fori: it's kind of an unusual small house. Who'da thunk one wall could bork a whole YEARS WORTH OF PLANNING? taggie and taggie: Ok, see my open floor plan below. red x's are unchangeable. blue walls are exterior and unchangeable. blue diamonds are the traffic patterns through the house. ginny: yup. maybe a re-think (dear Lord please) is in order. It's almost happy hour, you want two right away or a token? Artichokey: DH didn't make an executive decision, he thought it would be good to have it more open which was originally what I wanted but at that time a year+ ago he didn't think it would work structurally,etc. He said he'd like to be able to sit at a counter somewhere so we could be together and not separated by walls. I don't necessarily want the wall. Or not want the wall. I'm trying to make the great layout that I had WITH the wall now work WITHOUT it and maybe these guys are right and I should try to go back to the drawing board. Uuhhhhh. My DH is very sweet most of the time and if I'm happy with the kitchen he'll be happy. And of course I want him happy and hey, if he wants to be able to sit by his old wife and talk to her when she's cooking, how couldn't I want to indulge that. ;) My challenges in this kitchen: 3 entries that can't change. Main entry to the house goes through the kitchen. What worked in the other layout was: having my prep/cooking space out of the traffic flow. I hate trying to cook with people under my feet. Although, to be honest, that usually only happens maybe 10 times a year at the most. I also am sick of trucking back and forth across real estate and I was liking my little 'cockpit' U area. I had a good amount of storage and space for my coveted all fridge and freezer drawers. Should I post this here or start a whole new thread? This post was edited by deedles on Sat, Feb 9, 13 at 17:15

You may have to choose between salvaging the cabinet or damaging the ceiling ... I would use a saw and cut away the bottom part of the cabinet to have an easier time of removing the top. Remove shelves and doors, then support the cabinet from the underside - but loosely so you can pry down. You don't want oit to fall crashing, but you need an inch or so of "slack". With a FLAT, pry bar, like the Stanley "wonderbar" tool, CAREFULLY tap and pry along one edge to get a bit of a gap, maybe half inch, then push the cabinet back up to expose the nail heads ... pull the nails. Repeat.

I like your pendant choice! I think the area around the window wouldn't feel so empty if you had similar breathing room to the left of the range. What about removing the center tall cabinet and putting one of the cabinets you took down from next to the window in its place (looks like they are the same size as the two smaller ones next to the fridge anyway)? Shift them all to the left and line up the top with the top of the fridge. Are you opposed to having backsplash below the range only? Perhaps under the window frame too if the sink area is a concern. If the tile you're thinking of is the wall color, I think that would look nice.

Regarding the distance b/w counters and upper cabinets (or light rail, if you have it)... 18" is the standard and most small appliance manufacturers use that height when they design their appliances. This means that most countertop appliances are designed to fit in that 18-inch height and most take advantage of the full height. E.g., my KA mixer is 16.5" tall, a bit over 17" when I have the cover on it. If you plan to ever use a stand mixer, tall blender, tall coffeemaker, or any other tall appliance, then you need a space to use them. From what I see, you do NOT have enough room flanking the range, so unless you have counterspace you're not showing, you do not have a place for using countertop appliances. My suggestion is to check the soffits to see if you gain at least enough room for an 18-inch open backsplash height and raise the uppers. Will you have light rail on the bottom of the uppers? If so, the height of the light rail also needs to be accounted for when determining how high to raise the uppers.