WOW!
What an amazing kitchen.
That's all I have to say. :)

We just tore out and redid the kitchen in our two-year old house because I could not stand having the sink in front of the fridge run and the range on the opposite side run like you have above. So I'd counsel you to think long and hard about how you'll use the kitchen, and what other family members might be doing while you're cooking.

For me, it drove me absolutely crazy that whenever I was cooking, e.g., trying to get a large pot of water from range to sink, someone always seemed to be at the fridge getting some water or cream for coffee or something.

We've been three months now with the range run behind the water and the fridge to the other side, and it is heaven! It made a dysfunctional kitchen into a kitchen that finally works.

Your mileage may vary and I realize people's kitchen usage patterns differ, so you might be fine. But this was such a huge sore spot for me and I hated that layout so much that I want to mention it just in case it's something you haven't already considered.

Taggie, I appreciate the real-world feedback you're offering. What doesn't show on the plans is a pot-filler right by the range, so I think that this solves the traffic problem that you're referencing. In my case, I'm the only one living in this house, so I'm not going to be running into your problem, though if I ever sell the place to a family, they might have run into just what you described.

Hi Alexhouse, my layout is quite similar to yours. I figure I will Prep directly across from the stove so it is nice to have the fridge and sink nearby. I put the fridge on the other side of the sink where the door to the rest of the house is. That way others can get drinks without getting in my cooking space. You have more room and wider isles than I have so it will be less of a concern for you. I think my layout will be very functional and so will yours! :).

Is that an exercise bike in the corner?

I agree that the refrig should be on the longest side of the work triangle. Agree that it should be close to eating area. Even if you live alone, it's not wise to plan for perpetual single person usage in a kitchen. Where ever two walkpaths cross, that's a pinchpoint.

What goes under the largest window--storage drawers only? No chance you can have big sink and dishwasher there and a prep sink on the island?

Try looking at Rhome's kitchen, which is similar because it has short end of island facing the range.

If you are planning seating at that island, then you need more than a 48" aisle. You need 60" in order to have traffic behind a seated person. At 48", someone can twist sideways and scoot by, but that's not great to do against a wall of cabinets. And those cabinets seem to have no real usefulness. What is their purpose? Why are they there? If that's the exterior, eliminate those cabinets entirely and put in a couple of sliders to increase the connection with the exterior.

Or, if there is some reason you don't want to have a better indoor/outdoor connection, then I'd move the cleanup sink to under the window, the fridge all the way to the right at the end of the run, and have a prep sink on the island at the bottom left corner or in the corner between the sink and fridge.

A potfiller does NOT take the place of a prep sink. It's not that useful IRL unless you cook homemade stock quite a bit and always have giant pots of water boiling down on the stove.

motodetroit

Is that an exercise bike in the corner?

Yes, it's connected to my grain mill. I can kill two birds with one stone in the morning.

florantha,

No chance you can have big sink and dishwasher there and a prep sink on the island?

I'm having a heck of a time trying to justify having two sinks within 6 feet of each other.

I've tried to achieve a design without conflicting uses. If by some miracle there are two or more people using that kitchen, when someone is working at the sink or dishwasher, the fridge can be opened without interfering with their work. When someone is at the range the fridge and sink are unimpeded. All of the hot material near the range won't be "bumped onto" the cook if someone is at the fridge or sink for they are the first stations along the travel path and the range and prep station are at the end of the travel path. Right behind the range, on the end of the island, is a lowered wooden cutting surface, equidistant between sink, fridge and range.

GreenDesigns,

If you are planning seating at that island, then you need more than a 48" aisle. You need 60" in order to have traffic behind a seated person. At 48", someone can twist sideways and scoot by, but that's not great to do against a wall of cabinets.

There are two aisles to use to get to the kitchen door. If people are seated at the island, then the person who wants to pass can go around the island. That aisle behind the seats is not a sole transit path.

Secondly, I've already got TOO MUCH space up on the second floor, so pushing the wall out another foot is hard for me to justify. If that aisle was the only pathway then it would be a bit easier to justify, but as it is guests who are not eating can simply walk around the aisle to exit the kitchen.

And those cabinets seem to have no real usefulness. What is their purpose? Why are they there?

You noticed that too, huh? I didn't have those cabinets there and I had just an aisle but the bare aisle bugged me. It's only purpose was to allow access to seating for the island, meaning that if I eliminated seating and made the island into a countertop I could save myself a 17'x 8' section of house. So I pushed the wall back 1' which allowed for a 4' aisle and 24" cabinets. Those cabinets allow me to once again place my grain mill and bike in the kitchen and help me to justify that space (now it serves to allow access for seating and for useless cabinets), even though by pushing the wall out I created more room than I need up on the second.

I don't really need those cabinets, but I feel better justifying that 17' x 8' space by having them there. I batting around the idea of making that a small desk/bill area by knocking out the center cabinets for knee space. At least that gives those cabinets a purpose.

You identified a problem I saw but I can't go back to having just a bare isle because that solution just rubs me the wrong way.

If that's the exterior, eliminate those cabinets entirely and put in a couple of sliders to increase the connection with the exterior.

That's a south facing wall underneath a glassed in sunroom. The walls are heavy in thermal mass. I've sacrificed some thermal mass on the walls in order to put in a large window on that south wall. It's more important to me to have that sun room be effective than it is for me to have a wall of glass there. Besides, the two large windows on the East wall give me plenty of exterior exposure. I've got early morning sun from the East, morning to afternoon sun from the South, and then I can get free heat from the South facing thermal mass wall coming in through the open door until such time as the cold of the outside overwhelms the heat release and then I can close the door and have a well insulated wall on the South keeping the heat inside.

Or, if there is some reason you don't want to have a better indoor/outdoor connection, then I'd move the cleanup sink to under the window, the fridge all the way to the right at the end of the run, and have a prep sink on the island at the bottom left corner or in the corner between the sink and fridge.

I do appreciate your constructive critique. This goes for everyone else as well.

I can't move the fridge to the end of the run because I need it to be facing an external North wall. The island at the bottom left corner has a lowered maple butcher block, 24' x 48" opposite the sink. That would mean that the prep sink would have to be quite near where the main sink is presently. By moving the main sink to the South wall, wouldn't I really be busting that work triangle up beyond all usefulness - now my work path is elongated.

A potfiller does NOT take the place of a prep sink.

The potfiller is there simply because of the distance from the sink. For a few extra bucks during construction I can avoid having to haul water from the sink to the range.

As for the prep sink, my prep zone (as currently designed) is on the wooden butcher block, which puts me right next to the range, fridge and sink. Everything is convenient. I'm having a hard time justifying a prep sink. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a fully decked out kitchen but the reason I want a fully decked out kitchen is because it warms the cockles of my heart to behold efficiency. Having a prep sink that I'm never going to use simply for the pleasure of decking the kitchen out a bit more leaves me feeling flat.

