Too small to see. But the pic looks more like a public diner than a house where conversations are held. The seating is completely away from the action and would be pretty uncomfortable sitting birds on a wire. You are a zillion miles from the cooks and can't hold conversations with each other unless you sit sideways. And there's nothing to actually see at that island either. It's useless. A kitchen table would be so much friendlier and more comfortable.

HS -- I respect your opinion. The photo is an idea I saw and I do agree. This is a blow up of what we are planning. There will be a raised bar for guests to chat and sit on small saddle stools (12 inch bar -- not for eating). There will be a kitchen table attached to a marble baking island. Family style eating for up to 5.

Do you have live in help? Or have in help when you entertain? I'm trying to figure out the logic behind such fragmentation of functionality. It would make sense for a group of caterers to have all of these individual stations, or if you had a couple of live in cooks with dedicated different jobs like pastry chef and sous chef.

But for an ordinary family, with 1.5 cooks, it's a logistical nightmare that will leave you exhausted from all of the extra traveling through the space. It's much too large to be efficient is the first thing. And the zones are scattered all over the place.

Is what you are calling a sculley just a fancy pantry, or are you expecting the cleanup and dish storage to happen there?

HS -- Again. Thank you. Do you have a better idea for the space?

No live in help. Occasionally cater dinners. I am envisioning that much of the time, the triangle will be the range, island sink, island trash, island 1 drawer dish drawer. Cooking tools, knives, etc will be near the range. Yes, plates, glasses will have to travel a bit as it looks like those will end up in drawers near the window sink and a cabinet on the wall left of the bank of windows. When we entertain, guests can bring dishes, glasses, etc to the window sink and that dishwasher.

The "scullery" is the pantry. Sorry. It will house a freezer, shelves for dry goods, a wall for pots and skillets, food processor, larger gadgets (blender for example), and extra occasional dishes, glasses, and platters. We both work a lot -- so every 3-4 weekends, we make a lot of prep work and whole meals and freeze, so we can get home and have healthy dinners in 20 minutes. For example, tonight we had mushroom risotto. We made 6 batches of the mushroom portion and froze awhile ago, so all we had to do was make the rice and then add the mushroom portion.

We discussed leaving the window side just floor to ceiling windows, but figured having the extra sink and dishwasher would be nice and were concerned it would be too big a space to not fill with something.... We have explored U shapes, but just didn't find anything that looked better.

The marble top of the kitchen table will be for baking -- triangle will be frig, marble island, range oven, and probably island cooking sink for clean up unless someone is cooking. I hope a mixer lift will fit on one side and a microwave on the other side of the island portion and baking tools will fit in the island drawers.

This post was edited by nightowlrn on Wed, Feb 5, 14 at 21:53

The space, which is inclusive of the pantry, kitchen, and dining area is 400 sf - basically 24x17. To give the space some perspective, the architect's original plan was 499 sf: a 11x11 (121 sf) breakfast room, a 9x7 (63 sf) pantry, and a 21x 15 (315) u-shape kitchen. The pantry blocked sunlight, the breakfast room blocked the backyard access, and the kitchen had mud room traffic going from the garage, across the prep area, to get to the frig....

Right now, I'd think about swapping the seating space with the kitchen. It's too small, and the kitchen is too big. But that would leave the DR too far from the food production space. But then it seems that you have two mud rooms? So maybe eliminate the second mud room and swap office and dining room?

I'm afraid that though that the space needs to be redesigned as a whole if it is to successfully perform the functions that you want to happen in it. The relationships and flow between the rooms is fine, other than the wasted space in the hall from the foyer and the duplicate mud room. It's just the scale of the rooms is skewed. The kitchen could be half it's size and work much much better. In fact, I thought of doling outmore room to thescullery and having it just be a working kitchen and the remaining space be the ''formal'' kitchen, like in several Asian cultures, but that would interfere with some of the traffic flow I think.

