I am starting to plan my new kitchen. The problem I have is that the chimney to the wood stove is right in the middle of the room. The wood stove then splits the other half in half. The room is approx. 12X8 with 7 doors going in or out . ( we plan to take some of these out) At the far end it has a stair case that is a the momment enclosed. There is only 1 window and it goes to the mud porch.If any one would have ideas for a floor plan i would be greatful. I would also like any ideas on flooring i really have grown to dislike linolum and stone is too expensive

-- Becky Rosen (Joel681@webtv. net), October 11, 1999

Answers

Without knowing where the doors are it is hard to help. Our overall advice is maybe the kitchen is in the wrong place. Our experience is the kitchen should be the largest most central room in the house. Don't feel you should keep the kitchen where previous owners have had it. In homesteading the kitchen is the heart of the house!!!! Auctions are a possibility for tiles or wood flooring. Good Luck. Kim and David

-- Kim and David (fleece@bminet.com), October 12, 1999.

I like a wood stove in the center of the kitchen but, 8x12 is small by any measure for a kitchen, without the stove in the center. Maybe you should expand out into your mudroom?

-- Bob Henderson (redgate@echoweb.net), October 13, 1999.

Becky, my husband just got done building our 3600 sq. ft. home, and out of all the floor coverings we used,(carpet, linoleum and wood), the wood is by far the best and easiest upkeep if you do it right. Even though our home is big (we have a large family), we needed to be conservative on material price without losing material integrity. Since our kitchen is big, we couldn't afford linoleum in it, and I really didn't want it in my country kitchen anyway. Our solution was to install pine "car siding". It has a width of six inches and it is also tongue and groove. It gives a perfect look of an old fashioned wood floor. The cost was cheap, the look great and the upkeep is easier than linoleum or carpet. After it is nailed down, I lightly sanded it with a palm sander,put on a sanding sealer, then stained it and gave it two coats of a water based polyurethane topcoat (in a satin finish).Upkeep is running a dust mop over it and a wet mopping once a week. You'll love it and good luck whatever you use!

-- Phyllis Dreste (petedreste@socket.net), October 13, 1999.

Take a look at the new laminate wood flooring available at Menard or Home Depot. (Armstrong is better than Pergo who invented it, but Pergo has the best and ONLY proper installation instructions and Home Depot has free seminars.) It's about the same price as decent quality vinyl - the kind where the coloring goes all the way through so a scratch is less visible. You can easily install laminate wood flooring yourself. A 8 x 12 kitchen of a good quality will run about $450-500 for the planks, underlayment glue and clamp rental. It will look like wood but have the durability you need in a kitchen.

-- JCW (JC@Waldner.com), October 15, 1999.

as far as a floor we used brick left over from an old home that was torn down we laid it just like a side walk, it does get cold in the winter but summer its great.

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), April 19, 2000.

I would agree with the answer that your kitchen seems awfully small. Is there any other room that you could put it in, or open up a wall or two, to get more room? Our old house has a 14 1/2 by 14 kitchen, I don't have the wood stove hooked up in the kitchen (have to put in the chimney first), but with the dining table in the middle of the room it's none too big. My ideal kitchen would be about 16 by 24, I think!! But if you absolutely HAVE to use the little room you've described, put the wood stove in where it would go, and see if you've actually got any room to move around it. (You know, with seven doorways, it sounds like just a large hall! My kitchen has five doorways out of it, and it's darned inconvenient -- ideal would be one in and one back door to the garden and clotheslines.) And get yourself some graph paper, and start making scale drawings, keeping in mind the meaurements of kitchen cabinets and appliances. Let us know how it works out!

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 19, 2000.

Remodeling is a pain, it is so much eaiser to start from scratch! 7 doors! Anyway of taking down the walls that these doors are on? You have to look at the structure though, and anything that is a structural wall you could use a beam. Why have your kitchen closed off from the rest of the house, mine is in essence a large kitchen, dining and living room, the only thing that seperates these spaces is a bar between the living and kitchen area, we used floor tiles (asphalt floor tiles, they come in alots of colors and are great staggered in colors for that new black/white look, the kind that you see in hospitals, they are as nice as the day they were put in and are easy to put down and easy to car for. Not a fan of carpet unless you spend the extra money for commercial quality with the rubberbacking so all the dirt and mold doesn't just get pushed down into the pad. Very unhealthy! Pur your exsisiting floor plans down on graft paper, take it to a Home improvement store and pretend that you want cabinets, they will put it into their computer and give you a floor plan of what your kitchen will look like, this will give you a better idea of what to do! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 19, 2000.

We too are putting in a new kitchen .My flooring will be Vt slate .Go ahead try to kill it !The dogs and kids can't scratch it , it hides dirt and is fairly cheap .Home Depot carries it .Good luck.

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), April 19, 2000.

Becky- I see you wrote that question in October. How DID you solve your problem?

-- Peg (wildwoodfarms@hushmail.com), April 19, 2000.