I've got a 17'x 17' space, roughly, to work with. I've tried to take all the criticism offered in my last go round and cram it into the space. I'm not entirely happy with the cabinets on the South wall, because they're, as you quickly saw, an inefficient use of space, but they're the best compromise my limited design skills could devise.

A 2 sink kitchen is a good kitchen.
Make the cabinets that face the range [2 X 27"] with Pots & pans drawers so they are easier to get into while standing in that corridor.
This kitchen is also big enough for 2 trash pull-outs.

Happy cooking!

Could you make the south wall cabinets 18" or 12" depth in stead of 24"? Maybe make some of that area display/open shelves. You would get more aisle and they might actually be more useful than the standard depth cabinets.

If you are trying to avoid spending extra on frivolities, in your case I really think the pot filler is the frivolity and the prep sink more useful. I just want to add a little more food for thought, which you can choose to ignore.

For me, the issue was never getting water TO the stove, rather it was getting water (after it was boiling) back from the stove to the sink for draining. I never minded waiting 20-30 seconds for people to move out of my way when I was ready to wak a pot of cool water past them to the stove, but I really did mind the vice versa.

When the timer goes off and I need to get the pasta drained asap, or the steamed veggies off the stove, or the boiling shrimp drained and shocked, it seemed like half the time someone was in the road and I was always saying "look out!" and running a dangerous obstacle course, hoping I wouldn't spill a boiling pot of water on the dog, or the spouse, or a guest, or worse -- me. :). I know that 30 seconds doesn't seem like a big deal if you need to wait for traffic to move out of your way, but it is the difference between pasta that's no longer al dente, or veggies that are overcooked and wilty, or shrimp that's tough and tasteless. So yes I ran the obstacle course, and yes I usually pretty snarky about it too. (Honestly, how hard is it to get out of the way when the alarm goes off when I'm cooking, like I've asked approximately 500 times since we moved in here? .... impossible if you are my family, lol)

Anyway, that's just my experience. Yours may be different. But as it precipitated a major remodel in my case, I'd never willingly want to see anyone start with such a poor layout. Although you live alone, will you ever entertain guests? If so, then those guests will likely be at the fridge getting coffee cream or beer or wine, just when you wish they were out of your way so your shrimp cocktail doesn't get ruined.

Anyhow, I've preached on long enough. It was just such a HORRIBLE layout for me that I can't wrap my head around anyone wanting to do that willingly. :)

A couple of better fixes would be to lose to back lower cabs and move the island so that it runs parallel to the range wall. Or to add a prep sink (more of an emptying sink) to the right side of the range under the right have 24" base cab, and at minimum to put a beer and wine and beverage fridge in that back run of cabs as well.

That said, your mileage may vary if you plan to live alone for a while and not entertain much if at all, or if you just cook way differently than me. I know we are all individuals, and it's your kitchen, so please take this with a grain of salt if you will use the kitchen quite differently than most of us. I just wanted to ensure you totally understand what you're designing in terms of potential functional choke-points before you spend so much money in renovations.

Good luck whatever you decide.

Just a thought from my experience with a recent house build. My plumber charged the same price for installing the pot filler as he did for installing my prep sink. Also, be sure to shop for your potfiller hardware. You may already know this, but many of them are extremely expensive. I found my prep sink and faucet combined to be comparable in price to most pot fillers. I'm not trying to talk you into or out of something. I'm just asking you if you have priced the two different options to see what the real cost difference is. If the cost is comparable, I think the prep sink would be more functional in your space.

Aside from the pretty poor functioning kitchen layout that you are being pretty stubborn about when getting expert advice, is this supposed to be a "green" home you are designing here?

If as implied, you are trying to design a passive solar green house, then where is your honking big mass of masonry or water tanks to store the heat? Where are the operable transom windows to allow heated air from the sunroom to flow into the home? Where is the small kitchen with few electrical requirements? From your comments and layout, I fear you simply do not understand much of how passive solar design works. You are also at a big cross purpose on much of your intent here with lots of wasted space if you are going for a low environmental impact. The lowest environmental impact is a small house. You need to seek the services of an architect with experience designing a solar house suitable to your climate.

Aside from the pretty poor functioning kitchen layout that you are being pretty stubborn about when getting expert advice, is this supposed to be a "green" home you are designing here?

I don't understand where this hostility is coming from. I take effort to note that I appreciate everyone's advice. I take note that I've completely redesigned the layout to take into account what I learned from the last go-around.

You make note of the 4' aisle being an impediment to through traffic behind anyone sitting at the island. I acknowledge your point and give you more background. I don't understand why you believe a 5' aisle for people who won't ever use it is the sign of proper function and good advice. There has to be a balance between how the homeowner is going to use the house and design principles that go beyond necessary function. I'm flat out stating that there are two traffic patterns to the kitchen door, I'm flat out stating that I don't want a bare wall on that side of the island, I'm flat out stating that I've already got too much space up on the 2nd and moving the wall another foot out to create a 5' aisle just doesn't work well for ME. I fully understand that as a general principle that what you wrote has a lot of merit. I understand your argument. What I'm not doing is unthinkingly adopting general rules as iron-clad dictates for my house. That doesn't make me stubborn or unreasonable or unwilling to listen to advice. I've taken plenty of advice to heart from people in this forum. When I'M sitting at the island, either alone or with guests, NO ONE will be walking behind us. My concern with function is that those seated at the island have enough room behind them so that they don't feel cramped. That's function. If your advice is that this concern mandates 5' of space behind the chairs so that people can sit at the island comfortably, then I'll take it because that advice addresses my concern, but that's not what I read from your generous reply.

Are you really trying to tell me that design is not a trade-off between competing interests and sometimes compromises between competing goals produce the optimum balance? I'm not happy with the South wall cabinets, but I'm happier to have them than to have a blank wall or a window wall in the kitchen. Having those cabinets there with a 4' aisle (according to what I've read) shouldn't impede the ability of people to sit down at the island. If you have information to the contrary, I'm all ears and will take it to heart even if it entails significant redesign.

As to my "honking big mass of masonry" off to the right, facing the South window wall in the dining room/living room I have an 11' long, 4' deep, 10' high soapstone masonry fireplace, which extends from the basement up to the 2nd floor. The floor is designed to carry the load for a 1 1/2" concrete layer with radiant tubing installed. There's lots of thermal mass within the building envelope and you'll note the 15' thick double wall construction to help keep the living environment more comfortable.

