The travel distances in the kitchen are excessive and inefficient. You have created too many work counters too far apart for one person. I find your comment intriguing. You are clear in conveying the gist of your opinion but you've completely left out any reference to WHY you hold this opinion. Why are the travel distances in an 8x12 open space excessive and inefficient? Is there a kitchen designer's study which suggesst kitchen designers limit the point to point travel to less than 12'? Is that what you're basing your opinion on? As for the inefficiency, here too I'm lost. Efficiency is a concept related to productivity, at least when it refers to human labor. Most of the labor in a kitchen involves either work at the sink, fridge or stove. This kitchen design minimizes travel between these fixtures. To the right of the stove is 5'6" of counter space before the sink interupts the work space. Within easy reach of the fridge are two counters upon which I can place items removed from the fridge. In terms of labor productivity I think that the kitchen works efficiently. What are you seeing that I'm missing? On the side of the kitchen opposite the work triangle is the dishwasher and plenty of uninteruptted counterspace. This counterspace has a grain mill at the end, it allows for baking to take place without intruding on the work triangle, it allows for me to place 60 canning jars without worrying about crowding, it allows me to place any gadgets that I decide I simply must have. Now perhaps you're concluding that the space is being inefficiently used because it's not being used as centrally or as frequently as the space within the work triangle and if so, yes, I'll cop to that, it's not, but if this is the line of your criticism, then it should be the case that every kitchen that incorporates space outside of a work triangle is using space inefficiently. Rather than me guessing WHY you reach your conclusion it would help me to have you TELL me WHY. What would help me even more is a suggestion from you on what I should do differently. That would be golden. A statement that the layout is inefficient and excessive doesn't help me much at all. A better configuration is a double loaded work area with support elements either side like a pantry or pastry station that you would not use as often as the central area and appliances. What is a "double loaded work area" and how would 1 person use this work area efficiently? Other than the bar sink I have located in the area outside of the triangle, what else, specifically would you suggest be included to make my time in the kitchen proceed more efficiently? If you think the basic design, a G-Kitchen, is beyond salvage, what would you suggest replace that layout? The kitchen is overly generous with space, the stair is an overly grand staircase but the entrance is into a cramped back hall with far too many doors. The elements of the house seem oddly out of scale with each other. In another thread I wrote that I couldn't offer an informed critique of someone else's plan until I knew what was guiding their choices. In this thread, in my original post, I wrote the following: The requirements were: - Big kitchen, disproportionately so compared to the remainder of the rooms. So I find it odd that, after you chimed in and agreed with me in the other thread that you needed to know more about the other person's goals before you could offer feedback, that here, knowing that I want a large kitchen, your feedback to me is "The kitchen is overly generous with space." The entrace isn't into a "cramped back hall", it's into a "cramped vestibule." Most vestibules are cramped, it's kind of the nature of the beast, isn't it? I agree that there are too many doors. I've since remedied that by removing two doors, so now the vestibule has an entry door, a closet door and two glass doors leading into the home. I moved the powder room to the back of the home and created more landing space around the bottom of the stairs and I removed the closet door on the right side of the house, across from the stairs and I use that volume of enclosed wall for a built-in accessable from the living room. See below: The space at the center of the staircase is to be used by a curving masonry bench which forms part of the fireplace and which will retain some of the heat from the fireplace. I've experienced such benches in my travels in Europe and I really enjoyed curling up on them and reading, or napping, after coming inside from a cold day of skiing. The gentle radiative heat seeping into my bones was luxurious. I admit that the inclusion of this space now is a design compromise but it's one that I'm happy to make for it gives me a space that I will use, it creates more radiative mass into which heat can be stored and it's out of the ordinary. It wasn't a "must have" but as a space filler it hits the mark on a number of fronts, far better than how I see people fill up space in their homes with chairs of tables that will never be used. The space at the foot of the stairs is available for a table, art, a build-in of some sort. The space midway up the stairs allows for a shelf for a plant next to a window. The staircase is overly grand. I've been struggling with how to incorporate it without wasting a lot of space. It's been quite a struggle. If I did away with the curve and went to a simple straight staircase I could slice a 6'x 15' section off of the plans and make an even smaller home, thereby making the kitchen disprortionately larger in a smaller home. Look, my garage is 24x24, space for my truck, motorcycle,sports car plus room to spare at the front. I'll have a metal/wood workshop in a separate barn. I have a large kitchen. These are all spaces that are useful to me. My dining room is small because I don't have large family gatherings and when I have guests it is only every a handful of people, a lady friend over for dinner, a buddy over for beer and to watch a game, one or two couples over for an evening - there are no grand dinner parties where I have 20 people crammed into my house. The living room is primarily for my own use but has space for 6 people sitting around conversing - I don't need space for more people and I don't need space, like a family of six would, for 6 people doing their own things in the LR - when I have six people in that room, I can assure you that one won't be watching TV, while another is reading, while another is doing needlepoint, and while two others are playing Monopoly. In the basement will be the utility and laundry rooms. I'll have an endless pool down there, a sauna or possibly a steamroom, I haven't decided yet, as well as a workout room of some size, and open space for whatever may strike my fancy in the future. Upstairs will have two master suites and an office if I can squeeze it in and if not, no matter, I can do office work anywhere in the house because I don't have kids or a spouse to distract me, so I don't need to cocoon myself away to find a quiet space to work. The elements of the house seem oddly out of scale with each other. There is some truth to this. Large kitchen, large garage (considering many 2 car garages are 20x20 or thereabouts), large staircase, fair sized mastersuite, small dining room, small living room. I'm not sure what I should be doing about this though. Should I scale back all the large rooms where I want space or should I scale up the the LR/DR where I don't want space and should I make my mastersuite larger or smaller and should I do away with the secondary mastersuite which might be used by one of my parents at some point in the future if they move in? Any suggestions? Criticism is useful, to a degree, but what really helps people in the design phase are actual, concrete, suggestions and alternatives. As I noted in the thread title, fresh eyes and fresh ideas would help me a lot.

