for her comments and ideas on the layout. It would be awesome to extend that kitchen out like that. THe bedroom would be a little smaller but it could work. I also liked the comment that to make the kitchen blend more with the place you can put in sleeker cabinetry...in doing so it wouldn't be as awkward of a space. I do like the idea of adding storage space in the back of the living room wall...bc that room is so big anyway. Also another good suggestion is switching the LR and the BR...I think I like using the big room as a LR bc it just seems more inviting...and it had the big 3 windows. thanks again for your comments- it really has been so helpful.

Bre.......I actually think the smaller room would be more inviting to guests as a livingroom. It's closer to the kitchen, where guests tend to congregate, and while you're cooking you can more easily have conversation with your guests in the smaller room. They also won't have to walk through a bedroom to get to the bathroom.

Hang a couple of big mirrors in the smaller room to reflect light, since that's one of the aspects of the larger room that you like.

Small = cozy if you keep space-hoggers out of the room like tall bookshelves and such.

THE BEST THING about trying the room-switching idea is that it will cost you NOTHING.

IT'S FREE!

So try it that way for six months or so. If it doesn't work out, then you can work on remodeling.

Here's another where I tried to make the kitchen part of the living space as you requested. It might be a little far from the kitchen though. If you can't move the gas line, if you have 220 current, you can use an induction cooktop. You could leave the stove where it is, and just have that space for eating and serving. There's room for cabinets below. You also can not do the peninsula, and no connecting piece, and just have a rectangular, or round glass dining table there. That would be lighter and airier looking and not take up space visually.

I brought the kitchen out a bit, and while not as large a kitchen as the other, it still gives you a nice work area on the other side, and a larger bedroom where you can have a desk by the window for a computer, and you still have a part of the closet. That might be the best solution.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a137/sheellah/APT4.jpg

A fairly cheap and easy way to open the kitchen to the living room, while also allowing it to have it's own space, is to remove the front closet, reverse the front door, and hang drywall opposite of the door (say about 5 or so feet). While it is slightly unsavory to lose storage, as any apartment dweller well knows, it could really connect the two spaces, while seperating the kitchen from the entry. In the drawing posted, on the opposite side of the new wall, there can be either a small bistro table, or you could even use the extended wall space for more counter room.

Good luck Bre,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23071745@N06/2633658720/