Alex, it might help if you actually draw some circles around your zones, maybe? Buehl had some great examples of this a while back. Maybe you've seen them? If not please post back and I'm sure I can rustle them up. But actually going through the exercise of physically sketching out the locale of the zones was helpful to me. I didn't at all get it until I actually did that. All I'd ever heard about was "triangles" before coming here and being rather rapidly put down (blush) for my uncouthedness.

I noticed some long, long discussions on a couple threads of yours before. Being no design maven there's no way I would weigh in. All I can offer is a feeling sort of thing. I know and get it that you're really very facile with words and want to comprehend from a rational word-standpoint. But I don't think this is so much about argument as about feel. When I stand myself, in my mind's eye, inside of Lisa's version, something feels way better. I guess I'm immersed in a "zone" for cooking, just like they say you might want to be, and then there's a separate locale for cleanup and that's fine too. In your version, I'm OK in the cooking section but then I have to go be in another area for prepping and it's really distant. In an attempt to answer your question, then, I guess it is true that my fridge and my stove don't want to be too distant. I agree that usually you don't use both simultaneously, but they do have an almost aesthetic congruence; they're "synthetic", if you will. And they belong together.

That said, my own fridge-sink line is broken up by water, but there's no island in between, they've a shallow triangle going there.

So yes, I would not want my fridge so far away from my stove. Usually most everything is out of the fridge and prepped before needing "processing" at the stove, but not always, and it all goes together. It's of a piece. Cleanup is just a 'activity-peninsula' stuck on the end of the time-space, if you will.

BTW I'm with you about tossing pans in the sink while cooking. That's why I actually am finding myself thinking of the prep sink just as sink2 - a second sink, not a secondary one. It feels to me as if I've got a two bowl sink, with the bowls separated a bit in space. They function somewhat interchangeably. That's a bit of a function of my space, probably, but mostly I think it's the way I cook. Maybe the way you cook too. As a consequence, I'd make that prep sink of yours way bigger, personally. Mine's 21" x 16" and I sure wish it were bigger. It's large enough to wash everything I need to, literally; but there's no "tossing" room as you get with a larger bowl. If I had it to do over again I'd make the prep sink larger, even, than the cleanup! At least comparable in size and you've the space to do this if you'd like.

Attached link might offer you some more background info on the zone concepts. Specific food prep zones is a bit outside the logic model though it is adaptable. No one approach is going to work for everyone or suit every situation - though I think your right to want to explore what it is before rejecting it. Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dynamic Space

hypothetical experienc? maze like kitchen, including for those wanting to sit at table...and occas get up to get to lavatory or do something in liv room...then to get back there, with you in middle of your 'work'.Yikes. Take the East wall and lower wall with frig and make them your kitchen walls and run a long rustic farmhouse table or island situated top to bottom at right hand side with stools/chairs all around. You can use this for friends/family/your prep/landing space for arms of goods when entering. Keep your kitchen more simplified for complex functions that you perform.If I were doing all of your type of cooking,it means a good amt of time spent in the kitchen, and I'd want easy/fun spot for company to sit and talk with and they be able to get up and get to other activities in the home.The right side upon entering kitchen for the table instead of the upper inner awkward corner.People will be interested in all that you do and joining you at times....create an inviting large usable spot for others... your kitchen functions will fall into place with the sq footage you have, but avoid maze passages.

My daughter keeps all her glassware prettily displayed in a large glass-front cabinet way across the kitchen from her sink. Right for her, for me...I'm not sure what I'd put there.

The suggestions people get here are most valuable when they cause remodelers to analyze how THEY work and what THEY really want so they can design a kitchen that's right for them. So good for you. Sounds like your're moving right along.

I'll give a crack at the barrier island in your specific design - with a very long introduction.

Every person who walks into the kitchen wants something - company, a snack, a drink, use the trash, wash hands, bake a cake - something. For each of us the precise chemistry of what "something" is can be a little bit different depending of your lifestyle and your personal preferences.

