Visited a friend's new house and they flipped their entire kitchen layout upside down - bold or crazy?

I was over at a buddy's place last weekend in Portland, he just bought a 1970s ranch and decided to move the sink to where the stove was and put the dishwasher on the opposite wall. It cost him about $4,200 in plumbing reroutes alone just to make it work. On one hand I get it, he wanted a bigger island and nothing else made sense with the original layout. But on the other hand I feel like you can only fight the existing bones of a house so much before you're just throwing money at problems. He says the flow is way better now for cooking with his wife, but I kept tripping over the peninsula that sticks out two feet further than before. Has anyone else taken on a full kitchen layout change and regretted the hassle or loved the result?

3 comments

3 Comments

karen_roberts46d ago

The plumbing cost was actually closer to $4,200 including the reroute labor and materials, not just the pipes themselves. I had to deal with a similar move a few years ago when I swapped my sink to a different wall, and the plumber told me half that price is just opening up the walls and patching them back. Your buddy probably had to cut into the slab too if that 70s ranch is on a concrete foundation. That adds another $800 to $1,200 easy for core drilling and tying into the main line. The peninsula sticking out sounds like a flow killer though, you're not wrong there. Sometimes people focus on the big ticket items but miss how a few inches of counter overhang can mess up the whole traffic pattern.

jesse_green556d ago

Used to be firmly in the "don't fight the house" camp when it came to kitchens. But then my sister did basically the same thing last year, moved her stove three feet over and added a prep sink, and it totally changed how their family uses the space. Your buddy's plumbing bill is painful no doubt, but those older ranch layouts (especially the ones from the 70s) had some really weird, chopped up work triangles that don't fit how people actually cook now. I guess my view shifted once I saw someone eat the upfront cost and end up way happier with their daily life in that room.

mila_brown103d ago

Is a slightly better kitchen layout really worth all that hassle and money though? I mean yeah, your sister probably loves her new setup, but did she pay over four grand just to move a sink? That's like a whole vacation or a new set of appliances right there. And honestly, most people just wanna dump groceries and make dinner, not architect a perfect work triangle. My aunt has a weird 70s kitchen with a peninsula that blocks everything and she just uses a cutting board on the dining table, problem solved. Seems like a lot of people get talked into these big changes and then a year later they're still paying off the credit card and wondering if they should have just bought a good knife instead.