I have two copper fondue sets that I always found a pain to light up. A few months ago, we purchased an electric metal one and it's worked great! I'd recommend an electric one over the others any day.

it will be easy to loose things in the back. We put a full depth cabinet above our fridge and turned the doors into drawers (IKEA). This way, accessing the back is as easy as accessing the front. I personally like the look of storing cookie trays, cutting boards, etc above ovens and fridges, but we didnÂt need that type of storage in our kitchen, and these drawers work really well. We kept our liquor bottles up there and like I said  getting to the bottle in the back was no more difficult than getting to the bottle in front.

My answer to your question depends on how other transitions between rooms are handled in your house. In modern designs, they are often left as just drywall, as in your picture. In older homes, they would be fitted out with moldings just like a door jamb would. Then when I saw the second picture, looking into your eating space from the kitchen, it appears that the hutch cabinet is extending past the opening between the rooms, extending into the dining area. If you trim the opening out with casing, it will look like you made an error in designing that hutch. It left the kitchen and extended into the next room. Rather than have that be suggested, I would leave the opening as it is, and pretend it is not there! In your first photo, since we do not see the left side of the opening, it looks just like the right side of "an archway between rooms," as you called it in the photo of the traditional kitchen in San Fransisco. I think that the wall on the right side is too wide for it to feel just like a support for a header. It does feel like a real wall and gives the impression that it is an opening between two rooms. Now that I look at it, would you consider changing the hutch cabinet so that it does end in the kitchen? I may be seeing it incorrectly with just the two pictures I have seen, but if it were my house, it would drive me nuts to see the hutch extend under the archway into the next room. JMHO and no criticism aimed at you. Here is what I did in my last house where there was an opening between the kitchen (the photo you see below, with microwave) and a former porch, where I had raised the floor on the back one-third and had made a galley-style pantry. I only had a 45" wide platform for the pantry, so I made the landing at the top of the stairs as big as possible and that extra floorspace became the standing and walking area for a small work station that was at a 90 degree angle to the rest of the kitchen. The microwave cabinet is entirely in the kitchen, though. Now click on my link below. Behind the microwave, see the counter? The right wall that is tiled with backsplash tiles and the wall behind the maple knick-knack shelf is the wall that supports the header you see behind the top of the microwave cabinet. There are two other knick-knack shelves in the kitchen, showing off my McCoy pot collection, so using another shelf as a transition between these two rooms made sense to us. We just kind of wrapped that side of the archway between the two rooms with cabinetry. You could do the same in your kitchen. Have your carpenter do some surgery on the Hutch, so that it ends just before it would go under the archway into the dining area. Then have him build a shallow (we did the microwave cab 18 inches deep) hutch facing into the dining area. It will back up to the side of the hutch in the kitchen and fill the space under the archway, extending a foot or so into the dining area, just like the hutch probably does now. It can have glass doors on the top and hold glassware, then hold dishes on the bottom, maybe desert plates or a chocolate fondue pot that you use only occasionally. You won't actually lose much kitchen storage, you can carry the cabinetry here to the top of the archway in the dining area and to the ceiling in the kitchen. It will no longer look like the hutch section is trying to make a get-away, inching towards that back door! From the one angle I see in the photo, it almost looks like the hutch could be split down the middle and the one side turned 90 degrees to accomplish what I am talking about. You can probably reuse the doors, just have the carpenter cut the cabinet and add a new back, then build a case for the section that faces the dining area. Am I the only one who is bothered by the hutch going between two rooms? Here is a link that might be useful: How we handled a change from one room to another within one kitchen

Thanks Deb and rhome, I am not really having fun right now, sorry. I would be, without a question, but I am not finding my "perfect" layout and therefore we can't move on with the project. In the meantime we (or I because DH is "fine with any layout you pick") are under pressure to get it done and let the architect work on the changes to our original plan to accomodate it. Anyway, after reading about Buehl's troubles with the ventilation, we decided to check with the contractor right away before selecting the location for the range. Found out that our best choice would be to reuse the existing ductwork which means the range has to be againt the "back" wall. This leads us most likely to the drawing posted by rhome410 above. Now I am trying to visualize the flow. Refrigerator to prep.sink to range to either of the eating areas works fine. Island seating is close to the fridge which is great. A couple of things I am not sure about. How would it work for more than one cook? I think when I am cooking with a child or whoever, the idea is to socialize too, so both people would have to be somehow at the island. I guess this is possible if one person is using the oven or making a salad while the other is using the range. But I don't think the main sink would be used for cooking that often so it would be mostly dedicated to the cleanup. On one side, i really like not having a big sink on the island and having that "clean-up zone" clearly defined. But on the other hand, I am having second thoughts because I see a couple of issues: a) The "flow of dishes". The dishes are on the other end from the island seating and the fridge, so if one of my two kids wants a glass of milk, they have to get a glass from that cabinet, get the milk from the fridge, then after they are done, they need to put the milk back and then walk to the main sink with the glass. I am wondering if they would do that or if their dishes would always end up in the prep sink. b)The main sink is close to the dining table so when we change plates during a dinner party, the dirty plates are right there, almost in plain view. I was hoping to keep this area "pretty looking". My other option would be to switch the sinks or just have a sink-and-a-half in the island, but I think the seating would have to be along the back side then, which is a little crowded in the walkway and also would eliminate the raised cabinet which again infringes on my idea of no mess being visible from the dining area. Bar seating would solve the last one but we don't want it because of the kids and older relatives coming to visit. So I am stuck again. I hope this post isn't too long to read through. Let me know what you think and what would your choice be? annab6