It also changes over time, small children grow up, teenagers leave home, your activities and taste change over time. Sometimes, changing lifestyles, disabilities or simply aging introduces new requirements.

There is a lot commonality in kitchens and how they get used. There is a relationship between people (non-cooks) in the kitchen and the ref. People will flow back inside from a deck or outdoor area to/from the refrigerator. People will flow back and forth from the dining room, family room or other eating locations to the refrigerator and people will go to/from the booth to the refrigerator.

Children or really close friends will hang in front of the open ref door for who knows what reasons. :)

So, its placement is really important just for those reasons but then add that people will always take the shortest route to the object of their desire - even if they cut in front of you while you're carrying 20 pounds of boiling water.

Add again, that there are two kinds of home chefs. One will make one trip to the ref and get out everything they need, and make a meal. They only have one to-fro the ref and normally one to-fro food storage. The other will be constantly in and out of the ref and food storage while meals are being prepared. There is no great advantage/disadvantage to either way, but its important that you know which sort you're most like - or if you have more than one chef, what each of you are like BEFORE you place that ref somewhere.

BARRIER ISLAND, where something that needs to be walked around is between the prep area and the ref, just isn't as important to a one-trip-chef. There are people who are perfectly happy to have the ref in the next room.

Full disclosure - I am of the other sort. I imagine the one trip chef with a grocery basket over one arm, recipe in hand, "shopping" in the food storage and wish I did that. But, I don't. I placed the ref at the end of the prep counter and am very happy (the condiments, they call to me).

I feel hampered by not knowing where or whether there is a dining room or outdoor patio space that will be used for cooking or eating but I'd likely start over again because of the location of the booth and probable door to the outside doesn't seem like the ref works well in either location. And because of conflicts between the extended table and the ?exterior? door, dw door, edge of the island when chairs are used, etc.

I like research. I found that taking a look at what I actually did was very helpful in two ways. The first was that I thought I cooked in one way, when I actually did something else. For example, I found out that I go to the ref more than I go to the sink when making a meal. The second way was giving me criteria that I could actually use judge whether any given plan was efficient for the actual me, not some other idealized of how one cooks.

This is sorta a zone plan, loosely based on us. It states the relationships of tasks and storage that take place in a kitchen. A floor plan is a physical realization of a zone plan. You might have different zones or different arrangements of how zones relate to each other.

I'm saying the below not to be snarky or funny. Reality bites sometimes.

Your original floor plan says you like to do the dishes while cooking and that you are the only person who will ever do both tasks. Your prep space isn't very important to you and you're willing to have it located well away from the cooking area OR you're will to devote very little counter to it.

Given that all the windows are on the one wall, you want to basically work on a little corner of the island (sharing space with dirty or drying dishes) facing a blank wall.

I can see the ref, but I'm unsure where the rest of your food storage is located.

The eating area will be sometimes cramped, particularly if people sit there while you're going back and forth to the ?outside or you put the leaves in the table. You want some stylin' judging by the round booth but maybe haven't thought about how uncomfortable those can be with 2-3 people who can't get out without having others move.

You like to bake. You like to walk

I also say that I like to assemble my ingredients first, and then toss dirty pans away as soon as I'm done with them.

However, people in general don't actually know how they cook. They think they do. But they don't. Humans make poor observers of ourselves. We don't realize how often we repeat the same catchphrases, the particular look we get on our faces when asked to do something we don't want to do, or how we wave our left hand when we're frustrated.

In the picture you paint, you get everything you need out of the fridge at once, make the meal, and cleanup happens only afterwards.

Really? You walk to the fridge and in one fell swoop, get out the steaks; chives, cream and butter for the potatoes; green beans, lemon and mint for the vegetable; A-1 sauce to put on the side; lettuce, mushrooms, tomatoes and scallions for the salad, all at once? With no forgetting, ever? And not only get them out, but take out the exact amount you need--no putting the ingredients back after slicing some off or rinsing a few? And you do this even for more complicated meals, such as when you've downloaded a full dinner menu from Epicurious; or you're making beef stew but make sure to take out not only the beef but get the potatoes out of the pantry even though you won't need them for two and a half hours?

