I would put the prep sink where you have the cleanup sink and DW and move that sink+DW over to the area you now have the prep sink.

It gets your prep closer to the fridge and cooking area, faces you out over the family room; and then it gets clean up and dish storage together and keeps dirty dishes away from seating.

No pro like many others are but I'll give my ideas.

Though you indicated that your placement of the frig was to make the kitchen look larger, from the looks of it, I would think it would close it in more with the immense sizing of a pantry and frig next to each other, especially as one is walking into the room.

The prep sink looks out of place IMHO and I don't think I would gravitate towards that area. It seems closed off and disconnected from the main area.

I would place the frig and pantry on the "island". On the island you could have your broom closet, pantry, frig and a small resting spot to the side of the frig for removing items. Not knowing why type of frig the resting area might be better on one side then the other. It would be a massive wall but it would be away from the main area. Others who may want to help out (or help themselves) can get something out of the frig w/o going through while others are busy. IMHO frigs should be on the perimeters to avoid others having to come into the kitchen as much as possible. Yes this would put the traffic in the work triangle but I tried to work within your other constraints too.

I would then move the DW to the right of the sink. This way you could have easier empyting of the DW into the cabinets that replaced the frig. The DW door when open would be more out of the way too. Your original idea of unloading the DW would be a deal breaker for me.

Don't know if you've searched U-shaped kitchens (or broken U-shaped kitchens) but that might be helpful too.

Holy moley. If you were to draw zones--prep, cooking, cleanup--around your layout, it would look like a Spirograph. Everything crosses everything else.

One approach: Cleanup belongs at the bottom where the prep sink is now. The DW can go there, too. Yes, it's in the aisle but it's better to be standing in the aisle for a short while during cleanup than to dodge traffic with raw chicken or wet vegetables in your hands. There is basically no chance that area will really be used for prep. It's too far away.

The prep sink can go where the cleanup sink is now--it will take less of the peninsula. Or it can go in the upper right corner.

The fridge should be in the corner, not the pantry. It's the fridge that would protrude the most into your workspace.

Second approach: In the alternative, try your idea of putting the fridge down where the prep sink is now, with the prep moving to the bar. That would give you a wonderful amount of prep space. However, you need to make sure that if you locate the cleanup area there, too, you have enough dish storage.

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Thanks Marcolo--

Yes it makes sense to have the cleanup near the storage as shown here--

I was concerned about having the dishwasher open down into the main traffic route, but this would be only occasionally I guess.

With food storage at the bottom my concerns are the distance to get food to the prep area and whether or not that short wall of the U where the dishwasher is would be too short for it.

If the prep sink is on the island I'd probably center it rather than have it off center as I've sketched it.

In any of your layouts, it would probably help to have dishwasher drawers--they take up less space when opened than a regular dishwasher.

In your top layout, you still should consider switching pantry and fridge, which is the appliance that sticks out most into your space. It would look weird to have a recess, a protrusion, a blind corner and then a countertop. Switching cleanup sink and DW would remove a pinch point near the bar, when the DW is open.

In the bottom layout, you still have a cross-over between cleanup, prep and cooking zones, with no protection for the range especially if oven doors are open. Are you sure you can't switch the range and cleanup sink? I'd also keep prep where you have it, so you have uninterrupted counterspace to work on.

It depends on how you prep/cook.
I like to prep/cook between a sink and a stove, w/ the trash right in the middle.
So w/ the last layout, I would switch the sink/DW w/ the stove. This allows you to prep on the peninsula, and toss everything onto the stove, while facing your guests/kids.

if you get a big enough SINGLE sink, you can hide a whole dishwasher load of dishes in the sink until you're ready to load them, so that wall won't have to look untidy.

thanks,
Amanda

Thanks for the suggestions. Functionally I agree that if we can put the stove at the top and move food storage to the bottom we'll be in better shape. This would provide the shortest distance from our home's entrance to food storage, and then would have two parallel paths for cooking, (storage -->sink -->prep--> stove) and one very big prep area for thinks like baking and big bird prep. Plus the dirty dishes could collect away from the breakfast island and then be put away right above the sink. Trick will be if we can do a 90 degree turn on the vent because there is a 2nd floor right above the stove (see line drawn). If we're lucky the vent would line up with a wall upstairs but I doubt it. Does anyone know if it's permissable to "jog" an exhaust line?

