As with most remodeling projects, sometimes the plans change. The kitchen project at the special needs orphanage Global Partners in Life supports in China had a big change that took me by surprise when I saw it!
Initially, the plans were to move the door to the kitchen from the foyer to the living room. This would enable the cook to have a much more continuous workspace. Well, turns out there was a big problem with our plan. The wall where we wanted to relocate the door was made of solid cement. The time and amount of effort to put a large enough hole in this wall for a door was ridiculous. Thankfully someone had a good plan B!
The wonderful idea someone had was to enlarge the opening to the old door, which brought some much needed light into the kitchen. Also, the plan included an island, which gave them the counter space they needed. I wouldn’t have thought one this size would have fit, but it worked out very well. In the picture you can see the increased entrance to the kitchen. At the far end of the island is where we had planned to move the door.
From this view you can see that the island has some storage built into it, which was one of the main goals of the kitchen remodel – more storage. The plastic chairs you see are used when the children gather around the table for a meal or when they are doing a craft at the table in the living room.
The gentleman that does the cooking for the children tells me he likes this setup very much! That is great to hear from him, because he certainly spends a lot of time working to feed the children. I am very thankful we were able to help him and the children.