And cleanup happens the same way, always after a meal when you're done cooking? You're never cooking a stew for tomorrow while somebody is cleaning up from tonight. You're never slow-roasting while someone else is fixing a sandwhich or a snack. Every meal always marches in perfect lockstop, right?

In a word, no. It doesn't happen that way. Plenty of people have spent their time observing other people, which is something we are reasonably good at, to figure out the actual patterns that people follow when they use their kitchens. Sure, there are lots of variations; but the essential issues are the same.

I think the real functional issue with your kitchen is that it's big and full of stuff. In a more practical L-plus-island layout, the range is on one wall, the cleanup sink is on the wall perpendicular, and the island has a prep sink. That makes it easy to turn and plop dirty pots and pans right into the cleanup sink, and also to reach for dishes to plate meals. But you've got other stuff happening on that wall, like the banquette, so that won't work.

Interesting observation Marcolo, about putting _back_ ingredients. I like to use a mise en place approach but I also like to put everything extraneous away before & while cooking, likely necessitating a bazillion trips to the fridge/pantry/sink/dishwasher anyway. I wonder if mise en place people generally trend this way?

I'm no designer, and my Zen is decidedly lacking, but to me at first glance, your first design has people sitting right in the middle of your workspace like a big annoying fleshy barrier. I've got a banquette/table to the side of my kitchen and when anyone is there it's a source of motion and distraction I'm happy not to go anywhere near while cooking. Yet they can sit and watch and entertain me at leisure, which is perfect, and it's the happiest most productive kitchen I've ever had.

Therefore, to me, the ideal would be to flip your left-hand wall so that the banquette is at the bottom and the prep space is at the top with the fridge on the border zone between eating table and work areas. Admittedly this is probably not possible with whatever architecture you've already got built, but it would be the most intuitive spatial setup as I see it.

Siting the fridge on that border zone is vital: you can access it from your cooking space and they can access it from their drinking/eating space, and never do the two need to collide.

(laughing)
zen978 - I don't think it has to do with mise en place as much as ocd ;)

@bmorepanic - heh. Mise en place sounds so much more deliberate and refined than OCD!

Alex- Your plan would work (IMHO) if you added a fridge drawer or little undercounter fridge, by the range, or on that side of the island.

Personally, I don't like the big fridge too close to my prep area, because then everyone is trying to get drinks/snacks, while I'm cooking. However, I do use a lot of milk, cheese, butter/margerine, etc. while I'm at the range...and maybe some tomatoes or spinach...so a small fridge nearby, would be great. Would that work, for you?

Home kitchens do not work the same way as 'professional' kitchens.

The pros generally cook the same thing over and over based on a menu that is limited
This applies to an institutional setting or a restaurant.

One of the ways you know a very good chef is in the kitchen is when you can order things NOT on the menu and they come out just as fast and done correctly.

At home we make all sorts of different things, often every day, but for all to share at a meal.

While an Italian restaurant is likely to have a pot of water boiling ALL the time for cooking macaroni. They may even have small separate colanders to keep each serving separate in the pot.
Pull it out, water drains, on the plate, sauce and serve.

At home we make a single type of pasta for everyone to share using a single sauce.

A single larger batch of Chinese food for all to share instead of different dishes per person with sharing 'banquet' style.

A lot of the writing seems to use pro kitchen methods for home use.
While some parts work, 'mis en place' before starting actual cooking does work.

Prep the ingredient, place them in smaller bowls or containers, have them ready for actual cooking. Measure out the spice for the dish and set them aside.
When I was married the second time my new wife looked at the stacks of steel and glass bowls with a LOT of small 'custard' size ones (for spices and smaller items).

In a pro kitchen everything is prepped before opening in many cases and then binned.
The kitchen knows what it will need for the shift, and prep starts early (sometimes very early, like the day before).

