Posts
7002
Joined
12/7/2009
Location
Long Beach, CA, USA
This house was sold 3 years ago for just under 1 million. It was a mess. The new owner brought in a crew and they gutted the inside and started rebuilding. The city busted them for no permit and it sat in that condition for over a year. Then another crew started working with a permit but stopped after a few months. It sat another year and the current contractor picked it up and it is now basically finished but still empty. I took a couple pics of the kitchen because I could not believe they would have designed it this way.
Was the island an afterthought? It doesn’t match and, is an eyesore. Not to mention there’s no sink on the island.
Those cabinets look like they belong in a garage lol
The range hood? I have no words
My guess is that there was not a woman involved in that design. No microwave either. If they plan on selling it, they will have a tough time getting past the woman of the house. No matter what sex she is.
is it an older house, like 1960's - '70s? Looks like a tradeoff was made to add more natural light with extra windows while sacrificing wall space for cabinets. Lots of that stuff common in SoCal where I grew up. They went with modern (larger) fridge and stove in the popular stainless finish. May have opened up the whole kitchen moving other walls too.
Is this house in LB?
I’ve seen some terribly designed houses here in Washington. Not much to them. Much worse than your example. Yet, the shit box fetches a premium because of the neighborhood it’s in.
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Yes it's LB. California Heights.
The house was probably built in the 40's. It's hard to tell around here. They had complete freedom in design. They gutted the house and started over.
Btw, I was born here, and have remodeled many many houses in Lakewood, Long Beach area. I have never seen anything this stupid. This area has many galley kitchens that are not this unusable.
Being at the tail end of a kitchen remodel and flooring redo...I concur with the statement "a woman was not involved" for that design.
In all fairness...the windows next to the range hood on both sides limits the space for upper cabinets. Though it is funny, we have only two upper cabinets on one wall. The other wall is the oven, fridge, pantry with some upper storage.
A few pics of our project which is 95% complete.
Wow, that is bad.
Maybe the oven/stove should have gone on the island? I'm certainly no designer, but that wall looks like pure afterthought.
I'm a designer. I've learned over the years that bad design is easier to create than good design. You actually have to put thought into good design.
Reminds me of fuck it Friday, got the check got paid!
The homebuilder I most recently worked with really nailed the kitchen, dining, living room spaces in his builds.
Most, after spending many hours with clients, had big open areas incorporating all three rooms together.
Usually the living area separated by nothing more than a few colums marking the separation line.
And the kitchen layout itself was a very functional layout, with an oversized island. With plenty of c-top overhang for seating.
As you know, people love hanging out in the kitchen.
I would have at least gotten rid of one of the windows on the right, centered the range with an overhead Microwave, wall cabs window to window. At least it would be functional. The island would have been longer and more of a lunch bar and bullshit zone than workspace. There's plenty of countertop along the walls.
hard to really judge layout functionality without blueprints or at least panoramic photos (or video) of entire kitchen. We're only seeing 1.5 walls and no depth for context of alternate views.
That Kitchen triangle (sink/stove/frig) is s p r e a d o u t in that design.
The leg of the Kitchen triangle from sink to frig is around 15 feet... ...not good.
That top photo is shot from the living room. The fridge is to the very right and next to that is an exterior door. Those two walls are basically it. Don't know if that helps.
so they basically made it "open Concept" to look bigger- probably by demoing a wall or 2. Same thing was done to my father in law's 1940s house in San Diego while they changed the floorplan. It sold for way more than anyone imagined but it was a very popular area on the fringe of Balboa Park. Location, location, location..
Yes, it is sometimes difficult to gauge based on a couple photos without seeing the entire floorplan.
In our case, the island was actually a peninsula previously, we made it into an island. However, notice it's not centered to the cooktop (earlier photo). That's because we have a small round "breakfast" table that sits to the left and walls that would have pinched access if we moved the island to the left. Behind where the photo was taken is the family/TV room.
CAD plans are an awesome way to design and see what you will end up with. We went through several iterations before we hit just the right design for us. Yes, my wife had much to do with the actual design and it came out beautiful (IMNSHO).
Been out of the business for about 20 years. Software has gotten better. I used regular 2d cadd for layout and dimensions and a really simple kitchen design program for views. Turbo floor planner I think.
Pit Row
Our old place we lived in for 21 years had a walk in pantry and I miss it. House was built in the late 50's and had lots of places to store stuff in the kitchen/dining area.
In 2015 we moved into a nice triple wide but lost cabinet space and the walk in pantry. It was quite challenging/frustrating for the wife as she basically had to get rid of some stuff or carry less canned goods etc.
We ended up converting a coat closet adjacent to the kitchen into a pantry by adding shelves.
Yes software is amazing today. Within minutes you can completely change a plan, colors, etc and spit out a rendering from multiple angles.
I went the opposite direction, i probably have to much over the counter space and not enough windows
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