I think that breakfast nook is a little small and will give you trouble with clearances. I also think the clearances in general are a little tight. I redrew your layout to scale based on the dimensions provided above. Each light grey square is a foot. Base cabinets are 2 feet deep + 1" or 1.5" counter overhang, so, for example, your sink will come out just a bit beyond the jog wall to your last window on the right. I wanted to have a look at the main placements of your appliances before getting into the fancy stuff (e.g. coffee bar). To me in this layout the range feels isolated and I don't like how you have to cross a very major traffic pattern to get to the range. Almost feels like it's in a hallway. Also your breakfast nook seems quite squeezed to me unless you want to do a banquette. It's hard to know where to put the dishes in this layout as your eating areas (nook and dining room) are far from each other. What about something like the below? I have reversed your kitchen. The range is still a little isolated. As a consolation prize, I got rid of your low window and replaced it with tempered glass so you can look out while you're cooking. To note: you could bump the range out an extra 6" to a foot to keep spatter off the glass, lots of room behind the cook here. I put your breakfast nook over by your future doors. This just feels right to me. More clearance for chairs and I think the future door living behind the nook would work very well. The nook is near the dining so all the dishes can live together. I gave you 12" built ins along the right side of the nook. I put your peninsula coming out of the jog wall. You could probably fit two stools there if you really wanted, especially if they were backless and could rest under the counter. Fridge is now in the hallway area which I think works better than stove although clearances are still tight. What I don't like about this design is dishwasher in between sink and stove. To me it's most convenient to have DW right beside sink, I hate around the corner, but I'm not sure how to accomplish that without sticking it where it is, unless you put the sink on the peninsula but kind of protruding into the corner and DW at end of peninsula. If you did that, you could move your range over to the right, away from window, do something funky around the window instead of replacing (window seat? dropped counter?) and add full size, full height, pantry cabs on the wall by the family room. This would free up your area beside the fridge for coffee bar with bar sink, keeping all the plumbing in the same general area. But your main sink placement would be a little stinky as you'd be a bit trapped in the corner with it. To consider: drainboard sink with drainboard to left, offset sink with small bowl to left. This post was edited by robotropolis on Thu, Feb 7, 13 at 10:22

Marcolo and Blfenton, the box thing in the southeast corner is just that, a box constructed out of drywall to take up the corner. I hate blind corner cabinets, so I would rather "waste" the corner entirely rather than spending money on corner cabinetry I hate, especially since it lets me put more efficient drawer storage on each side of the corner. It also allows me to have tall cabinetry on the east wall and uppers and lowers on the south wall, without having an issue where they meet in the corner. I might put a door in the guest room wall to utilize the 27" x 27" space from the other side to store items we do not need to get to often, like luggage. I agree that having the wall ovens 4' away from the nearest landing spot on the island is not ideal, but it is a big improvement over the 7' walk between wall ovens and counters in our current kitchen. If we move the wall ovens to the east wall, there is still at least a 4' walk to the island. Amanda, the trash pullout and dishwasher are on opposite sides of the sink cabinet. I will also have storage for dishes, Rubbermaid containers, plastic wrap, etc. on the south wall. That way, after meals, the plates and pots all go to the counter next to the sink, leftovers can be packaged, dishes can be scraped into the trash and then go into the dishwasher. When I empty the dishwasher, the dish storage is on uppers on that wall. It sounds like cooktops on islands are not popular. I agree it is not ideal, but it was the only way to get the entire wall of tall cabinets on the east side. My DH loves the look of that wall, and that wall will be highly visible from our kitchen and dining room. I would prefer a real hood to a downdraft vent, but, then again, I have lived without a proper hood for 10 years. Mahlgold, I am having trouble balancing the look we want with function. We plan to do prep on the island and the counter to the left of the sink. Those 2 areas give us more counter space than we have had in any prior kitchen. We do not own a coffee maker or toaster oven. Our only countertop appliances are a KA mixer, small toaster and blender. The mixer and blender will go under the uppers to the left of the sink (mixer in far left corner on an angle). The toaster could also go on that counter, or maybe behind the lift door on the left side of the east wall along with bread storage. We only do breakfast and lunch at home 1 or 2 days per week. I am not sure how many or how deep of drawers to put in the tall cabinets. I drew each side with 5, but it could be 3 or 4. This kitchen has so many more lower cabinets than we have ever had before, that I am not sure what to put in all of them. On the right side tall cabinet, I thought I would want a couple of shallow drawers at the top to store extra trays for the Advantium, pot holders (those will be kept in 3 different locations near all the hot appliances) and wine tools like the opener, Vacu-vin, etc. Maybe a drawer for DH's vast tea bag and leaf collection and related tools. We could put all the empty baby bottles and plastic plates for the kids in a drawer in that tower or on the south wall. On the left side tall cabinet, I could use the drawers to store pyrex, roasting pans, pie tins and other baking dishes that might not fit in the drawers below the wall oven. My stove top pots and pans and utensils will go in drawers below or next to the cooktop on the island, as I have several feet of drawers on the south side of the island. The wall ovens were put on the north wall (where they are in the current kitchen) because they are less attractive to look at. Also, if we get the side opening Gagg ovens, they would be difficult to place in the east wall because they need at least 8" between the hinge side of the oven and an adjacent wall, so we could not put them at the very end of a cabinet run. It is also tricky because we are trying to find space for 3 wall ovens: standard 30" convection oven, speedoven/microwave, and steam oven. They are too tall to stack all together in one column and still have at useful heights. I will use the speedoven/microwave more than once a day, so I would be miserable having that oven below countertop height. I also hope to use the combi-steam oven regularly. I feel like we should have 1 full size oven, but that one will get the least use (I very rarely bake or cook large meals), so I could buy the Thermador wall oven with the standard door and put it under the counter somewhere and stack the other 2 together on a wall. The problem with swapping all the cooling appliances to the north wall and the pantry to the east wall as was suggested is that the pantry is only 16-18" deep and the appliances are 24" deep, which would prevent us from having a 24" deep coat closet on the hall side of that space. (We really need a coat closet because the house does not have one now.) I will think about whether we can steal coat space from another room, like the guest room. I am debating the idea of a prep sink on the island. DH looked at me like I was crazy when I suggested a second sink 5' away from the main sink. We do not use the sink a lot for prep. We rinse the veggies, but then put them on a cutting board and move it to where we want to work. We use a large bowl to collect veggie or meat waste when we peel, chop and trim. Sadly, we do not have any family in this state, so no one brings us food to prepare. It is just DH and I in the kitchen now, although we hope our two daughters will like to cook as they get older.

Hmm... true. Switch dbl. ovens and frig? Undercounter frig or frig drawer by cooktop?

Yep, these kind of properties beg for dogs, especially large dogs who love the outdoors, humans and especially kids. And it's worth pointing out that properties with ponds and water often have frogs, turtles (large snappers sometimes!) and even fish! Having lived with a near-by pond and stream I can vouch for the wonderful appeal of watching the frogs and turtles sun themselves during the day, and sitting out back in the early evening listening to the sound of the young "peepers" in the Spring, and later in the year the baritone serenades of the mature frogs! Positively wonderful. Hint: a nice glass of wine and a good companion are also great additions on such evenings. Architectural suggestion: Design your house so that the water is a positive integral element in the design and living experience ('cause as Anglophilia points out above, it's gonna be an element in your daily life whether or not you want it to be!).