Our styles vary from day to day, unlike any pro kitchen would dare to try.
Steaks one night, fish the next, Chinese, Mexican, French, Italian, Spanish, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Brazilian, American (however you want to try and define it), etc. (and I know I missed some, but you should get the idea).

The refrigerator can be closer to the prep area than the stove.
The counter for mis en place needs to be near the stove for foods that will be cooked.
Salad is not usually a cooked item, so it is likely to stay on or near the prep center till served.

The best thing is to try and set the kitchen up to YOUR repeated style(s) of cooking, and just resign yourself to a few more steps for other things like thanksgiving or the family reunion dinner..

Need for fridge during cooking aside (which is something I would, personally, demand of kitchen design because if I need something from it during the throes of cooking, I need it NOW), let's talk about prep a minute. If you prep veggies or chicken, for example, there is need for a sink. In your plan you can either carry everything around the island to the main sink and work with food over dirty dishes, or you can carry them to the tiny sink in the baking area, wash and prep them, then carry all those parts and pieces quite a distance to the stove...Several trips or dropping things... That's what would happen for me. Plus, as others have said, I rarely remember EVERYthing. In Lisa's plan all this movement is greatly diminished and the work path more efficient.

Also, if you really wash your pots and pans by hand and want a place to put them when you're cooking, put a larger sink in the island. By the time you're throwing pots and pans out of your way, you're probably done prepping, and only need the sink for draining, so at least leave yourself room for the colander when needed. ;-) Zelmar and Malhgold both happily have larger sinks for their prep/cooking areas than they do in their cleanup zones. If I did a new kitchen, I'd at least try for a bigger prep sink, so I can clean up my cast iron pots nearer the stove.

You and I have a similar layout dilemna, in that one good option for the kitchen layout has two of the three zones together and the third some distance away. For me and how I cook, it was not difficult to want to put prep and cooking together with cleanup as the outlier. I don't clean when I prep except for rinsing a bowl/spoon/knife/cutting board I'll need to use again; as long as I have a space to toss dirty prep items, I wait to clean up until most/all prep is done and the meal is cooking away on the range. Also for me, prep is ongoing and there is always a last-minute dash of this or that to get out of the fridge or pantry. Cleanup can be done whenever, hours later; prep and cooking are more immediate. That's where I'm choosing to be most efficient.

I have a friend with a very similar house and kitchen size like mine, with some of the same physical/structural constraints I face in my planning. She chose to put her prep and cleanup together, with the range/cooking zone on the far side of the room. To my eyes, and I was there for dinner last week, she spends a lot of time walking back and forth across the width of the kitchen to the range with the cutting board or mixing bowls, because she cooks from scratch and therefore has a lot of prep steps for most of her meals. She does have the convenience of pivoting to throw dirty dishes right in the cleanup sink, but for me the constant walking while cooking would be a huge drawback. But she loves her kitchen as is. Different strokes.

In a functional analysis of a kitchen's actual work (and there have been MANY), the heart of the kitchen needs to contain the prep and cooking zones. The prep takes up the most time (70% of the time spent in the kitchen), and the cooking 10% tends to be the most time critical monitored activity, so they should be as close as possible to each other.

Prep NEEDS a water source. You've got to wash your veggies to chop them, and clean off the knife blade to switch from julienned beets to the mangos for dessert. You've got to wash your hands in between placing the raw chicken into the roasting pan and turning around to grab the salt and pepper to season it.

The two activities that can most easily go on a kitchen's perimeter are the cold storage and cleanup.

Cold storage needs to be at the perimeter because of people outside the kitchen area needing to access it for cold drinks and snacks and you don't want them crossing your path when you are trying to shovel some chopped chives onto a skillet on the blade of your knife. And yet cold storage also needs to be accessible to the prepper. If you are making a spinach salad and roast chicken for dinner, you leave the greens in the fridge as long as possible while prepping the chicken. Once the chicken is in the oven, then you take out the greens and prepare the salad and put it back into the fridge to stay chilled while you wait on the chicken to be done. Without good direct access to the fridge, this becomes cumbersome. It is especially cumbersome if there is more than one person helping in the kitchen.