What you don't see just from the kitchen plan is the mini-hydro pumphouse, the high pitched roofs for solar thermal panels, the overhangs designed for solar passive design, the external insulation on the foundation to maximize thermal mass in the South facing daylight basement, the ground sourced heat pump, the vertical well shafts, the real stone cladding on the outside of the kitchen wall that is within the sunroom, and a whole host of other features because they're immaterial to the kitchen issues.

I appreciate your comment about the wasted space being at cross purposes with low environmental impact, but I don't really care about low environmental impact. Not everyone who is building solar passive, or high insulation, or who builds a mini-hydro facility on the river running through their property, or who uses solar thermal for water heating or PV solar for power generation is doing so in order to be in balance with a low environmental impact lifestyle. Some do it because the efficiency gains require little aesthetic sacrifice, others do it because they want to achieve higher levels of self-sufficiency, and I'm sure that there are plenty of other reasons for incorporating sound energy efficiency design features into a build.

My large kitchen is disproportionate to the scale of the house - that's a design feature for the house I want to live in. People motivated by a design tuned to low environmental impact can design their homes to a different standard. If you think that the kitchen is working at cross-purposes to good design, thankfully you won't have to suffer through reviewing the underground root cellar with the walk-in freezer, the cheese room and the salami hanging room.

I really don't understand why these things have to be battles like this. I appreciate feedback. I've spent the night staring at my plan trying to imagine where to put a bar sink so that I would find it useful because many people are making strong arguments in favor of that feature. I'm listening to them but I have to balance their arguments against how I see myself using the kitchen. That's not a sign of being stubborn, that's a sign of being respectful but still listening to my internal voice - after all, I'm the one who is going to be using that kitchen not everyone here in this forum.

I'm sorry that I offended you so much and that I come across as stubborn for trying to engage your points and explain where I'm coming from, and how I got to the point where I'm at in the kitchen design. I simply don't want to look at a blank wall.

To everyone else, I'm listening to your feedback on that 2nd sink and trying to find a useful place for it. It's not the money that's holding me back. The pot filler is there because I can see myself using it, so the reason that design didn't have a 2nd sink is because the main sink was so convenient to the work triangle. I've been trying to imagine using that South cabinet wall as a baking center and if I put the sink right next to the door, that would all me an alternate choice if the main sink is blocked, it would allow me to have water very handy for baking, but now I'm dealing with 24" countertops instead of doing baking prep either on the island or on the 30" counters elsewhere in the kitchen. I'm still trying to intuit a path that makes the most sense with the trade-offs involved.

I would want more space between the dishwasher and the fridge side. When your dishwasher is open, it will be hard to get around, especially if you are storing the dishes in the drawer/base cabinets directly behind it. Good luck!

I'm no kitchen design expert, so please take my comments commensurate with what you paid for them. :-)

I think what's important is not having a prep sink and a clean up sink per se, but having prep and clean up areas that are distinct so the functions don't overlap, i.e., so you're not having to wash and prep food over a sink filled with dirty/used dishes or over a counter filled with dirty dishes.

I don't have a prep sink, but my main sink separates my main perimeter counter into prep zone (4 feet to right of sink, between sink and range top/ovens) and clean-up zone (left of sink, over DW). I would love to have the room for a second sink, but I don't miss it too much because my zones work. In your case, it looks like you have plenty of room to prep on the left of your sink and across from the range, while putting dirty prep dishes and things over the DW to await clean-up time. The draining hot pasta water thing can be an issue, but I solve it by using drain inserts in all my pasta and steamer pots. I just lift the insert, drain the boiling water back into the hot pot, and keep going. The hot water can sit and wait in the pot until clean up time.

I agree with the suggestion to make the cabinets in back of your seating area less deep, to squeeze in a bit more room behind the seating. This will help both function and aesthetics.

I am more concerned with the issue of aisle width between your fridge wall and sink. I have 42 inches between my island and fridge, and it's perfect for a walk-by area but I don't prep at that end of the island, I think it would be tight if I did, having the fridge behind me, unless no one, ever, wanted to get to the fridge behind me. And I'm a small woman. If you have a beverage sink elsewhere, that might in part solve the issue (maybe in your back cabinets?) For me, it would be worth narrowing the island some to increase that aisle width to at least 4 feet.

I remember your earlier posts. Your home and lifestyle sounds very interesting. Good luck!

I'll echo RMS Austin's comments about the wall of cabs. I did an 18" deep wall in our kitchen with some pantry cabs for food, a plate rack for serving dishes, and some display cabs with glass doors up top. I have no shortage of space with the 18" so you may want to consider that option as well. As you noted, you could design it with a desk in the middle too.

The door to the exterior is in the wrong place. You shouldn't have to traipse through the entire kitchen with an island as an A or B obstacle in order to get outdoors. Move it down next to the exercise bike. That solves the ring around the rosy maze to get outside.

It doesn't solve the fundamental problem which is the kitchen is too large for what you need it to be, yet it's not large enough to work as you have it laid out and has basic workflow design flaws.

Extending the cabinets beyond the fridge doesn't work to give you any more usefullness and in fact, it does the opposite because it makes it more difficult to access the refrigerator from outside the kitchen. If the fridge is for some reason an immovable object (I didn't get the why of that exactly) then don't extend the cabinets past it. Make it the end of that cabinet run all together. And put a prep sink in the corner between the fridge and stove. A potfiller is only useful half of the time, and not even the best half of when you need it.

For island seating, yes the clearance is an issue. And with the fridge also being an issue, and you not wanting to take advantage of the outside views on the south wall (??) with doors, then reorient the island as a peninsula coming off of the south wall, next to the outside door's new location, but closer in enough to give adequate traffic flow. You will have better clearance for seating and the layout now makes a lot more sense. The small sink on the peninsula's end will be a prep sink, and the new sink under the windows will be the main cleanup sink. Or, better yet, swap the range with the cleanup sink and put the range on the south wall between two windows and the cleanup sink on the back wall. You'd have optimum workflow patterns then, as ranges work best on the shorter leg of any kitchen with the sink on the larger leg.

Or else chop off about a third to a half of the kitchen all together and start over rethinking the need for an island at all. Not only is the kitchen currently really large and unwieldy for a single person, it's large for a family, yet the lack of a prep sink means it wont' really work for a family. Island seating might be fine if you are single for one or two kids, but it's uncomfortable for entertaining and extended dining---especially birds on a wire seating. This is where the connection to your nearby dining space comes in.

You have very specific (and expensive) design criteria and are unlikely to be able to find something ready made that will work for you, so I won't suggest the much much cheaper "buy an existing home" alternative. But, as your design critera is very specific, and indeed truly site specific, you need the in person design efforts of a professional who has been down this path. I also suggest that you retain the services of a specialty architect. You're doing a lot of guesswork and spinning your wheels here that is rendering your time spent as less than productive in the long run. Paying someone for their time tends to crystalize thought on a subject in a way that no other manner has the ability to do.

