Kitchen & Dining Swap

The Problems

A traditional house in Mt. Lebanon had the classic large living room, dining room with an awkward kitchen. The kitchen had about 3 to 4 layers of wall paper, at least 2 to 3 layers of flooring with windows and doors all over the place. You can imagine the functional challenges!

The owners first contacted Action Builders to do the interior main level renovation. Here, they considered the kitchen entirely but also requested opening the space up to the dining room while replacing the flooring on the entire main level.

They had a close friend helping with the kitchen layout who worked as an interior designer. Revision after revision, they landed on layouts that were okay, but nothing spectacular. They knew there were some existing challenges, like a door to the rear deck and a set of back stairs coming into the kitchen that they couldn’t or didn’t want to change. They kept trying to work around them but could not get all of the desirable aspects of the modern kitchen — an island, large working area, and a good flowing, functional layout for working in the kitchen.

The Solutions

One day out of the blue the husband announced the suggestion to switch the dining room & kitchen spaces. This solved so many layout issues! It eliminated the staircase and backdoor problem from the kitchen layout. And the newly designed kitchen layout was immediately loved by everyone for its simplicity and symmetry.