I have a hutch just like you're describing to the right of my dishwasher and sink. I use the glass wall cabinets to store all my dishes, glassware, and tea and coffee items and the drawers for cutlery, tupperware, plastic wrap, baggies, and all non-cooking dry goods (cereal, soup, tuna, etc.). The coffee maker and toaster will also live here.

Although it's the same color as the rest of my cabinetry, it has a different countertop (wood) from the rest (marble), and it will have corbels. Sorry these photos aren't great, because we're not done yet:

This was the inspiration:
{{!gwi}}

I'm not sure how a single wall cabinet attached to the side of your hutch area would look. Would you consider putting your mismatched glassware in a drawer in your hutch?

Good luck!

Erika

For uppers, you could flank the center glass cabs with solids, as I did. I think it still looks hutchy. Not sure how long of a space you have, but if you could incorporate the dw with a matching panel to make it look like a large bottom cab.....match it on the far left bottom with a real cabinet, and have center drawers? could that work? Or, maybe just the dw as bottom cab and long drawers to the left of it. mine isn't quite finished off yet, but here it is:

As soon as I started reading your post I thought of Erikanh's hutches in her kitchen...and then there she was!

Do you want that counter area to be open beneath the uppers, or would you consider something that comes down to the counter, but doesn't span over the dishwasher? You could have drawers on the lower half and/or have a door style that had a solid section at the bottom and glass at the top.

Oh, these are so pretty! I love that inspiration photo. Thanks!

I'd like the counter to be open--with those decorative arches (like being held up in the photo above) or maybe just open in the center with cabinets coming to the counter on either side. I want a very airy, light feel for my kitchen, so nothing that looks too built-in and heavy formal cabinetry.

do you have a picture or sketch of what you are talking about? how would it not span over the dishwasher? Would I just not have and upper cabinet directly to the left of the window?

thanks for all your help!

Jessie21 beat me to the punch! I like her suggestions. It will look more like a hutch if the upper and lower cabinets' outside edges match up on the ends. In your quick pic, the dw sticks out beyond the uppers. You did say this wasn't to scale so maybe it doesn't it your plan/mind's eye.How much space do you have for this hutch? Hijack ahead!! Ericanh, what did you decide to do with the height discrepancy in your counters?I hope things are moving ahead smoothly for you!
Good luck, twinkletoesmomma!

The area from the sink to doorway (to the left of where the cabinets are going) is about 75 inches.

The dishwasher is standard size.

Currently, the upper cabinet is directly over the top of the dishwasher. I don't know what I was thinking for the remodel. I just draw really bad in paintbrush. LOL

I meant that if you brought a hutch piece down to the counter, you wouldn't want it to extend so far that it was over the dishwasher, crowding your sink. This is an elevation of what I plan for our dish storage, only the hutch piece will be slightly shorter. I did this, because I didn't need so much counter that wouldn't be used as work space...From past experience I know it just collects 'stuff.'

I was thinking if you did something like that you could hang something decorative on the wall above the dishwasher...When I saw the thread recently on what people were hanging on their walls (art prints, etc.), I was wishing I'd left myself more blank wall.

Oh, I get it!

Would I need to not put a upper cabinet on the right side of the sink either to balance it all out?

If I didn't have the cabinets come all the way down and just use those arch things (what is the right name for those?), then should I really change the countertops? Would it look okay to have the same countertops as the rest of the kitchen?

I think it would look fine to have all the same countertops. I was thinking another option for you would be to use frosted glass so that you don't have to worry so much about everything inside being "display-worthy."

furletcity, I decided not to worry about the differing countertop heights, especially after morton5 showed me a photo from Architectural Digest of a hutch with a higher counter.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{!gwi}}

I meant whatever you hung on the wall could balance things out.

"arch things": I think you mean 'corbels' :-)

I agree with Erikanh that you wouldn't have to change counters. In fact, considering the fact that your dishwasher is there, I wouldn't.