Thanks Williamsem for your thoughts and rationale. You are right, DH and I have put enormous thought into this plan and maybe it is best just to take the seam and move on. I do think shortening the space between cooktop edge and prep sink edge by 6 inches would be missed in that spot as I see that space between cooktop and prep sink as such key prep space. On the other hand, taking 6 inches from the right of the cooktop could pose some safety issues. On Wednesday, I am going back to the granite show room to ask them to show me pictures of seams they have done. Maybe it is not that bad after all. I think a seam in quartz (which is what we have chosen) could be less noticeable compared to a busier granite. Unless I change the counter materials at the seating or elsewhere to avoid a seam and keep the length.... oh the first world pain of decisions! Carol

What are you putting on the island...cooktop or sink (please tell me sink........)? While it's less than ideal to put a sink or cooktop in an island, the lesser of two evils is the sink in the island. If you're putting the cooktop in the island & it's b/c you want to visit with people while cooking...remember this:70% of your time spent in a kitchen is Prepping 20% is spent cleaning up 10% is spent cookingSo, what does it make sense to do on the island if you want to spend most of your time visiting while working in the kitchen? Prep. The least sense? Cooking. Now, safety...cooking is the worst thing to do in an island (or peninsula) unless you have at least 24" of countertop behind & on each side of the cooktop. Yes, it's more than NKBA states for non-seating (NKBA is silent on seating...which might mean it's a "no-no"); but from experience and common sense, 24" is better. [Think about someone spreading homework or the newspaper out on the island while you're cooking. Think about the steam from boiling water drifting over to the people sitting there. Think about how far grease splatters. Think about someone walking by or even running by while you're cooking...carrying papers, backpack, etc....and not being careful where they are in relation to the cooking surface.] Hopefully, all this is moot & it's the sink in the island...(even then, if you have seating at the island strive for 18" b/w the faucet and edge of the seating overhang to minimize visitors being splashed; 15" will work, but 18" is better). **** As to prep.... Unlike others, my prep area is driven by where my sink & cooktop are, not where there's a view or social interaction. I find the easiest and most natural place to prep is b/w my prep sink & cooktop...and that faces a wall. That area has about 40" of workspace (not counting the peninsula). If I need more room, I find myself working on the other side of the cooktop where there's about 5' of workspace b/c of the corner, even though there's no sink there and, again, it's mostly facing a wall. I have a peninsula on the other side of the prep sink that's across from the refrigerator w/about 30" of space, so it could be a logical place for prep. I also have my cleanup sink in front of a big bay window and the refrigerator is on that same run with 51" b/w them. However, 9 times out of 10, I prep b/w my cooktop & prep sink...and I have no problems with it. It's not like I can't visit with others while working there. They can sit at the peninsula and I can glance over to the right at them while I work or I can glance over to the left to see what's going on in the FR. To be honest, when I'm prepping, I prefer to keep my eyes on what I'm doing since so much of my prep work involves knives... All of this leaves the peninsula free for the kids to do homework or work on projects, or for me to setup my laptop when I'm working from home. It leaves the cleanup sink run clear for cleaning up only. No more conflicts! Would I change the location of anything b/c of this? Except for adding a trash pullout in the prep are, I wouldn't change anything else. It works great for us! [Well, maybe I'd change the location of the TV to where I wanted it in the first place but my DH thought he knew better...that way my DH wouldn't keep moving the stool to the "U" so he can be really close to the TV while eating breakfast. I keep biting my tongue to keep from saying "I told you so!"]

This is somewhere around a scale, but I use the really crude paint program to do this - so its more like a group of thoughts. You have two big issues - perhaps I mean the architect has gifted you with them. They are traffic and the room sizes. Every kitchen with one than one doorway has cut thru traffic and its generally a problem. Just like a neighborhood road that accidentally connects to two major roads, someway through your kitchen will become an accidental highway. AND since your kitchen has a nice "run-around" (great room, breakfast, kitchen), for some quantity of years, it may also have a high speed lane. So one of the "jobs" of the kitchen plan is traffic control. With one possible exception, every plan with an island will fail at this job. The peninsula is a traffic control measure - sorta the speed bump of the kitchen - it keeps thru traffic channeled by the clean up area and mostly away from the cooktop - prep area. The possible island exception that I can think of is to do something like turn the outside wall into a bank of windows or doors and then so a solid wall of cabinets on the inside wall with a longer island. Move the doorway from the garage closer to the outside wall, put tall stuff (ref, oven, pantry) on the now longer wall where the pantry is shown. Do a cockpit kitchen with about a 42 inch aisle between the inner cabinets and the island, about a 42ish inch wide island top and a 48" aisle between the island and the newly windowed outer wall. A little wider on the aisle between the island and the window wall would be preferred. The second thing about the room sizes is you don't quite have enough room in the breakfast area for the size furniture shown while maintaining enough space around the table to be able to use all of the chairs. dh is an engineer and he started to question when I started quoting how much room we needed for the chairs in our new dining room design. Just to prove it, I had HIM sit in chairs and get in and out of chairs and see how far he needed (right to the suggested standards!). So, allow 24" beyond the table or counter edge for a seated person (using small scale furniture). But also allow a minimum of 32" from the edge to permit a person to become seated. If you need to cross behind a seated person, 36" is a squish by and 44" is a restaurant sized walk by except if carrying something (laundry basket, big platter, tray, bag of groceries) where 48" is better. These are clearances to a blank wall - or in your case, windows or sliders. If you have something back there instead - like an operable door, you need to add on for the door to open - so if there was an exterior 36" wide door, you'd need the minimum 24" to clear a seated person PLUS the entire 36" or 5 feet beyond the island edge. Which is the long way of saying 48" round table and an eleven foot wide room is a little tightish. You might want to consider something like a corner furniture arrangement using a banquette or benches to allow for multiple seating areas and a larger clearance behind the part that has chairs or stools. The 13' 8" wide kitchen is a little narrowish for two outer cabinet runs and an island and a major path. So, doing the math, that's 164 inches in total, minus 52 inches for the two outer cabinet runs (including the counter) leaving 112 inches in the center. Subtracting 84 inches (two 42" aisles) leaves 28" - the approximate size of a 24" cabinet with its counter overhangs. If you didn't have a traffic aisle, I'd shut up, but 42" is pretty tight for a traffic aisle that contains a dishwasher, ref, oven doors, etc as well as potentially multiple cooks and teenagers. So, if you can use something from this - cool. I don't know that it solves everything or anything.

If you will be prepping on the island, then I think the 15" deep cabinets to the counter will work. I have an 18" deep cabinet, and I don't like it--it's too deep, and I have to move things in the front to get to those in the back. You'll have 24" on the DW side, and about the same on the other side, if you count the drainboard. If you will be storing dishes in those uppers, you might want to put a drawer (or two) on the bottom, because if you take a stack of dishes out of the cabinet and set them on the counter below, you can't close the doors until you move the dishes. You could keep your flatware, cups, or smaller plates in the drawer/s, and then you could also open the cabinets if something was on the counter in front of them. Notice the drawer in breezygirl's kitchen: ETA another example: Two drawers in this example: