Planning a Kitchen Layout in a Scottsdale Ranch Home

Two framers and a day and a half is about what it takes to open a nonbearing wall between a kitchen and a family room. The planning behind that wall takes longer. The island clearances used at kitchen remodel scottsdale az primal health with jean run wider than the minimums in the code book, because a kitchen in Scottsdale, AZ is rarely used by one person at a time. Most of the single-story ranch homes here were framed between the 1970s and the 1990s, and the kitchen sits in a box that was drawn around a different way of cooking.

Start with the walls that stay

Before anything gets moved, find out which walls carry the roof. In a Scottsdale ranch the roof trusses usually bear on the exterior walls and on one or two interior lines near the center of the house. A wall between the kitchen and the dining area is often only a partition, but the attic tells the truth, not the wall.

Soffits and what hides inside them

Most kitchens of that era carry a soffit over the upper cabinets, and it is rarely empty. Expect a branch of electrical cable, a duct from the range hood, sometimes a supply run for the air conditioning. Those lines decide whether the cabinets can go to the ceiling or whether the soffit has to be rebuilt in a new shape. Cutting one open early saves a change order later.

Clearances that work in daily use

A walkway between the island and the perimeter run needs at least forty two inches for one cook, and forty eight where two people pass or a dishwasher door swings open. Measure from the face of the cabinet, not from the countertop edge, because the overhang eats the first few inches. The range, the sink and the refrigerator still form the working triangle, but the sink and the range should not sit at opposite ends of a long room.

Sightlines to the desert

Homes near Camelback Mountain or on the slopes below the McDowell Mountains often have a view of the Sonoran Desert that the original kitchen turned its back on. A sink moved to a window, or a low run of cabinets under a picture window, can bring that view into the workspace. The tradeoff is western sun, which heats a countertop in the afternoon and is dealt with in the lighting and surface choices covered on the other pages here.

Permits and the walls you cannot see

Moving a wall, a gas line or a sink drain in Scottsdale, AZ brings in a permit from the city, and the plans are drawn to match what is actually behind the drywall. Older slab homes also keep plumbing under the floor, so a sink relocated across the room means cutting concrete. That is why the layout is settled on paper, with every wall and drain located, before the first cabinet comes out of the house.