Forgot to mention that 1st one is current layout and 2nd one is proposed.

In the proposed layout it looks like the cooktop is on a peninsula facing the dining room, with two upper cabinets flanking it. Is that correct? I guess a cooktop that's open to the back is a look some people like, but it's a lot messier and more potentially dangerous than a cooktop against a wall. (If there is a wall between your kitchen and dining room--that is, if the cooktop is NOT open at the back--then forget I said this; I'm just going on what it looks like on the drawing.)

But whether or not there's a wall, I think you would regret having so little counter space to each side of your cooktop. Your countertops there are only 21", which is really not much workspace to have on either side of your cooktop. How far away is the island--42" from the cooktop? It looks like it's too far away to serve as practical workspace, especially since there's no sink on the island--your workspace is probably going to be that corner between cooktop and sink, since most prep work occurs between the sink and the cooktop/range, and that's really very little workspace, especially for such a large kitchen.

What if you put the sink and DW on the leg where the cooktop is shown and put the cooktop against a wall on the long leg where the sink is shown? Put the cooktop to the right of the window--local codes usually won't let you put it right in front of a window--and that would give you a great amount of workspace between the sink and the cooktop. You also wouldn't have your back to everyone while you cooked.

Also, do you need that much seating in the kitchen? How many people are in your family and how many guests do you tend to have? It looks like there's seating for 8 at what I would take to be the breakfast/casual table, plus another three seats at the island, plus a separate dining room. You know your family size and habits and I don't, but I just wonder if instead of the island seating you might be better served by an undercounter wine/beverage fridge, or a dedicated baking center or what have you.

PS Another idea for what you could do with the undercounter space if you did not put seating on the island is pantry drawers. In other words, more dry food storage. Particularly if the range (or cooktop, whatever it is that's shown with 4 burners on your drawing) were over on the long leg to the right of the window, having dry ingredients right there in the island behind the cook would be very practical. If your cooking involves many refrigerated staples--for example, is ghee kept in the fridge? Or are there certain types of fresh produce that you use almost every day?--then perhaps you might also want a small refrigerator drawer there or in the base cabinets along the wall so that those staples are always easily accessible from the range.

In fact, doing this might give you so much food storage that you would not need a full-height pantry next to the fridge, so you could move the fridge up to where the pantry is shown and thus have room for a countertop between the fridge and the microwave and wall oven. That way you would have a "landing spot." You might also have room on that countertop for a coffee maker or toaster or something--whatever sort of small kitchen gadget suits your family's needs. And then there would be upper cabinets above this landing spot, so really, compared to the full-height pantry beside the fridge, you would not lose much storage at all.

So picture this:

(1) Range to the right of the window. To the right of the range, a base cabinet about 24" wide with one or two drawers at the top; these drawers can hold spices.

(2) Sink and dishwasher on "short" leg along dining room wall. Probably you would want the DW to the left of the sink, so that the cook can easily use the sink at the same time someone else is loading or unloading the DW.

(3) Microwave and oven where you show them on your drawing; perhaps a 30-inch counter space/"landing spot" to the right of them; then the fridge; then perhaps a very narrow (say 6" or 9") pullout cabinet to store broom, mop, dustpan etc. I cannot see exact measurements and don't know how wide your fridge is, so you are the only person who can be sure how wide of a counter and how wide of a broom pullout can fit on that wall, but this gives you a basic idea.

This seems much more practical than having island seating, particularly since island seating is really better suited for adults and teenagers than for young children. You seem to have designed more than enough seating at the kitchen table for your entire family, your nanny, and your potential third child to all sit there at the same time, and there would still be room for two more people even with all of you at the table. So having an extra three seats at the island seems much less useful than having pantry drawers and/or refrigerator drawers in the island, particularly since you say you need a ton of food storage.

ideagirl - thank you for your feedback! It still amazes me how helpful everyone is. Yes, there is a wall between the kitchen and DR. I guess I am new to drawing these layouts so don't know how to signify that. Interesting ideas for sure and stuff that I have never thought about.

