Oh, yes, I wasn't following the description that well, and was looking at the labels on the pictures. The dairy sink being the separate one makes sense. I also totally missed the 24" dishwasher on the plan. So sorry about that! Ignore entirely what I said about it. That's why I ask questions. Besides learning more, I also get my mistakes fixed. :) And it helps my approach to know that your rabbi requires separate dishwashers. That pretty well points to the other requirements you have. :) One really important piece of advice: Have a backup plan for Pesach. Unless you're much further along than you sound like, you're in the zone of if everything goes right. Make a plan for what to do if things go wrong and you're not in your new kitchen in time. At least if the sinks and appliances are in on time you'll be able to cook ahead. :) Re the overhang (which doesn't show at all on my screen), 30cm should be adequate. It's a little tight, for long term comfort, but so is the width. For squeezing in a few kids for breakfast or baking it should be fine. OTOH, I have many fond memories of my mother bringing the mixer to the table so that we could make hamentashen, cookies and other fun things. If you're kneading by hand, you might like doing that on the table better than the counter unless you're tall. My optimal height for kneading or rolling is 33", which is halfway between the standards for table and counter. I figured out, however, since I have a carpet under the table and don't want to bake there, that I could use my counter by wearing tall clogs, rather than having a special, lower, baking counter. :) Can you explain more about how the range and window will interact? Do you ever kasher the oven for dairy baking? Would you ever consider getting a wall oven rather than the toaster oven? I know there are budget limitations, but sometimes you can build what works for you now then allows for an easy transition to a planned change in the future. The big problem with the toaster oven niche is the heat. Toaster ovens aren't usually well insulated and they throw a lot of heat around all sides. OTOH, if you have a niche big enough to transition into an oven later, it should work well for either. I think the whole niche should be lined with tile for it to be safe for the toaster oven. That's five sides. The whole plan makes much more sense to me now that I know that the L is the dairy zone. If you had enough produce for that to be your parve zone, I'd think you had a farm and could process it outside. :) Yes, the whole thing makes a lot more sense now. I can definitely see all the baking and dairy meals in that area. I just think you're going to need a bigger dairy oven as your kids get bigger. Teenagers are a lot like goats--they'll eat anything and everything and leave a wasteland behind them. Is the dairy cooktop induction? The boil time would be great for pasta, and it's really wonderful to cook on in general. You can melt chocolate or make toffee (matzah toffee!!! major crowd pleaser) without a double boiler on induction, for instance. The biggest issues I see for the perimeter flow are the path from the stove to the dining room, which I assume is outside the bottom opening, since the other is the laundry. (Do you have a kitchen porch? Or is that the laundry? Or does it open off the laundry?) I'm thinking the straight path is going to be handing things across the peninsula, which isn't a good idea, dripwise. I'm not understanding the prep flow, though. If the parve sink is on the right, then it's the parve counter that runs by the stove? And if you wash meat on the meat side, and then carry it through the parve zone, does that make sense? Or do I have it backwards still? Regarding pantry size, the amount of pantry storage you need is just a bit more than your cabinet will hold. Do you have a makolet (sp?) on your block? That relieves a lot of the storage pressure. 60 cm really isn't enough for a family of 8 for American style, shop once a week, storage. If you can send a kid out for a can of whatever six days a week, it's a lot easier. The best way to know if it'll do is to start with the must haves. If your baking supplies will be in the pantry, for instance, group them together as if they're on the right sized shelves and see how much room they take up. Do the same with all your staples. Since you won't have drawers (roll out tray shelves), consider collecting boxes that will fit that you can slide in and out...but remember, either one takes up some of the shelf width. One way to gain more room in the kitchen is to find some space elsewhere for the cookbooks. You can copy out your most used recipes and put them in a single binder. Keeps your books clean, too. :) That takes a lot less space than all the books. I'm not assuming you have room for them elsewhere, but if you can find it, you'll have more pantry space. I think you've done a good job of squeezing things in, covering your requirements and staying on budget. I keep thinking of ways to change things around, but they start to compromise that. Regarding the backsplash and corner by the range, tile before you put the range in, including behind the riser. Just let it be what it is. It'll be much more comfortable to cook with the range away from the wall, even if it's just by that little bit, the tray cabinet is good to have, and it gives you a place for a spoon rest and a trivet on the far side. As to colors, the Formica sounds like a good color. I was asking about the floor because that ubiquitous stone (agreed about the ignorable factor) is nice and light and should look fine with the color you're describing which is more toward a medium value. I think you could go with either the black or the blizzard white (very low speckle factor) Caesarstone and have it look good. The black will be snazzier, but show more streaks. OTOH, the white can yellow over time and exposure to sunlight. It sounds like it will be attractive, warm and pleasant. Too much "character" in a small, busy kitchen can be overwhelming. Your neutrals should have enough variation not to be boring, and enough boring to be calm amid the chaos.