Or close up the wall with our English dead? Really?

Regarding prep sinks, while sometimes I have two to four additional cooks, I spend a lot of time cooking alone. I can't tell you how much I love having two sinks within six feet of each other. You said you were having a hard time justifying it, but then you put in a whole bank of cabinets to justify an open aisle?

I think you can have a perfectly fine kitchen with only one sink. It wasn't so long ago that having a pump at the kitchen sink for running water was a dream come true. I'm just saying prep sinks are nice. Look at some interesting sizes and shapes.

In general, what I think a lot of people are reacting to is that your kitchen looks very full. Rooms are generally more pleasant when they're a bit more open.

Your 48" seating aisle is doable, as you say, with the alternate path. You might have to move people to get into the cupboard on the window wall, but it can be done. But then having people needing to get by a cook (or two, if there are guests, including the seated ones) in a 42-43" aisle is a bit tight. That's really an excuse me or turn sideways kind of thing, especially if carrying something. Plus with guests seated and chatting away, the path from the stove to the dining room is past the person who is tidying up the last of the prep items so you don't have to look at them through that open wall. Again, it can be done. It's just that your plan is looking like the kind of perfectly reasonable kitchen that quite a few new members here are trying to rip out.

People also relate better to kitchens that are cozy to sit around in, and your seating looks more like a place for the cook to rest his butt, than a hangout space. Since that's what I think you're after, that's not necessarily bad. The style of your island, however, is the kind that most people use for a room divider rather than one that's between two banks of cabinetry. It's also closed up.

I really don't think putting the clean-up zone under the window (which is an obvious move), pushing the fridge to the right and adding a prep sink will help. It'll leave the squahedness and further impinge on the seating aisle.

My own suggestion would be to open up the island by extending the counter more, maybe adding 30" deep bases, and put 8" deep cabinetry below the window level on the back wall. Good for stemware, cans, vases, etc., with a nice little ledge for objets d'art. No uppers there. Maybe some nice art, or a message board, but nothing that looms.

A big island surface (though not continental sized) is very useful in a way that shallower counters aren't, and having some storage to justify the window wall,but not so much that it protrudes and feels confining, will make everything feel more open, even if the aisle doesn't gain much...though you might even eek the extra foot by doing this or put a full 48" on the sink side. I don't know if that will impact the positioning of your bike, though--I hope not.

So, since you're handy with the machinery...have you considered adding a pump to your stove area so you'll have both a pot filler and a pot emptier? That would be very cool. :) As to the hot pot to drain argument, it's a good one, but solvable even without a pump: Use a pasta insert, which is like a sieve that fits inside your pot while you're cooking the pasta (or anything that you boil up in a big pot of water), and snatch out just by lifting it. If you're blanching or otherwise cooling, have your tray of ice water right by the stove, and there you go. Also consider things like wok skimmers. If you're browning meat or something, you shouldn't be pouring the fat down the sink anyway (it congeals on the pipes). Again, set your fat container by the stove and pour it off there.

Hi everyone! Well, it looks like I'm going to be coming back, once more into the breach, in a few weeks.

I put up the plan to get exactly the type of feedback that you're offering here. I can't say enough how much I appreciate the thought that people are putting into their analysis of the plan. You're all raising good points. I apologize again if I offended anyone by trying to explain why their suggestions didn't work for me and how I plan to use the space for I wasn't questioning the merit of anyone's points, just relating how well they would impact on my tastes and lifestyle. I hope no hard feelings have developed.

Because I'm not in the construction stage yet, I have the flexibility of working with an almost blank slate - though there are some MUST HAVES which constrain every design I create. So what I'm doing now is I'm cleaning the slate in order to see if I can fill the space differently in order to produce a more tied-together kitchen and I'm also getting mentally prepared to do major space rethinking. It's just time and effort at this stage and it's better to do a redesign than to live with poor design.

I think it's good that you're trying another plan since I personally really feel there is room for improvement.

But please never feel like you have to apologize or tread lightly at the end of the day with your decisions. After all, it's your kitchen in the end, you'll be the one spending time there who'd be either inconvenienced or totally loving it if it really for work *for you*.

I was kind of vociferous about some things that I'd hated in my own experiences. They were just so horrible for me personally that I wanted you to really envision yourself working in that space. At then end of the day, if you can do it, then hey, it's your kitchen to be happy in. :)

That said, glad you're giving it another look regardless because I really do think you can come up with something that works perfectly for all the cooking you do and for entertaining your friends too in comfort and style. :)

Have fun!

"I'm having a heck of a time trying to justify having two sinks within 6 feet of each other."

My two sinks nearly face one another across a 6.5 foot space. Works for us.

Have fun...make your own space...the breach is not that hazardous...yet...

I'm BAAAAACCCKKKK!

OK, for those who remember their advice, I did heed some of your points, but in my own inimitable way I'm sure that I've screwed it up beyond anything you'll recognize as your own advice.

I started off looking at the old design and not really seeing how I could make better use of the space with the suggestions made upthread and in a way that would make sense to me. Hours of trying to see a way clear to a new design.

Then I started looking at reshaping the room space itself. That gave me some interesting new variants to work with but it created an unholy mess elsewhere, screwing up roof lines, exterior symmetry, disrupting beam placement, and a few other things that I liked about the overall house design.

That meant backtracking to the previous footprint and thinking outside of the box, meaning more than just rearranging the deck chairs, I mean cabinets.

Then I got to thinking about the birds on a wire seating at the island and how if I have guests for a meal and the meal is not formal, that I probably wouldn't like that very much. So in comes the banquet seating. Now that this feature was in play I also had to think of myself and I really wanted to start the day with a seat by a window rather than seating in a booth buried deeper in the kitchen. This gives me a benefit that the island seating didn't. Hurrah! Then I thought it wouldn't hurt to space plan for a table to which I could add a leaf if I ever get a visit from many people. So when you look at the above, picture the table cutting off with the end of the booth, not sticking out into the aisle. The table has a 52" diameter, giving me and guests leg space underneath and it can double as a useful surface for working on whatever.

Now with the booth taking pride of place on the East wall, the range would be cramped. Boom. Over to the South wall. Well, there goes the window, but oh well.

I want the main sink near the range so I can dump pots and pans immediately and having the sink on the island satisfies that demand. Right next to the range I have a butcher block section of countertop.

