60-day returns • free shipping on USA orders $129+
OT: Large(er) families, small kitchen solution…please help!
- This topic has 7 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 5 months ago by
.
Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
- Posts
Okay, I want to start off by saying that in the grand scheme of life, my kitchen being a little tight when we are all together eating dinner is really very insignficant. But, I would like to make the most of the space that we have and I know there are some larger families on this forum who may have some ideas.
We are a family of 6, so not very large, but *larger* in today’s world. We don’t have a dining room, so eat in the kitchen. Right now we have a rectangle table with two benches on each long side (for the kids) and a chair on each end. When we are all in there, it is quite the squeeze! I’m wondering if a round pedestal table would be better? I guess I’m tired of always bumping into the corners of the table when I want to get by it, but maybe I’m just thinking the grass is greener on the round table side of the fence. =) What do you think?
We also have a high chair in there for the one year old and I do have to keep reminding myself that in a year or so, he won’t need it and we’ll have that space back. (We tried a high chair that attaches to the table, but that was more cumbersome.)
Anyway, thanks for any tips on large families in small spaces!
I grew up in an old house with a kitchen the 6 of us ate in every night; often there were several neighborhood kids there too, and yes, it was snug! My parents have an old oval table that has hinged “leaves” on either side; when the leaves are folded down, the table is a rectangle that can fit a chair on each side. When the leaves are open, it’s an oval and several chairs can fit on each rounded end. Make sense? It gave us enough room to eat every night (though we couldn’t open the fridge LOL), and then one of the leaves was put down during the day to make more room for moving around the table, and a chair or two was placed against the wall in a hallway. I think the high chair came out for meals and was tucked into the adjacent laundry room in between times, and I believe we kept an extra wooden folding chair in the pantry to be pulled out for seating too.
Blessings,
Aimee
I have no solutions… but feel your pain.
We are a family of 6, no dining room – and where the table fits, only 4 people can sit. The kids sit at the table to eat, and the adults eat elsewhere (my dh usually in the kitchen, I’m usually in the living room. (it is open concept, so we can all see each other) But I really don’t like it….
At the moment, my 2 step daughters, and 2 grandchildren are living here for a few weeks…. so some of the kids are at tables in the living room, and adults all over the place…… although on nice days my dh has the kids set up a table outside, and the bigger kids (4+ or 6+) eat outside!
I wonder how something like this could work for a family short on space but large on people:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20104718/
One side could be folded down during part of the day, or both could be folded to tuck it against a wall. Just brainstorming, I didn’t check the dimensions but it looked cool and I like the storage drawers.
There are 8 of us, and we have bar seating in the kitchen (for 7). LOL! We sort of weren’t “planning” to have 6 children.
Our kitchen is not large either, and our home is more than 30 years old. It used to be “eat-in” but woudln’t have accommodated a table for 8 anyway. We lost the “eat-in” when we renovated it and made the bar seating, but what we did was put a rectangular table in the adjoining den with benches on the sides and chairs on each end just like you. We for now have an extra chair on one end with a booster for our 2YO, but like you that won’t always be.
We love having the table for arts and crafts, games, etc. as well. Any way you could put a table in an adjoining room that would serve dual purposes, including eating on it?
We have a round table in our dining room (that is now a schoolroom b/c we never used it before), and I have to say it is tight with 4 people around it though it supposedly seats 6.
We have EXACTLY the situation you do – 6 people, small kitchen, table with 2 benches and I ALWAYS bump the edges when I get in and out! I don’t have any solutions for you….we searched and searched and that was the best we could do. I did consider putting a bar along the wall and all sitting there, but thought I’d miss the face time with the kids. And when we went to sell the house people would think we were weird. We considered a round/oval table but it just didn’t fit in our kitchen area. We measured, cut out brown paper to see what different sizes/shapes would look like in the kitchen because it’s hard for me to visualize ‘space’.
If you do come up with any good ideas, please let me know!
I think it’s a ‘grass is greener’ thing. I have an oval table, and I’m longing for a rectangular one with benches because with the oval table we find it hard to fit everyone on the curved ends. I’m feeding 6 kids under 7 (home daycare). The little ones can’t get their chairs close enough, because the chair legs bump into each other. So they kneel and lean forward. Someone is constantly slipping off the chair, and there are lots of crashes as everyone tries to get seated.
One thing that helped was getting the right high chairs. We have two high chairs, and I’ve found that the plastic ones from IKEA are fairly sleek and don’t take up as much footprint as my older, fancier high chair did. These ones only cost $25 each, and it was worth the cost to save a few inches of space.
Of course, my least favourite part of our space is that the previous owners hung extra kitchen cupboards over the table area, so that anyone over 8 sitting on that side has to lean forward as they stand up, or they’ll whack their heads on the underside of the cupboards.
Oh, to be able to design my dream house!
Joanne
Thanks for the responses! That really helps. I like the idea of cutting out a table in paper to see the size/how it would fit. Maybe what we do have now is the best for us. I can see how needing 6 chairs could be cumbersome. We’ve talked about adding a room to our house for this reason, but we probably couldn’t afford it until after the children are out of the house! Oh well. I really am grateful for our home and for the people who *crowd* it. =) Thanks for all of the suggestions/advice on how to help us fit.
Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
- The topic ‘OT: Large(er) families, small kitchen solution…please help!’ is closed to new replies.