I understood your post, Barnmom. You're right about the food labeling, Goldgirl. It's very frustrating when we read labels, but can't really trust what we read because they're allowed to basically lie on the labeling. But, that's another subject from the original post. Whether a chicken is considered organic or not is based on the feed it's given, among other things, I think, such as hormones, medications, and that sort. However, I'm really talking out of my confident knowledge base here.. If a chicken is fed organic grain, and nothing but organic grain, it's not going to taste much different than a chicken that's given conventionally raised grain. That old saying, you are what you eat, applies to this case. It's the pasture raised chickens that are going to taste different, most likely, because they're eating bugs and grit and whatever their fancy tells them to eat, along with whatever grain they're given. At least, that's the case with the eggs I get from the farmer. Sally

They can label a turkey as "fresh" if it has not been frozen at temperature below a specified number. The turkey is still hard with ice crystals inside it but it is held at a temp fo, I seem to remember, of 28 to 32, and can be held at that temperature for a specified length of time. I have found that those birds are not nearly as good as a true frozen turkey. One that has been flash frozen and held at zero degrees. those held at a warmer seem to bleed, lose moisture more and are, in my opinion, dryer. What you want is a "fresh killed" turkey....which only keeps 2 or 3 days before being cooked.

That is a bit early for my comfort zone. I would ask a few questions. If it is air-lock sealed they have a few days more, kept cold. When we get fresh kill, meaning walk in, see the bird live and watch the cone drop, then the plucker, then bring it home warm...chill a day, them brine overnight and cook day three. 6 days is a bit long but some are processed and kept very cold and have a use-by date. Like mentioned by linda, i often prefer fresh frozen, like most seafood, over something called fresh/never frozen that may not be so fresh. All my fresh/never frozen turkeys have been much better than solid frozen. By a mile. I do trust my market for that. Though never 6 days in advance. My auxiliary fridge is kept very cold and rarely opened and never stuffed full. Have not planned the xmas holiday yet but might be ducks like last year. Delivered on my doorstep within 24hours of being prepped in dry ice cube mats...and i ordered extra paws and necks for stock very cheap. And then again, if a good butcher, why would they sell you something un-safe? I bet it is air-locked with the tight packaging that does have a longer best-by date...me thinks.