Over in the corner next to the fridge I can have an extended prep and baking zone and now the prep sink is something I can see being useful if I'm doing work in that area. From the fridge, to prep or bake. If there is more than one cook, then food that doesn't need cooking can be prepared there and the food that needs cooking can be prepped on the island or next to the range.

The door, to clarify, is not the principal rear door, it's only the door to the sundeck and it's placement didn't really work in the formal dining room as the path to the door would have to circumvent the furniture in the dining room, so after having moved it around I still felt it best to keep it where it was. Now it works for me even better in that the path from the booth to the door is immediate.

The conundrum I haven't found a solution for is the blank wall next to the fridge. I feel like I'm cheating if I just put some art on that wall. What else can I do to break the monotony of a blank wall? I can push it back up to 2' if someone has a good idea.

The dishwasher is now equidistant between dirty dishes from the sink, dirty dishes from the booth, and dirty dishes from the prep zone. I kind of like that.

OK, now open for comments. Have I violated more good kitchen design principles than my last go-around?

Fire away.

I like a lot of aspects of this much better. I could cook happily in this kitchen. I suggest you start a new thread for the new layout though. The knowledgeable folks who already opined on the earlier thread my not come back to this one and it's falling fast!

Good luck!

I haven't looked long and hard at it, but I like it!

You'll get negative reactions to the island barrier with fridge on one side and range on the other, but for me that's a trade off I'd be willing to make.

I like the prep sink which I expect will function well as an overflow sink for guests, and your main sink will become the prep sink then. You may well end up preferring the main sink for prep when you have finicky meals you're making which need a lot of back-and-forth to the cooktop.

Three quick things I'd tweak are
(1) move the sink right beside the DW to give yourself the longer prep area to one side and then flip the island to put the DW on the outside of kitchen (giving you an easier path back and forth to cooktop from fridge and prep if the dw is open)
(2) add at least a 6 or 9 inch cabinet between the fridge and wall to facilitate door hinge opening, and
(3) bump the island closer to the range so that you'll have more like at 39" to 42" walkway there after accounting for counter overhang and 48" to 51" on the fridge side. You're a one-cook kitchen so you don't need 4 feet between range and sink, and having the wider walkway on the other side will tend to encourage extraneous traffic to flow around the back of the island rather than through your cooking zone.

I just realized that bumping the island toward the range moves it too close to your banquet table. I'd still bump it up for sure, and would shorten the island edge to meet with the range run edge.

I've followed your plans for some time but I haven't spoken up much. I think you're not quite getting the gist of the advice you're being given. You've got a large space - I'd LOVE to have as large a kitchen as you're planning - but you're not using it well because you're not defining your zones well so you're creating inefficient spaces.

In your latest plan, you're placed the clean-up zone across from your range so you've got a handy water source but it's still not a complete cooking zone because the fridge is on the opposite side of the island. I'm not sure what purpose you foresee for the prep sink so far from the range.

Here's a tweak to your plan:

Here's what I did.

I moved the clean-up zone with dish storage to where you had the range so that it's close to your banquette. Easy to set the table, easy to clear it. I left the aisle here at 4' so that you can still pass through that aisle even when the DW door is open.

I made the table a round table, not an oval. You do not have enough aisle clearance for an oval table with chairs (you don't show any chairs but I can't imagine why'd you'd have a table extend so far into the aisle otherwise). I envision something like this (imagine the top end of the bench curves to meet the table even though I couldn't draw it that way):

[

[traditional kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2107) by new york interior designer Robin Muto

On the opposite side of the island, I moved the fridge down to the right, where you had it originally, IIRC, and placed the range between it and the corner with the prep sink in the island across from these appliances. This creates an efficient cooking zone. I left the baking zone where you had it, within easy distance of the oven and the prep sink.

I also reduced the length of the island so that you have 48" between island and perimeter run and about that between table and island corner. You could add 1 chair in the lower corner (allow for 44" clearance between table and island corner) but not in the upper corner. That chair would be in the door's arc when open. Not really a fun place to sit.

An alternative to this is to move the clean-up zone - sink and DW - back to the island on the opposite side of the prep sink - this would concentrate your plumbing runs and perhaps save you money - like this:

I've seen kitchens with back to back sinks like this at houzz.com but danged if I can find one of them now to show you. I'll keep trying.

The top wall would be a great place for a decorate hutch and a snack/beverage zone, like this, but on a larger scale:

[

[traditional kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2107) by chicago kitchen and bath The Kitchen Studio of Glen Ellyn

(You would not need a 3rd sink since the clean-up sink is right across the aisle.)

This also puts the clean-up/snack areas close to your dining room, which is, IIRC, just out of sight in the upper right of your drawing.

The one downside of the above is that if anyone seated at the banquette wants a drink, they have to walk through your cooking zone to the fridge. You could solve that by adding a small beverage fridge to the island in Plan A or to the hutch in Plan B. The plus side of the fridge on the perimeter, though, is that it's handy to living and dining rooms without anyone going through your cooking zone.

You'll notice that every section of your kitchen now has a purpose - particularly Plan B - unlike your earlier plans. This is the goal of good kitchen design: No space wasted, regardless of its size.

OOOh, that is good. Lisa_a's first one. You can even have your window back over the cleanup sink if you want.

I love Lisa's first one with the sink against the wall. It would allow you to have the window back and has great separation of the zones.

One way to have her second layout and the window is to put glass cabinets over the window like this.

One alteration that I might make to her plan simply because of how you've expressed how you like to cook is to have a triple bowl work sink for the main sink, and then do the beverage hutch with a beverage sink and beverage fridge. That secondary sink could also serve as a prep sink for folks on the opposite side of the island if you have guests who want to help, but if you are most commonly working alone, the triple sink will give you a prep bowl, a disposal bowl, and a bowl to dump dirty dishes into until cleanup happens. The reality though is that most triple sinks are pretty not so great, and you might get better functionality by installing a large single sink as the cleanup/dump sink next to a unequal bowl double sink. I wouldn't suggest this for just any kitchen or any worker, but for your large kitchen and you as the single worker, I think this could work well for solo prep and cleanup as well as when you have guests.

Thank you lisa_a for taking the time to draw those alternative plans.

As we all know, design involves compromises. One of my MUST HAVES is to have the fridge someone on the exterior wall, highly preferring that North wall because I plan on making engineering modification to the fridge involving equipment being placed on the exterior of the wall. I get that this feature is probably never seen by kitchen designers and fans of kitchen design and so the movement of the fridge is never really restricted in kitchen redesigns. Unfortunately for optimum kitchen design, this HAS to be a sacrifice which influences the design.

It comes down to two choices:

1.) Optimum kitchen design and sacrifice the engineering I want to do, or;
2.) Preserve the engineering feature and sacrifice optimum kitchen design.

