It started with a call for a kitchen remodel, a Minneapolis kitchen in the Uptown area. I set the appointment and met with the owner who proceeded to give me her wish list. We needed to take the existing cut up space and have enough room for a half bath, cooking, cleaning areas and an island plus room to dance and a place for Heidi’s water and food dish.
Heidi is a Great Dane of happy proportions, somewhere around 130 lbs of pure sweet doggy.

First thing I mentioned is lets remove the dining room wall. Nope, wall stays. OK. Then lets move the entry wall. Nope, entry is needed to keep Heidi from roaming around. OK? What was left?

It was time to break the rules. When remodeling kitchens in Minnesota you have the code book to follow, then you have National Kitchen Bath Association guidelines and your customer, who in this case was a savvy consumer who had done her homework, she knew most of what she wanted and expected to get it. I like a challenge so I drew up a design, we tweaked it a bit and we had a plan. So onward and upward we went.

Instead of getting frustrated on the ideal plan we organized the kitchen to meet the exact needs of the customer. Part of what we did was throw out the old work triangle method of organizing a kitchen, we used a step method that worked by grouping the main activities in the central part of the kitchen, and the cleanup right around the corner where were had removed the old pantry. Did this fit NKBA guidelines? No! But it made the customer happy.

To sum it up, we broke some rules and the customer got all their needs met and so did Heidi, who got to be in the kitchen with the owners but yet still out of the main traffic and food prep areas.

I have to share this. When finishing the base trim in Heidi’s food corner I felt a weight on my shoulder, and then heard a sigh. It was Heidi resting her head on my shoulder and I assumed she was letting me know she approved of the design.

And my point, break the rules when the rules need to be broken, think outside of the box or forever be constrained. I entered this kitchen in a design contest and did not win, I broke the traditional rules of kitchen design and I don’t think the judges cared for that, but we came in on budget and 2 years later the homeowners are happy still, so it ended up being a winner anyway.

Break the rules, but know which rules you can break. And the kitchen triangle, yeah it makes sense but so does meeting your customers needs.

Did my customers dance in the kitchen, they told me “yes we did”.

Paul Lesieur