BTW good idea about dishwasher drawer. (off-topic: we have a 2 year new Bosch which is really quiet and uses very little water but is really bad at actually washing dishes.)

Lots of people vent their range hoods through a wall, which of course requires a 90-degree turn. Maybe there are some hoods that work better when vented through a roof, I don't know, but there certainly are plenty that work with a 90-degree bend. Your local code folks, in combination with the customer service reps at the company that makes the hood you want (assuming they are competent), will be able to tell you about jogging the line.

Your above layout is almost exactly what we have in our new kitchen (except we went with a larger main sink (45") and no prep sink because I am a sucker for uninterrupted counters) - I think it functions super well - plenty of space for everyone as they prep/cook/clean as well as open and inviting. Enjoy it!

Thanks Laurain-- I'm thinking a very small bowl sink; and possibly a single big sink rather than a double.

The one negative about this is that the refrigerator (and possibly microwave) will be viewable from the living room, which is not ideal from a interior design point of view.

I think this last plan looks like it would function great. You would easily be working from fridge, to prep sink to prep counter to range to clean up - that's a pretty ideal work flow. As for the aesthetics, do you mean from the family room as labeled above? or is there another living room that will have a view into the kitchen that we don't see in your plan. I also think this may depend on the refrigerator. If it really bothers you, getting a paneled one will make it blend nicely with the pantries, and barely be noticeable. (We love to spend other people's money here on GW) :)

Thanks cf--

On the right hand side of the drawing is a large dining/living space. Paneled fridge would do the trick but we like our 2 year old french door counter depth fridge that is in mothballs.

You'll notice that at the end of the peninsula is a solid wall. That is necessary due to a structural beam. Today found out from the contractor that he figured out a way to redistribute the load, so the wall will go. This will buy us almost a foot more of clearance for walking by, and so I'm thinking of changing the pantry (which was going to be used as a broom closet) to more counter space and provide an eye-level height spot for the microwave. Then coffee pot could go there too.

With the wall gone across from the peninsula, it occurred to me that maybe the fridge should shift. Still have 4' in front of it. This would give more continuous counter space next to it and keep the fridge away from sight-lines from the living room.

Thoughs?

hi again - we did all cabinets on our pantry fridge wall (so no counter), and splurged on a paneled integrated french door fridge which really helped it disappear (I know that can be a controversial topic, but it worked for our situation) our microwave is a drawer version in the peninsula (also easy on the eyes) with a bread drawer below - super convenient for sandwich-making on that counter. Just a random thought to share! :-)

Are you doing a FD fridge? I'd think you'd want one with the peninsula across. You seem to have filler for the fridge door to open, so that's good. Maybe it can be a super-narrow broom closet or extra pantry.

Do you really need quite that much counter there? I'd think a pantry that's even slightly wider--say even as wide as the fridge--would be useful.

I forget if you discussed this, but any chance of swiping that corner from the closet in the other room? I think you'll find that jut-out right between prep and range pretty inconvenient IRL.

I'm wondering about maybe putting your pantry beside your fridge. A couple of reasons - right now you have two "things" opening into doorway entrances, the fridge at one end and the pantry at the other. The other reason is that you have a longer walk from prep area to the pantry than I think is necessary and can be shortened by moving it down.
Will there be upper cabinets on the fridge/pantry wall? This would also give a nice area for buffet serving (if you do that) for going straight into the dining room.
I'd have to see elevations to see if it remains balanced. It should if you have upper cabinets.
You still should have enough room for a pull-out broom closet> I put one in 7" of spare space. Great use of space.
And actually there was a picture of one in the last couple of days on this site.

Thanks all-- nothing like a Friday night trip to Ikea (empty) to mock things up. Figured that we could make our existing FD fridge disappear by bracketing it with floor to ceiling cabinets:

Plus create a little desk nook in the corner.

the rest...

and...