I'm incorporating a number of such engineering features into the structure of my house and that's the reason I'm going custom rather than buying off the market.

Now, everything you wrote makes sense, I get it, I really do, but can you see another way of achieving the same goals without moving the fridge from that North wall? I'm willing to sacrifice all the other aspects of the kitchen - I'll forgo the island, I'll take a G-kitchen, a U-Kitchen, a kitchen without a booth, a kitchen with a table, etc. No one's imagination should be limited by what I've laid down, starting with a blank slate is fine, but I need that fridge anchored on the North wall and everything else can spin outwards from it. Yes, I know that's a peculiar condition :)

Would it work if I lost the window on the East wall, kept the fridge where it was originally and then moved the range to the East wall, and placed the prep sink on the island and the main sink on the South wall?

Thanks, Taggie.

Alex, is your first floor plan still like it was when you posted it in an earlier thread (see link below)?

Because of where the walls are along the top of your most recent drawings, it almost looks as though you've enlarged the sunroom and shrunk the DR. Is this true?

Can we see your first floor plan again, please? One thing I didn't like about your earlier version is that you had no direct path from your DR and LR to the deck. You had to go through the kitchen and through the sunroom to get to the deck.

I have another idea but I'd really like to see your working first floor plan to know how it will fit in your home.

Here is a link that might be useful: 20x17 kitchen but I know that layout is inefficient

Lisa's Plan A shows great use of the space and zones, and the cleanup area/dirty dishes collection area is not in the midst of everything. Your latest plans had a barrier island, a problem for which people tear apart and remodel their kitchens, so not one you probably want to plan intentionally.

I wouldn't usually center a sink in the island, splitting the work space, but in this case I would shift the sink toward the fridge one cabinet. This would do several things:

- put it closer to the fridge for prep of things like veggies and chicken coming from the fridge

- would make the prep sink more multi-functional, as it would be accessible to snack/beverage/salad makers by the fridge without anyone getting in the way of the cook

- it would leave more counterspace for prep right across from the stove

- more island workspace close to the baking area.

Alex, I placed the fridge in the same location as you'd shown it in earlier plans, not realizing that the exterior wall position has changed, which meant that the fridge location had to change. I really need to see a first floor plan with location of doors and walls as you have them in your current working plan.

As I wrote, I have an idea that I think will work while putting the fridge where you've requested but I don't want to take the time to do so before I see how your kitchen fits into your first floor plan.

(Thanks, Rhome and GreenDesigns! Love the glass/window cabinet idea, GreenDesigns.)

What kind of engineering modifications are that location specific? If you're converting it to propane, then the linesets for that can be run in the wall, and the vent for that can also be run straight up pretty much anywhere. Help us understand why you think it can't be moved and maybe there is a better solution for it while still giving you the appropriate room for the alterations.

Lisa_a,

I'm flattered that you remembered that previous post. Alas, no, the plan has changed. As I noted on another thread I've probably been through 60 different variants on a theme, (not 60 completely different designs) where when I pull on one thread in the LR, I find that another thread in the kitchen unravels and so on.

I'm trying to find a way to balance my different requirements. I've completely abandoned my desire for a curved staircase because no matter what I did I couldn't make it work. Now I've settled with a staircase leading up to a split landing underneath a stained glass window and a private entrance to the master. I've met my desire for a distinctive staircase in a way that doesn't involve a curved staircase. Such is life. However, most of the other features are still in play. You'll notice that the shaded porch on the back East wall is still there but in my latest iteration it's not as deep, meaning that the fridge has had to move deeper into the kitchen.

Here are the current renderings and floor plan. Keep in mind that I'm still pushing and pulling and there are a thousand details still awaiting representation on the plan (no columns yet under the porch overhang so the roof just magically hangs in mid-air, there is no external truss work shown yet, you get the idea) and the South daylight basement wall doesn't yet show daylight.

As you see the plan is still a work in progress, so anything is possible with regards to revisions. I'm a little reluctant to post it because it's still being actively revised, but what they heck, I'm amongst friends.

As I noted in my earlier comment I did play around with reshaping the physical space of the kitchen but it created all sorts of misery elsewhere in the plan. I'll post renderings of the exterior to give you an idea of the structure that is taking shape.

Here's a rough cut and paste keeping the fridge in the same location and turning the pantry around so it's more accessible. It's a clear path to the cleanup area, and the dishes are stored close to the DW. The prep area is social, facing the family room and seated guests. You have a water source on the peninsula and this creates a "cockpit" area from which you will only have to pivot back and forth to prep and cook. The storage centers are close and easier to access with the door reversed to be accessed from the kitchen. A pretty glass pantry door would add interest to the wall. It's easier to get outside from multiple areas with the door moved out of the heart of the kitchen.

GreenDesigns,

One way to have her second layout and the window is to put glass cabinets over the window like this.

That's pretty funky. I saw something similar in a photo recently - someone built a window behind their range. They had to tile the window sill in order to meet fire code, but there it was, a big window to look out of while frying up your bacon.

The reality though is that most triple sinks are pretty not so great, and you might get better functionality by installing a large single sink as the cleanup/dump sink next to a unequal bowl double sink.

In the plan I chose a 42" undermount sink, mainly for size. I share your misgivings about a triple sink. I'm torn on whether to go with a large dump sink or a double. That said though, what do you think of using a single standard sink as a prep sink rather than the smaller bar sinks? I certainly have the counterspace for it. I really like the black sink graphic that illustrates your point. Thanks for digging that up. I think that would work for me.

lisa_a,

One thing I didn't like about your earlier version is that you had no direct path from your DR and LR to the deck. You had to go through the kitchen and through the sunroom to get to the deck.

The principal outdoor entertainment area is on the east side of the property which will have an extensive multi-tiered stone patio. That side of the property will also have a very large greenhouse and other outdoor-living features, so when I'm outdoors I'll be in the back of the property. The sundeck off of the kitchen is primarily for my own use, just a quick retreat from the kitchen.

I see the flaw that you all see, that the path that guests have to use to get to the outdoor entertainment area is more circuitous and involves transiting through the mud room, but because there are competing design interests in play, I can't see a way to shorten that path and if the event is an outdoor event then arriving guest can access the back patio without transiting through the house. A second consideration is that I'm trying to maximize light on the southside daylight basement and that kitchen sundeck would block light into the basement if I extended it out towards the dining and living room. That said, everything is fluid - it's a balancing act of competing desires.

rhome410,

Your latest plans had a barrier island, a problem for which people tear apart and remodel their kitchens, so not one you probably want to plan intentionally.

