We met with our first contractor last night. He had a few interesting things to say.
The foyer – kitchen wall is also load bearing in all likelihood. We could move it as I proposed, but there’s no place to hide a beam since the foyer ceiling is full-height. Widening the door is fine. A few ideas for how to resolve the closet situation:
- Stealth closet. Install pantry cabinets at the foyer end of the kitchen, one of which has a hanging rod in it.
- Install pantry cabinets at the foyer end of the kitchen, instead of in the current pantry location. Build a closet in the current pantry.
- Go ahead and move the wall. Live with the fact that the foyer ceiling looks funny.
- Leave the current wall in place and build a 2nd one, to form an anteroom between foyer and kitchen. Install closets — perhaps built in place, perhaps prebuilt cabinets — in this space.
The issue with #1 is it seems cheesy: if we were moving into a building and used this as a solution, fine, but to build it this way seems wrong.
#2 gives a nice big closet, but is far from the front door. This is Lis’s initial preference.
Nobody really likes #3.
#4 is my initial preference but may feel constricted going into the kitchen.
I will play around with these options over the next few days and see what I can come up with.
This contractor uses an in-house kitchen designer and cabinets that they resell. The kitchen designer will also want to have a look, then they will get back to us with a proposal.