MMMM - the micro-wave looks like it's going to tip and fall over to the side. Not properly balanced. What about continuing cabinets along the whole wall. Mock that up and see how it feels when looking at the wall. Unless there is someplace else to put the micro-wave and just get rid of the upper cabinet.
The micro-wave was the hardest thing to place in our kitchen. We finally put it under the counter in our peninsula but made the mistake of not making it a micro-wave drawer. Next time when the micro-wave has to be replaced.

Agreed re/ continuing cabinets. Or possibly shelfs up there for cookbooks etc.

I don't quite get the idea behind the microwave drawer but it is intriguing. Might be better to have closer to the prep area somehow.

Any thought about upper cabinet clearance above a sink? In our last (demolished) kitchen the sink was in a corner with nothing above it. We basically lost the corner by pushing the peninsula out 3' the way you see it in the drawing.

I think I'll try blfenton's advice and look for a spot for a microwave drawer on the peninsula. Then the fridge / storage wall becomes more nicely balanced:

With a normal micro-wave under the counter, you have to bend down and reach in for whatever is in there. With the drawer, the whole interior of the micro-wave slides out (like a normal drawer) leaving the frame set in the cabinet. Then you are just lifting the contents up and out of the microwave and no more bending down to reach in. They are a little more expensive than normal micro-waves (at least where we live in West coast Can.) but have come down in price.
The one thing I wish we hadn't cheapened out on but when you're on a budget - oh well.

Thanks again for everyone's help. I'm MUCH happier with this than where we started. Weather permitting, rough plumbing continues tomorrow so the floor can go in. Here's what we ended up with.

I would have liked to remove the corner obstacle in the upper left-hand corner of the kitchen, but this would require relocating a post and changing a sheer wall. On the other hand, as drawn we can make the peninsula stand out almost like a separate piece of furniture with a color accent.

Thinking that floor to ceiling cabinets will look a bit better as shown and provide a bit more storage.

Thoughts?

Thought I would bring this thread up to date. Here's where we're at (at the moment). On Monday the support wall for the peninsula goes in so that electrical and plumbing rough-ins can finish.

counter height peninsula with seating for 4, including 1 at the end. 18" overhang provided.

prep sink (15" wide or so) in the middle of the peninsula. This will divide the space into 2 prep areas, each about 4' wide. And for holidays we can make pies etc with our teenage kids on the same surface, using it from both sides.

When we're working at that peninsula we'll be looking out over the family room to a vaulted ceiling with sky views.

Fridge is 6 1/2' from the closest prep area at the end of the peninsula.

The kitchen naturally is pretty dark because it is in the middle of the house. We'll put a solatube in the center to bring natural light in.

We're probably going with a 36" range to provide more space on top for dueling pots and pans. We stir fry a lot so we'll get one with a center wok ring. This is a good central location and allows for a third prep area to the right of it between the range and clean-up. This is also a location where we can vent through the roof.

We have plumbing for the pot filler and are 50/50 on whether or not to put one in. It would be handy for pasta, which we make probably 2 x week.

Cleanup area is out of the way and near dish storage. Dining room is on opposite side of the wall from the cleanup area, so about as close as we can be to dining room, dishwashwer, and casual dining (peninsula).

Interior designer (who doesn't cook) had wanted us to put the fridge at the end of one of the U's, but this would have reduced the cleanup area and cabinet space. Also visually from the family room I prefer seeing the fridge from the side, with cabinets around it.

He wanted to do this so we wouldn't see the fridge from the living room at all. If this were a huge deal, we could get a paneled refrig, but we'd rather not. If the fridge were put there it would actually be a bit farther (by a foot or so) from the main prep area, but it would be closer to clean-up which would be somewhat better for food storage.

Still thinking about micro / speed oven (probably on wall near fridge somewhere) and refrigerator drawers (probably not--will need all the drawers we an get in the peninsula).

Comments still welcome. This is still mostly virtual but it becomes more reality every day. Will post some actual photos soon.