I do have a knack for stepping in it. I thought about what Westiegirl wrote: "I think it makes sense to design it in "zones" rather than a "triange"." I had been striving to stay within the design guidelines of the work triangle principle but as was plainly evident from the plan at the very top of this thread, that left areas of the kitchen without an obvious useful purpose. The zones idea which she and a number of you are utilizing makes sense.

I thought that a prep/baking zone near the fridge would be an efficient use of space. Prep work for salads, for canning, for sandwiches, for pizzas, for anything that makes primary use of refrigerated goods would make more sense to be near a fridge than a range. Even with baking the only time I need to be near a cook surface is right at the last moment when the food goes into the oven. The prep work doesn't need to be near the oven. If I need butter, eggs, milk, and what have you, being near the fridge is key.

Having the prep/bake zone there would free up a zone near the sink and the range for meat preparation, working with sauces, and other tasks which required cooking food in some fashion or continually needing to clean pots and utensils in order to use them again.

The barrier between fridge and range obviously created a problem but was the problem the worst amongst the evils or the least? I don't know, I'm still kicking it around, obviously, which is why I posted the layout here.

GreenDesigns,

What kind of engineering modifications are that location specific?

I'm planning on aggressively expanding the thermal mass within the cooling envelope, I want to have mechanisms for passive cooling (I live in a cold climate), I want to expel heat to the outside rather than into the kitchen, and so on. I'm pretty much aiming to integrate the fridge into the house. You know how some guys restore cars and go golfing, well stuff like this is my hobby.

As with my abandonment of the curved staircase when I just couldn't get it to work, I can do the same here by using ducts and pipes and such, but I'd rather not. It'll come down to the trade-offs involved.

I need to sit and ponder the appeal of the 100% functional designs against the 90% and the 70% functional designs.

just clarifying something I wrote above, regarding work triangle...

Although zones are important and cannot be ignored without potential disaster, same with the triangle(s). Now that so many kitchens have two sinks, there are two triangles more often. Mine has this--two triangles share a single long side. The refrig and the range are at the two poles.

The Read Me thread has leads to a number of resources including, if I recall, the suggested dimensions of a triangle by kitchen experts. The range and the refrig benefit from having the sink(s) between them on the shorter legs of the triangle.

Each user has a different set of zones, depending on usage. Those with a lot of fast food & pre-made foods won't have much use for a baking zone or a canning zone but they will want a satisfactory route between freezer and microwave and ovens. I doubt many people have a flower arranging zone but I do, as well as a "dealing with the garden produce" zone. Pet owners have a feeding zone. And so forth.

What are your zones? How will you use this kitchen? Start there. In each iteration of your design, try working out how you will do things. Here's how I did it--I asked questions such as "it's Christmas week. Where will I need to be in this kitchen? How can I work without houseguests being in my way? What would be necessary for me to make a lutefisk meal?" "It's just DH and me. Supper is chicken hot dish, squash, green salad, wine. We're making supper together. Where is he and where am I and how can we work convivially?" "It's summer and the garden produce is rolling in. I want to blanche beans and broccoli for freezing." "There is a dinner party for 10. Full meal in dining room. What do I need to get it ready and how can the space work most effectively?" "If I remove that wall and lose the china cabinet, how can the kitchen compensate for the lost storage?" "Where will I lay out recipe books and plan the parties?" You will have different questions.

As for thermal aspects of design, you might find the Cold Climate Research Center in Fairbanks to be helpful. They're big on thermal mass, etc.

Thanks for posting your first floor plans, Alex. I hope you won't mind some gentle critique. If you plan to stay in your home a long time - and you know your job situation is such that your plans won't change (can anyone of us say that these days?) - then you have more freedom to design to your specific tastes. That said, you should know that when you go to sell, whether that's 5 years or 30 years from now, your home may sit on the market longer until you find the buyer with the same preferences that you have.

For instance, the majority of people aren't keen on a powder room right next to the front entry. Technically, it opens onto the front hall but in reality, it opens onto the LR. That location is a little too public for most people. I preferred your plans that had the stairs in that location with the powder room towards the back of the house. Pity you can't do a curved staircase (they are gorgeous, aren't they?) but can't you still place a staircase in the same place? If not, what about placing the powder room where you show the closet? I really think you should revisit the bathroom's location.

One of the top 10 trends these days is to have outdoor living spaces serve as extensions of indoor spaces, particularly public spaces, such as living and dining rooms. Even though trends come and go, I'd be surprised if a well-placed deck conducive to entertaining would ever fall out of favor.

The deck that you state is your principal outdoor entertainment area is accessible via the mudroom, which is an area normally designated as private not public space. I think you need a better connection to your public spaces than your plan currently offers.

How do you plan to use the deck off the front entry? It's a good size and it's close to public spaces but it's only accessible via the front entry ... well, that's awkward, IMO. Unless you give it a purpose and provide better access to it, I think this may end up as wasted space.

Here's an idea:

I didn't address the stairs/powder room issues I brought up above. Didn't feel I should mess with those since I don't know how your upstairs is laid out. Plus I wasn't sure if those voids in the walls (between bathroom and stairs) are part of your passive solar heating or just voids. If the latter, get rid of them and use them for stairway space.

I enlarged your East deck, making it a wrap around to your DR - replacing windows with double French doors. You can still designate private spaces - a chair or two will do the job - but this offers better circulation between indoor entertaining spaces and outdoor entertaining spaces. Not sure how this plays out with your stone terracing below, though. You could reduce the depth of the deck outside the kitchen so that it's only a walkway. Say 4' or 5' wide so people can move about easily. Can you shift the stairs between deck and terrace so that they direct traffic to your DR entry? Think about flow when you're entertaining.

I shrunk the deck off the LR (can't tell how guests will get to your front door since that's not shown on your plans). You still have a nice deck entry near the front door and a small sitting area to the left of the entry. It looks like it's under cover so this could be a nice place to sit in foul weather.

I shifted the kitchen wall towards the garage. Not sure how much, but eyeballing it, I'm guessing about 2 feet. This allowed me to give you a U lay-out with a larger island with seating along the long side, enough for 3 people to visit with you while you prep but not get in your way.

The clean-up sink is closer to the prep area so it's easy for you to dump dirty dishes as you go. You'll notice that I also shifted the sun room door closer to the DR corner so that it's out of your work zone.

I changed the mudroom area a bit, shifting the end wall towards the garage so that the door to the deck was in the back hall more than in the mud room. This visually will help it feel more like it's in the public space than the private space, especially since the island seating isn't that far away.

I really want to shift your exercise/grain grinding bike out of your DR to the back hallway area. Still close at hand but not as intrusive in the public spaces.

GreenDesigns,

This was the kitchen design that I uploaded over in the Building a Home sub-forum back on Jan.31 as part of my first draft.