Cooktop prep space - I guess I never considered it being small because that is all we have ever had as our last house had a similar layout to the proposed one but it had a range and mw above instead of the cooktop and wall oven. I guess you don't miss what you never had? The island is about 3 feet away and we did do a lot of prepping on the island.

Sink infront of window- I am usually not the one to be doing the cooking, I do mostly the cleaning so I guess I like the sink there so I can look outside when my kids play in the yard.

Seating -My mom lives with us 3 days a week and then my nanny is around M-F so there has been times when 6 of us are here and plus I have my bros in town who come to visit quite often. We wouldn't utilize everything at the same time unless there is a party but my girls like to sit at the bar and watch us/my nanny cook and I thought it would be good for them to do their homework there.

There is actually a wine cooler in the island right now. I do worry about a lack of storage space though.

Again I appreciate the feedback and would love to hear more.

Can any walls be removed?

Well I am removing a wall in the laundry to make space for the mudroom and removing the wet bar as well so theoretically yes. I think there are some load barring ones and I don't want to drive the cost up too much so if they aren't more likely to be within the realm of possibilities.

Hi Azlee,

To show that there's a wall somewhere, you can draw a long very skinny rectangle instead of just a straight line. That is, you draw two parallel straight lines instead of just one, and then connect them at the ends.

**Sink infront of window- I am usually not the one to be doing the cooking, I do mostly the cleaning so I guess I like the sink there so I can look outside when my kids play in the yard.**

This is almost always why people put sinks in front of windows--"I want to look out at the yard while I'm at the sink." But in this modern age, with dishwashers, most people do not spend much time at the sink. And particularly if you are cleaning, you would probably only come to the sink to get more water, or maybe to rinse a mop, right? So really, you are only standing in front of the sink for maybe thirty seconds. (I am guessing here--you can check, the next time you clean, to see how much time you are actually standing at the sink.) Also, when do you usually clean? Is that time the same time that the children play in the yard?

I ask these questions because very often this idea that you will look at nature or watch the kids while standing at the sink is just a fantasy. In reality, you will look out the window whenever you want; the fact that the sink is not there does not prevent you from lingering by the counter watching your children. If you want some activity that will take you to the window, you could participate in prep work for meals or you could place something else there that you use--a coffee machine, for example; that sort of thing, or even the trash pullout.

The other advantage of putting the cooktop and thus the prep space along this wall is that it is much closer to the seating area and family room. That means it is much easier for the nanny, or whoever is cooking/prepping, to see/hear what the children are doing (I assume it is more likely for the children to be in the seating area or family room than for them to be in the dining room while someone is cooking? And anyway, you can't see the dining room from the range in your proposed layout, so even if the children were there the cook couldn't see them). It also makes it possible, or at least easier, for the cook to participate in conversations. People spend far longer at the prep counter and the cooktop than they do at the sink. Prepping and cooking one meal can easily take an hour or more. The person cooking might like being closer to everyone during that time.

For your storage issues, I wonder if perhaps the powder room could be just a little bit narrower, so that on the powder room wall facing the kitchen/eating area you could have a shallow pantry--perhaps 12" deep, or even just 8" deep, of shelf space. I think that anything you can do to move some storage out of that pantry/fridge/microwave wall, so that there is room for a counter on that wall, would be a good idea.

For the island seating--even if you do keep it, do you need three seats? Depending how you arrange it, you could have two seats there and a good deal more storage. Another thought is that the bench your drawing shows at the breakfast table could be built in, with storage in it. Many people put long drawers into the base of breakfast-nook benches, so that it is possible to pull the drawer out from the side of the bench without disturbing people who are sitting on the bench. (See photo link below).

And you actually do not really need to build the bench in (i.e. attach it to the wall) to put a drawer in it, although that is what most people do. This might be a good place to store things that do not relate directly to cooking. For example, paper towels and the like. Anything that you do not actually NEED in the kitchen can be stored here, or in the possible shallow pantry beside the powder room. That will free up space to store food items in the kitchen and also to have a counter between microwave and fridge.

Here is a link that might be useful: