Thank you SO much everyone! It seems most of you are for the CD fridge. We have a small fridge - the kind found in dorm rooms (not tall and skinny but short) which we could also use but there's no practical space to put that in besides the basement. But our kids aren't allowed to drink soda, my husband keeps only a few beers in the fridge at a time, and I keep my diet cokes in room-temp storage so I don't even know what would go in the small fridge. I'm certainly not willing to keep food down there or regular drinks like juice/milk so I really do think we'd be stuck w/ the CD fridge for most of it. I could keep our old fridge in the basement for holiday meals as well as all the drinks we presently keep in room-temp storage, however I was upgrading to an energy-efficient fridge! why would I want to have the new fridge AND the old fridge, considering that?! Going up in 3 cubic feet in size on for the fridge portion (free food), when I picture gigantic dice of a cubic foot each in size, that seems like a decent (not great, but decent) improvement... (I hope)! Here's what I'm too dumb to figure out: if the fresh food portion of a fridge includes the space in the door/doors - regardless of whether it's a 1990 standard fridge or the new french door kinds - how does that translate based on the new layout? In other words my current old fridge has very little door space; it has only one door and its shelves for condiments and butter. The new fridges have space for at least 2 gallons of milk in the door, but less space for condiments and yet still some space for them. So if the milk will no longer be on the main shelves but in the door, does that mean I'll get all that added space on the main shelves + the additional 3 cubic feet of fridge space? Anyway...thanks for helping me figure all this stuff out!

plan 1 with changes; the 42 in walkway on the sink side of island should increase to 48 in minimum... Lengthen the entire island section. the 5ft between bar stools and pantry area can accomodate some island real estate-move the end into that space a little more-possibly curve that end section-semi circle or the like.Then as you move back toward the dining room part of your space I would decrease the depth a bit and go with one level-counter height-and elongate the look and extend the island into that space near the dining area.Seems to be a corridor kitchen-the bar stool end is island-like-but your core area is not really an island-able space. I would play up the corridor aspect by creating this more galley approach -keep the walkway open and not put the frig over on the left as in plan 2. could be a great open look with a contemporary vibe.

The lights are all 3-3/4"; Lightolier 2000LV. I like the smaller aperture of the recessed cans, but to be honest these were chosen by our architect and not us. This was one of those things where I figured a recessed can was a recessed can and I didn't need to do the research myself. In retrospect, if I were choosing, I'd go with something the same size, but a can that (a) didn't have an MR-16 lightbulb -- they are a pain in the @(# to change, and (b) was a wider floodlight so the pool of light spread out more. But I'm really nitpicking when I say this. One more factor -- these are halogen. I'm kinda nuts about wanting halogen lights rather than LED. You're seeing correctly; one set of cans is centered in the aisle. The row of lights that's at the edge of the counters was something I added during the renovation because I'm very nuts about lighting. I like a kitchen where you don't have to turn on the under-counter lights in order to cook at night. To me, adding those cans made a huge difference, but your mileage may vary. I'm sure some people would be perfectly content with just the aisle lights -- perhaps particularly if they had a wider flood angle. We considered the Thermador built-in as well. As I recall it didn't have the capability to have split shelves (so... less flexible interior), and also had the compressor on the bottom, so it was high, like the Liebherr. There was something else regarding the door shelves that we didn't like, as I recall... perhaps they weren't adjustable, either, or the opaque bottom... but it's a well-reviewed fridge, to be sure. These choices are so personal!

I hope that those who read this thread in the future learn the important lesson that I would guess the OP has learned -- the cost in time to fix an error at the end of a project relative to that which could have been applied at the beginning of a project to avoid the error is a multiple greater than one. Believe no one! Measure available space at least twice in different ways at different heights. (Include measurements that reveal whether walls are actually perpendicular or parallel.) Take exact measurements and review installation guides to make drawings to prove that the parts measurements add up to the whole. Think about every moving part's range of motion from the point of view of the cook and with a view toward potential interferences between parts. And as aptly illustrated here, use filler strips not only to allow room for door openings, but to correct errors in measurement and to deal with wall imperfections. The filler strip is the patch that fills the gap you didn't know you had. The filler strip should be planned to be wider than necessary to allow material removal when the gap you knew about is narrower than you thought.