Renovator8 made a useful comment - "A double loaded work space is a counter across from another counter that allows a cook to turn and use either surface quickly with a minimum of steps involved. This ability is essential not only for productivity but in order to avoid a disaster. Unnecessary walking in a kitchen should be avoided even if you are alone."

His comment has steered me away from G-kitchens precisely because they all seem to have a lot of space in the middle and have the counters on the perimeter, meaning a lot of walking through empty space to get from A to B.

Your design, while avoiding the mistakes on appliance placement that I made with my G-kitchen produces the same outcome that Renovator8 was warning about. Doesn't it? You guys are both pros so I'm not really in a position to see the nuance that makes your plan work but which sets off warning bells when I have a lot of open space in the kitchen.

Lisa_a,

I hope you won't mind some gentle critique. . . .

It's precisely because of criticisms that everyone is kind enough to offer than I keep coming back and subjecting you all to more long-winded posts filled with new variations on plans. I am taking the criticisms to heart and they do percolate in my mind as I'm reviewing the problems with the plans, so please offer gentle and not so gentle criticisms. It's all good food for thought.

For instance, the majority of people aren't keen on a powder room right next to the front entry.

Don't I know, I've tried to avoid that but it's there because of a series of trade-offs. I have a copy of every single iteration that I've created on this plan so if I ever want to post a case-study on "The Evolution Of A House Design" I could demonstrate how each problem discovered shifted the plan to a new look and then the next problem again shifted the plan and so on. Here was the very first plan which had the master on the first floor and before I realized that I had way more space on the 2nd that I had absolutely no idea what to do with, which pushed me towards a smaller first with 2 bedrooms on the 2nd. Note where the powder room was.

Note the lack of "birds on a wire seating" note the appliance placement.

What I've been struggling with is that the first floor has 3 principal rooms, LR, DR, KI, and then I need to fit in a powder room, stairs, elevator, mudroom and central fireplace. There are only so many design options one can play with when you have 3 rooms and also want to maximize southern exposure.

So I understand the drawback of placing the powder room right at the front, but because I wanted a wide-spanning gable roof on the front, I needed some space opposite the centered doorway to counterbalance the living room. Besides, the 2nd floor cantilevers out over the porch behind the powder room, so absent the powder room that porch would be very deep. I thought of putting the powder room next to the basement stairs, in the back of the house, next to the garage, but that would create the problems I mentioned above.

I like your kitchen design. I like the big island. I like the appliance placement. However, ever since LWO made his comment about "birds on a wire" I realized that I agree with that viewpoint. I tried to avoid that situation in my very first plan and now that I've played around with banquet seating I think I want to stick with that instead of island seating.

To refer back to what I mentioned much earlier about all sorts of hell breaking loose when I played around with the walls, your moving of the "fridge wall" now creates all sorts of misery on the 2nd floor and especially at the roof level for that wall was a load bearing wall essential for roof support, but there was no way for you to know that.

I'm going to keep your kitchen design in mind as I once again mull over starting with a blank slate for the whole house because I'm finding that if I pull on one end of the string somewhere then matters on the other end of the string start to unravel.

As for the back deck, that was there principally as a wood storage location. The main entertainment and relaxation would be on a tiered stone backyard - I'm really dealing with a 3 dimensional area back there, so it will be very engaging visually, with stairs, slopes, tiers, terraces, etc. Kind of like this but much more involved.

I understand your reason for making the mudroom door be part of the back hall but now I lose the airlock quality of the mudroom. I'm up in the mountains near a major ski resort, so I'm dealing with snow and cold and I'm really wanting to isolate the heat loss from opening doors.

As for the exercise bike, it had to be next to a counter so that the grain mill and motor have a place to be stationed. I'm not really looking forward to balancing the grain mill in my hand as I peddle the bike. I joke, but I really am looking forward to the ability to get a morning "ride" in when it's miserable outside and do double duty by milling fresh flour for the day. Of course this isn't an iron-clad must have but I'm going to be living in the house solo far more intensively than I will be using the house for entertaining, so I can always move the bike temporarily when it would be unsightly to guests. Putting the door there and removing the cabinet works for guests in the house scenarios, but for a single guy living alone it doesn't give me an advantage.

The challenge I'm facing is that, unlike with a game of poker in which many different hands are possible, I'm playing with a deck of cards that only has 3-4 cards, say, so the limited combinations of rooms and purposes is really cramping me up. I do like your big island, principally because I like the surface area it gives me to work with. I'm going to keep the short and squat idea in mind rather than the long and narrow that I was working with.

I've never designed a home from scratch but I would think that grouping spaces by whether they are private or public and noting which spaces need to be linked would help in the process. That's not really much different than the way I've approached garden design and it's always helped me find a focus and get me going in the right direction.

I'm pretty sure LWO's birds on a wire comment refers to seating in a straight line. It's not my preference either. The people at the end can't easily converse with each other. That's why I curved the island seating. It's more conducive to conversations.

This is what I envision for birds on a wire:

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[contemporary kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2103) by dc metro architect AHMANN LLC

Compare that to these two examples of seating at a curved island:

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[mediterranean kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/mediterranean-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2109) by charleston architect Group 3

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[eclectic kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/eclectic-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2104) by minneapolis interior designer Susan E. Brown Interior Design

If you have the space, these island seating ideas are even better for conversations:

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[traditional kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2107) by chicago interior designer Claudia Martin, ASID

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[traditional kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2107) by chicago architect Becker Architects Limited

You should have 44" behind seating so that someone can easily walk behind anyone seated at the island *if* there are no appliances or cabinets in that aisle. Otherwise, you should aim for 60" so that the aisle is wide enough for someone to open cabinets or appliances, someone else to walk behind while others are seated at the island. Even though you will be the sole person in your house most of the time, designing it to work well when you entertain would be a good goal to have as you design your new home.

I love banquettes. My hubby does not. He dislikes being stuck in the middle, making someone get up to let him out. That's especially an issue with the circular banquette you've designed. That's not a factor with island seating. On the other hand, table seating is easier for all ages - no need to climb up and down off a bar stool. If your preference is for a banquette, aim for set-ups along these lines to avoid too many diners getting "land-locked":

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[traditional kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2107) by san francisco interior designer Kathleen Burke Design

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[contemporary dining room design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-dining-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_722~s_2103) by san francisco architect Cathy Schwabe Architecture

The table in the first photo is a pedestal table while the table in the second photo is a trestle table. These are the best types of tables for banquettes. Standard tables with a leg at each corner make maneuvering on and off a banquette bench more difficult.

If the deck off the mudroom is primarily for wood storage, I'd shrink it and put emphasis on a deck in another area.

I'm curious - I thought it was preferable for homes built in snowy climates to have simple roof lines.