I like Lavendar Lass' squared off kitchen with an island. I don't like that, in this picture, you lost the nice walk-in pantry, but you could regain some of this by extending the reach-in pantry into the area under the stairs. If you keep the original layout, definitely go with a pass-through between the kitchen and pantry. In general, I think those angled-counter-overlooking-greatroom kitchen layouts look stylish, but in reality they're not functional. The angles eat up your storage space, and the "walking space" is too little for an island, yet just a little too far from the other side of the kitchen to be practical. Also, LL's plan gives you a decent amount of space in the single eating area. I would not do doors in the eating area. To use them, you'd have to squeeze by the table. Instead, plan one exterior door on the right side /back wall of the great room -- that makes it easy to use for both the greatroom and the kitchen/dining area. I agree that carrying laundry in the original plan would've been a chore. It's better in Lavendar Lass' plan. Yes, the kids' laundry must go through the kitchen, but it must go through the "pantry path", not through the work triangle. Acceptable. No fireplace? Since the great room is rather long and deep (and, thus, prone to darkness), I'd put the fireplace on the wall shared between the master and the greatroom. And I'd go with more windows on that back wall. Master: Single closet? Double closet? Personal preference. No difference in efficiency. Your sink area is very minimal to support two sinks. I like a previous poster's suggestion to flip the bedroom/bath so that you'd have access to the back yard . . . but that would make for odd windows in the front of the house. Secondary bedrooms -- all nice, and the bathroom is nicely place for the first two bedrooms . . . but the third bedroom occupant must walk farther. If one ends up as an office, that would be it. I do not like LL's second drawing. Yes, I like keeping the walk-in pantry and direct access to that pantry, but two clipped corners make the kitchen too small, AND still maintains a major traffic pattern right through the kitchen. No, LL's first drawing was great -- if your husband thinks the island is too big, slim it down a bit. You don't have to use every bit of space you have; in fact, if you look at the magazine pictures we all like, you'll notice that few of them use minimal walkway space. We react positively to wider spaces. I do like that stainless steel stove in a corner picture . . . but what a space hog.

Hi all. I have spend weeks finalizing, and have taken into consideration all of your feedback, and feel that this is the best kitchen layout possible. Your comments - both directly here and as advice on other pages --- have been PRICELESS! We are now debating the following: 1. The kitchen layout is quite final! But we still may have a few inches to work with on certain cabinets, hoping the cabinet seller will assist. No need for a CKD? 2. Island layout: more seating or cabinets? Beverage fridge? 3. After much discussion, the microwave is undercounter on the island. Good? 4. Cabinet Brands: Which is semi-healthy, no formaldehyde but is quality and reasonably priced? - CrownPoint [direct :) ] - Breath Easy [from Green Depot in NY] - Tedd Wood [from Barron Kitchens in Gaithersburg] - Ecofriendly line from Executive Cabinets [from Amicus Green Building in Kensington] - KountryKraft [from an independent designer, love her, maybe not the cabinet brand] Comments on the healthy cabinets BRAND and the final LAYOUT are appreciated. Thanks experts! More to come!