And while some of that 20% cleanup happens during prep, as in my example above of rinsing off your knife or a measuring cup, 95% of cleanup happens after not just prep but eating is over---unless you have a helper to load the DW with the prep stuff as soon it's finished with. Most people just accumulate the dirty dishes in or near the cleanup sink to deal with them later. You don't stop in the middle of making dinner to put the pan that you blanched the grean beans in into the the DW unless you have a combination prep and cleanup sink that is too full to be able to put the onion skins into the disposal or rinse off the starch from the cut potatoes.

When you combine the prep and cleanup functions, you need to not only allow sufficient space for each, but also make sure that each side has the access to the other zones that you need. The prep side has to be adjacent to the cooking zone and the cleanup side has to be adjacent to the dish storage zone. Splitting the prep and cleanup zones doesn't just double the potential for efficiency, it quadruples it. You can now take the one person kitchen and have it work for four people simultaneously---or even more if the refrigerator is properly on the perimeter. It can be raided while three people prep (two on each side of the prep sink, and one on one side of the cleanup sink) and one person loads all of the prep mess into the DW.

Now, after you've digested the above information, look at your proposed kitchen layout again with more educated eyes. Your kitchen layout doesn't work AT ALL for even a single cook. You'd have to hike miles just to make a simple meal, and you'd also be frustrated as the dirty dishes would pile up around the main sink. The auxillary sink does nothing, either for prep or even to act as a bar sink for visitors. Compare the steps you would have to take with your design with the MUCH more efficient layout that Lisa gave you. Be the food. Travel with it from the storage areas to the prep areas to the range and then to the dining room and back again. Internalize these workflow principles and then try again. Or, pick one of the designs that the people who have been trying to help you have given you. I'd be partial to some of GD's design (mainly MOVING that door out of the heart of the kitchen to keep the traffic out from under foot!) and some of Lisa's (Love the tight efficient prep zone!)

Maybe I'm missing something, but why can't there be a cleanup zone in the island? Make one side "prep" and the other side "cleanup" with a big sink in the middle and a dishwasher??

What I mean is- make the prep sink a full size sink- move it over to the right a bit.
Decide which side of the sink is going to be prep and then make the other side of the sink clean up.
Put a dishwasher on the clean up side. Then, maybe forget about the other side of the room clean up zone.
Maybe put something else there? A wet bar for your thirsty friends at the banquette?

LWO, this gave me such a giggle: Be the food. I think this should become the GW kitchen design mantra!

Alex, you've gotten some great feedback and I hope it helps you understand what we're trying to help you see. Everyone does cook differently so your kitchen should fit your specific needs but as marcolo pointed out, we aren't always the best at observing what we do. And, as LWO pointed out, there are commonalities in the way we all cook. Knowing what these are is very helpful to planning our kitchens.

If, as you write, you like to throw dirty dishes into the clean-up sink as you prep, then my plan that had the clean-up sink back to back with the prep sink on the island may work better for you. You simply reach across the island to put a pan in the sink. Plus the DW is just on the other side of the prep area so it's easy to load up the DW.

Or you could go with rhome's great suggestion - go with a larger sink for a prep sink. If you get one that has "gadgets" (check out the Franke Orca at the link below), you can place dirty dishes in it and still have room to continue prepping.

I have other feedback but it relates to your kitchen and overall home's plan so I'll post it on that thread, hopefully sometime today.

Here is a link that might be useful: Franke Orca related products

If you put two sinks in the island, you take away from its function as a prep space.

If that is a range, then the original plan is highly dysfuntional. Fridge, food storage and prep space have been addressed. What I haven't seen is the fact that anyone who cares enough to dedicate a space to baking is not going to want to have to navigate not only the island but also the table and a traffic way from what appears to be living areas and the fridge. When I'm carrying hot pans, delicate cakes or trays full of cookies, I want my landing/cooling space and my work space all right with me.