thanks for the feedback. funkycamper, thanks, very helpful to have the clearance info. We need to select our dining table and chairs to figure out how much space we'll have between. I think the sink will be around 32-35 inches -- still not sure as we're investigating having an integrated sink. We're re-purposing the original birch cabinets in a friend's home, so they will get new life after being refinished. We're re-purposing everything we can in this home -- as much as we have a love/hate relationship with The Cabinets That Will Not Open, we would not allow them to see the inside of a dumpster. oldbat2be, camelot years, love it! Thanks for your suggestions. We're excited to make this space more functional for our family. I like your idea for eliminating the low wall for plumbing -- I need to talk to our architect about what the plumbing requirements are and whether we can do that. It would be great to gain more storage. Along those lines, I drew up a very rough cabinet design. The current layout would have no upper cabinets on the wall with the range/hood -- just open shelving, which would be high and likely only for decorative items: Side view Obviously with this design we are sacrificing storage in order to achieve a minimalist look. But we'll have plenty of food storage with the 48 in pantry and a larger fridge, which is the main issue we have now. We would have to be very economical with what we have in our kitchen, which is fine because we don't have a lot of stuff. Our dishware would be in a lower drawer, next to the fridge. Glassware would be on the open shelf near the fridge. Cookware can go in the drawers under the cook top. I think we'd be ok with storage, but would welcome input from others to hear if we're too light on storage.

Thank you everyone! I have given everyone's ideas and suggestions a lot of thought. I'm grateful for the support of possibly going with DH's favourite plan, even though it's very unorthodox. I'm so grateful to you guys for giving me so many ideas and working within the oddness of this room. I really like sena01's idea of running the stairs in both directions, and I've combined that with Lavender_lass's island idea and come up with this: (thank you to you both for the continued help!): The island could having perching for 2 stools, space for a shallow cabinet facing the pantry and also book shelving running along the sitting room side. What I really like about this plan is that the stairs (which rebunky correctly pointed out are dangerous on the diagonal angle) are straight, the range/cooktop area could create a focal point, the fireplace can be viewed from the table and also I can expand the table with the leaves for those times we have houseguests, which is a nice bonus. My only concern about this plan is will I use the island for counter space? Or will it just sit empty unless we have it set up for guests, appies etc (which is not a regular occurrence). As soon as I drew this out, I realized this plan would work better with a range and get rid of the wall ovens for extra counter space. We'll see how much of a fit DH throws over that. -jlc712 - thank you for the drawing and your feedback! A KD actually drew up a plan just like that, but we eliminated it because it had quite a bit less storage than we have now, which we weren't comfortable with. -sena01, thank you for the 3D rendering! I totally see what you mean now. I hadn't thought to extend that peninsula further than the fridge on the other side. Very interesting thought. This is a good compromise if I lose the cabinet run by the pantry in order to have stairs in both directions. This is very helpful, thank you. -Jillius - you have such a talent for seeing a space in a totally new light. Thank you so much for the radical and amazing plan. I will admit that it got my heart beating faster! The more I think about it, the more I would rather go with that plan than the Plan D I have been discussing in this post. I agree that it uses the room in a more logical way. I could even add a gas fireplace (no idea on cost!) over in the sitting area, where the garden window is now, and add windows on either side. I'm going to show this to DH and we will discuss how we feel about going for a huge change. If money was no object, I really think I'd be on board right now. -llucy - You're right that I haven't addressed the uppers at all. It's because I'm so overwhelmed at the footprint, I figured I'd get that nailed down before I confuse myself more! One thing is for sure, I would love (even a small!) prep area that doesn't have uppers in my face. I have been giving a lot of thought to what you wrote about cooktop vs range and how that affects counter space. Thank you for that. -rebunky - you are completely right about the diagonal stairs being dangerous. Whenever we have someone come over who isn't used to the house, we have to warn them about the stairs :( Thanks for your encouragement and for understanding that we only want to make a change if it's going to be much better so as to be worth it! -lavender_lass, thank you so much for coming back for another look at my layout dilemma. I'm so appreciative of your help and I feel better just knowing you've had a look! About the stairs: rebunky was wondering if it might be kinda tight with the arm chair in the way of the stairs. I wanted you guys to see what it would look like. I moved my dog's anti-slip carpet to the line of where the bottom of the new stairs would be. Even in this new plan with the island, I'm hoping it will look okay because that's basically what I have now. What do you guys think? Does this look like an acceptable entry to the room?

I am going to try clearing my history but have to tell you I'm nervous doing this - there have been people lost in space that tried that a while back! Decorating conversations has disappeared for me totally - I try getting there through my bookmark or from the link on the regular gw decorating page and it says No Posts Found. Wish me luck.