I'm concerned that you are going to find that your deep drawers under the baking center aren't big enough for what you want to put in them. With our 36" high counters and frameless cabinets, we have a bit over 28" of interior height in the boxes - the rest of the 36" is toe kick, cabinet box top and bottom and counter thickness. With 30", you will have about 22" to play - or less if you have framed. Your picture shows 3 equal size drawers - that means 7 or maybe 7.5" drawer face height. It varies a bit depending on the exact drawer construction, but interior drawer height will be about an inch less than that making your deep drawers about 6" deep. We have an 18" wide drawer stack for baking supplies. Our flour and sugar drawer interior is 10" high and 15" wide (those pesky cabinet box and drawer sides take up the rest). We decided on that height after measuring convenient flour storage containers. At that size it can hold a container with the sugars and 2 5-lb flour containers and a few smaller bags and boxes or 1 5-lb flour container and more smaller bags and boxes. We have ended up doing the latter. Our bread flour (because challah gets made every week) is stored there along with corn meal, cocoa, flax seed and some specialty flours. All purpose and whole wheat have to be fetched from the pantry. I wouldn't want to go any smaller than that. BTW, that is in our bottom drawer - since the containers are mostly tall, it requires less bending to get them than having small stuff where you need to reach to the bottom of the drawer. A slightly shallower drawer (7" drawer front) holds other baking supplies like baking powder, baking soda, etc. A much shallower drawer can hold a lot of the utensils. Our main pot and pan drawers are about as deep as our flour drawer. One 36" x 11" (drawer front dimensions - interior about 33" by 10") drawer holds a pretty complete set of everyday pots and pans (we have one for milk and one for meat plus a couple of smaller drawers for parve). Therefore, rather than having three drawers about the same height, I'd suggest a deep bottom drawer (10" interior depth at least), a medium size (~6" interior) middle drawer and a shallow top drawer. That's if you are going frameless and your cabinet construction is similar to ours. For framed, it might be best to go with just 2 drawers per stack. One use for the 9" cabinet by the range would be storing flat pan items such as cookie sheets, baking sheets and cooling racks. If they are half sheet size laying on their sides, that would take up the bottom 13" of the cabinet. We have ours in a 12" wide cabinet and 6 of each plus a couple of muffin tins take up the bottom. We have a pull out for other cake pans above. It might be tight to do 2 levels of 13" high flat pan storage. If you had a fixed shelf in just the right spot, you could do it. Our cooling racks and muffin tins are less then 13". You might do the bigger sheet pans on the bottom and smaller ones like muffin tins above. Cutting board storage is another possible use. Our food processor accessories are in a custom insert that my husband made for a pull out in another 12" cabinet. I don't think they would fit in a pullout in a 9" cabinet, but maybe if yours is smaller they might. 16" is very deep for a bookshelf. Is the cabinet to the right of the range all bookshelf? We have 12" to the left of our rangetop. It isn't ideal, but it works for us. What is the rationale for wanting at least 16" to the side of the range "for safety" when 4" at the back of the range is okay with you? We have an island rangetop and really like having the rangetop and prep sink on our island. But I'd rather have a foot of counter behind the range. If you had the space, you could do 12" deep cabinets on the back of the range. Rather than looking for cabinet companies with nifty inserts, I'd look for how they use the space in the cabinet - how much interior space do you get for a particular size cabinet or drawer. I think that the microwave will be really difficult to use where you show it. It will have to be accessed from the side making the panel difficult to read. Perhaps you are taller than me, but you mentioned kiddie cups so I assume that you have kids. That height and sideways access will make it difficult for your kids to use when they are old enough. I'd put it under the cabinet to the right of the fridge in the snack area. You might at least have an outlet there for it in case you find the other location inconvenient. The open shelves to the left of the sink would bother me. They will interfere with use of the counter to the left of the sink and you have minimal counter to the right of the sink. I'd suggest getting rid of them or doing only one shelf for more clearance between the counter and the shelf.

Hi Lavendar_lass - thanks for your feedback. I am not 100% sure what the plan for the kitchen "island" will be. I don't think it will be a true island because I need upper cabinet space. I also like a bit of separation between the kitchen and living area. What I am thinking right now is that it will be a wall, but there will be a "doorway" (with no door) leading to the living room if you turn directly to the left past the laundry room. The wall will continue on and then likely become some type of low wall/bar about halfway down. Does that make sense? My thought is that I can have about half of the length of the "island" as a wall for upper cabinets and then the other half will be a lower wall to create an open feel. I'm not sure if I will have stools at the low wall/bar portion. It will probably depend on if I have enough width in the space alotted. I have a meeting on Monday to show my drawings to the builder and get his feedback. If we are both satisfied, we will then work with the draftsman.