The second one is better, but it puts all the cooking and baking in the middle of the path between the table and the fridge. That wouldn't work for me. If you could put fridge drawers at the end of the island or end of the run next tot he table, you could have drinks and other items that go to the table there to reduce that traffic.

My prep sink is in the island between my cooktop and baking and the cleanup sink on the far side. I had some reservations about the dirty pans and such on the opposite wall from the larger sink, but it works well. Your island is longer than mine -- go a little larger in the sink. A 24" would be and easy fit. You could consider an even larger one. Remember that the cabinets on the front and back of your island don't have to match and that you will be paying more for all those 24" boxes than you will fewer larger ones.

rhome410 makes a couple of very good (and concisely put) points. In your layout you will be doing a lot of walking between your defined prep area and your stove OR if your prep area winds up being at your clean-up sink you will be doing a lot of walking between it and the fridge.

IF you wash your pots and pans by hand and they don't go into the DW then a good suggestion by rhome is to enlarge your prep sink in the layout suggested by lisa_a. The other clean-up zone with the DW can be used for all the stuff that is used at the dinner table where you have a very direct line from it to the DW.

I prep by taking everything I need out of the fridge and then like zen978 everything gets put away as used - the dirty utensils into the DW, the condiments back into the fridge/pantry, the extra vegies back into the fridge. I clean as I go including washing pots/pans if I'm finished with them. No big clean-up after dinner. Why? it isn't OCD or anything as fancy as mise en place but it comes from only having a counter 4'x2' on which to do everything for 20 years and so having to be extremely efficient with my space. Having more than 15' of prep counter has not cured me of this habit. And so I'm wondering if some of AlexHouse's planning comes from how he currently uses his space.

I think that brickeyee might be clairvoyant for in my misspent youth I did train and work in fancy schmancy restaurants and the cooking habits I picked up there have stuck with me in my personal life as I moved on to a different career. That said I never had to actually design the workplaces (kitchens) and I simply adopted to the various layouts so I never paid attention to the principles of design. I suppose I'm kind of like Cole Trickle (Days of Thunder) who knew how to drive his car but didn't know anything about engines.

As for the question of going to the fridge, I do so during prep but very rarely when I'm actually cooking. So it's not a matter of only making one trip and getting everything, I agree, it's a matter of having the fridge handy during prep and once I finish prepping I'm not really needing to make dashes to the fridge. In this way I'm the opposite of bmorepanic.

The suggestions for the prep sink being are very sound and consider it done, in this plan and the very likely next plan as I start afresh.

This was an enlightening topic and I thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's perspectives on the issue at hand. One thing I've discovered is that there is a world of difference between using someone else's kitchen and DESIGNING your own. When using a kitchen you find ways to make due and your improvise and that's different than starting with a blank sheet of paper and trying to achieve a harmonious balance of all the components.

Good point, lascatx, about the fridge/table situation of my lay-out. btw, I pointed that out in Alex's lay-out thread and suggested he add a small beverage fridge near the table. Fridge drawers would serve the same purpose. I didn't realize until now that Alex didn't link to his lay-out thread. I'm adding it in case anyone is curious.

Here is a link that might be useful: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more

My 2 cents... Be careful of the 3'6" space between the cook and refrigerator wall and the island. Often that dimension does not take into consideration countertop overhang and the depth of the refrigerator. Either way, with a kitchen that size, I believe 42" is going to be quite cramped.

Alex- I don't suppose you can switch the clean up zone and seating area, in Lisa's version? That would eliminate the barrier island entirely. Or, put stools at the island and make the 'current' clean up area, a narrow pantry/display space. Your dining room is right around the corner, isn't it? Would that work?

drachiele and LL - Alex is revising his entire house plan, not just the kitchen (see the link I posted above). You could post lay-out suggestions in that thread or you could wait to post comments and suggestions on his new plan whenever he posts.