I agree the kitchen seems large and I wouldn't be asking for other view points if I was sure of this. But, when I did the sf of the architect's plan of the elements of that kitchen - pantry, casual kitchen eating - this is 20% fewer sf.... A popular plan here is Elberton Way -- that is about 400 sf Kitchen, eating area, and pantry - that is about the same as this plan's spaces.

This is the closest we have come to checking off all the boxes. I am very happy to see ideas because we have run out of them. We want access to the back yard from the laundry room, access to the back yard from the living areas, a first floor master, a 3 car garage because we cannot have a shed, a large pantry because this is an aging in place house and I don't want to be going to the basement or climbing to high shelves in 15 years, a kitchen we can totally play in, a DR off the kitchen to enjoy our family and friends in an area free of kitchen sights and with controlled lighting, an office because we both work from home often. Our kids cook with us when they visit, we play cards in the kitchen, we cook with our friends, we entertain a lot in the back yard, we have dogs that need to be contained off the mud room. Wah, Wah, Wah ....

I am not complaining -- I am at peace with this -- unless someone has a brilliant idea that checks all the boxes and fits in the footprint we have.

I'm no expert but I do love to cook and spend a lot of time in the kitchen so thought I'd chime in with my thoughts - feel free to ignore them!

I think along the wall by the patio can't be part of your main kitchen space. It's too far removed. If it were me I'd be tempted to make it into a bar probably (not necessarily with seating, in fact almost certainly without). I mention this as you said that you like to entertain and this gives the area of the room purpose and some definition without impacting the kitchen design.

The other things that jump out to me are the two islands and the entrance to the panty/scullery. I'd move the entrance to the pantry all the way to the left (right to where the kitchen area starts). Where it is now is ruining your work triangle; it breaks up your prep space into areas much smaller than they need to be for the size kitchen you have, and it also means the fridge is a long way from the cooker and the prep space. Moving the pantry entrance won't change the functionality of accessing the pantry much at all but will make a much larger positive impact on your working area.

As for the two islands, I'd combine them into a single unit. I'd make one side of it a large circle (or similar) to allow 4-6 people to sit at it comfortably and would act as the kitchen table. I'd put it at seating height rather than bar height. The multiple levels of the island would also help to break up the fact it will be a large space. There'd be plenty of space on the working side of the island to have the butcher block and baking spaces and you'd be much less isolated from guests whilst entertaining. You'd also have space for two dishwashers if you wanted.

Hope that gives you some food for thought if nothing else.

Good luck!

Do you have a b&w line drawing of the space(s)? It's easier to manipulate with some cut and paste ideas that way. Think that the key to making the overall layout work is to somehow make the kitchen smaller by creating some other secondary space out of it, like the bar that cbink suggested, or even a ''working scullery''. But I need to be able to do some trial and error moving stuff around.

And does the office need to be connected to the entry of the house? As in it will receive guests/patients and need access to restroom facilities. ( If that's the case, the half bath there won't meet ADA requirements qnd would need to be redesigned.) If it just needs to be ''away'' for quietness, then maybe things can shift a bit within the constraints of the footprint.

But, I have to say that with a home that has so much space restricted from external setbacks, thre is a ton of wasted space in the home that has to be built, heated, and cleaned. And that doesn't pull it's weight. I would personally put things on hold until that was sorted out with the architect. I don't think he has a good feel or the space and your needs. Sometimes starting over is better than paying a premium to build too much awkward space in the wrong places.

This post was edited by hollysprings on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 8:10

I think, especially at old age, it's important to have a sink on the range counter, so one wouldn't have to carry prepped food or heavy pots across an aisle. Therefore, whether you keep this plan or not, I'd suggest a peninsula for prep.

Do you think this could work for you?

I think peninsula would make prep and cleanup more open to each other. With this arrangement, maybe you can have both DW's on the cleanup counter. I added an UC beverage fridge at the DR end of the cleanup wall and moved the main fridge towards the FR. So pantry and a fridge can be accessed from both DR and FR sides. More distance from the mudroom to the main fridge when bringing in groceries,. but since you'd have things to store in the pantry anyway, going through there to reach the fridge wouldn't make a huge difference imo.