A few weeks back, I had the chance to visit the test kitchen at our local paper. They had the 14" telescoping Thermador downdraft vent paired with a induction cooktop on a peninsula. I asked how well it worked. He said better than the old one that didn't rise as tall however, he didn't think it would work as well as an overhead vent (which the space could not accommodate). This is one guy's opinion but since he's testing out multiple recipes all the time, I figured it carried some weight. We're replacing our 7" rising telescoping downdraft for our island cooktop (we can't move it to the wall either) and we're leaning towards installing a hood. We did consider the higher rising downdrafts, too. Like a few other posters, I've never noticed oil or stains on my ceiling even though we rarely used our old downdraft (as another stated, it pulls the flame). I even checked the pendant lights set 36" off the counter and about 4" either side of the cooktop. No grease, they don't look dirty and it's been a while since I washed them. I think it depends on how you cook and BTUs of the cooktop. Ours is 15 years old and definitely not pro-anything.

I'm just going to talk about a coupla things. This is just talk about issues and trade-offs, not criticism. So this is about a half-thought out plan that I made up just so it wasn't critiquing an existing one. I'm drew in detail both cleanup and baking prep. I am showing two blue lines that illustrate routes used with or without a prep sink. The rest of this is long and highly opinionated. Ok. So, let's start with cleanup. We've mostly all said that a 4 foot deep cleanup area is a bit much for "cleaning the clean up area" so this steps it back into the window a foot - yielding a three foot deep space which might be reachable (depending on god, the universe, your height, sink gismos and everything). The other thing it does is create a nice wide aisle around the open dishwasher - when duffers pass through on their way to Doritos or a beer or whatever, the human dishwasher can ignore them. A pass through area with double sided upper cabinets is entirely possible, but you need to put a ledge or a ledge plus a shallow base cabinet in the dining room side for "sit down" space for people getting dishes from the cabinets. I'm having some trouble understanding your friend's criticism about stuff being on the wrong side. With double sided glass fronted wall cabinets, you need to remember that the entire contents will be plainly visible. I find that leads to very few junky places and more order for me. The cabinets are only about 12-13" deep, so its is difficult to think of what would be piled up in front of your plates or soup bowls. Perhaps they were thinking of base cabinets? Food prep (of any sort) has a flow to it. Stuff from the ref usually goes to the sink, unless its a snack - in which case it either moves towards the dishes or the microwave or both! From the sink, or directly from the ref if you belong to my tribe, it travels to the prep counter area to be joined with water, prep tools, pantry stuff and pots or baking pans which are then put on the range or in the oven or the micro. The process may later need to drain something or slide stuff out to cool or be stired frequently. The messy leftovers go to a disposal or trash or compost. The packaging goes to the trash or recycling. The dirty pots and prep tools go to cleanup. So the arrangement of the appliances is important, and the positioning of water is vitally important. So, the cleanup seems good because you don't need to walk much at all - just for putting pots or prep stuff back. Trash isn't going to be optimally positioned (unless you're a garbage disposal person) caused it would need to be under the sink, probably forcing you to keep the under sink door open. Cooking is a little bit freaky. This is mostly because of the relative locations of the ref and the pantry and the prep area. You have one of those places where some of the spacial relations are difficult. Since all of the dry storage is across the hall, it's nice if the ref is closer to it BUT the ref can't be placed directly on the hall wall. It probably won't be able to open completely, leaving you to wrestle with it when you want to clean it. It's also not perhaps the best idea to bury your only ref inside the prep zone as it is the most frequently accessed appliance - particularly by those other folks who live in your house. Adding cabinets between the wall and the ref push the pass through up towards the sink. In every iteration of a corner plan with the sink in the bay - the sink or the dishwasher have an issue. Either the sink is too close to the corner and can only be used from one direction AND/OR the dishwasher is on the wrong side. If we reversed the sink and dw in the sample plan, the sink is better positioned, but the dw is not as it opens in front of the cabinets you like to use for dishes. Unloading becomes a two-step, first to the counter and then the cabinets after you close the door or drawer. In the ones with a corner and the range where the ref are traded, the dishwasher opens between the range and sink potentially causing serious accidents as its possible to turn from the range and trip over the dishwasher. The ref is shown near the sink. You can reach the peninsula counter to sit things down, which mitigates the distance somewhat, but it still might be crazy-making... Is it more crazy making than having people constantly walking behind you? Since the pass-thru moved up closer to the sink, I could put the range where shown. Its got counter on both sides. It won't prevent others from using the sink, altho others can prevent you from sliding over to dump a colander. Adding a prep sink kills the dark blue triangle that goes into the cleanup zone - always a good thing but really good in this example because that pot full of water and pasta can now pretty much always be drained without getting someone to move first. Other crazy stuff: ---- A person needs at least two feet of counter edge. If they are adults, it might feel slightly squished in. ---- The overhang for counter height seating should be at least 15". This isn't for the depth of the stools - its for knees. ---- The peninsula is tempting to hang a wall cabinet, but if you do, the second stool will be kinda difficult to use because the wall cabinet will be in the seated person's face and the last door is guaranteed to hit them in the head! ---- The ref location is hard to plan. There are two kinds of people in this world. The ones who get everything they are going to use out of the ref at once; and then there's my tribe. My tribe kinda fetches this, that and the other thing outta the ref all during the prep and cooking process. People say they can learn to be the other type, but I don't know. ---- Same thing with the views and prep-or-cooking-or cleanup. To me, windows are the most wasted in front of a cleanup area. Not the light wasted, but the views! When I'm doing cleanup, I'm looking at the dishes, not the view. And with dishwashers, I'm not in front of that window for very long. I think windows are more useful at prep or cooking (both!). ---- Also consider the social aspects of any plan. In this plan, you are oriented to the family room, and primarily the family room windows. You'd have a side view of the bay window - a front view would happen while rinsing veg - maybe. When you're cooking or doing cleanup, you'd be turned away from others. In all of the "real" designs, other things happen in your interactions with people and the views. Be sure you end up with the ones you'd like.

Kitchen island dining does not make for good conversation. Most islands result in a linear seating design. We don't face one another and can't see each other when we talk. I think you will run into this problem with your design. That is why it was suggested that you might want to do family meals in the dining room. The family can face one another. This doesn't mean that you can't have eating space on the island counter. It will just be space for one, two or maybe three. More spaces and you are dining in a bar. Reconsider the suggestion about the dining room. I understand you want to save the space for family events. But, the most important family event is the evening meal. I grew up in an old house that didn't have space to eat in the kitchen. We did have a kitchen bar where one or two of us could eat. Kitchen's of that era house were for servants. We didn't have servant's, but we did dine at my mother's Chippendale dining room table every evening. It fostered good manners and sociability. Doing this will give you a much more satisfactory plan.

This forum is very negative on downdraft vents. And I can understand why. In our kitchen, we have a high CFM hood that properly covers (most) of the burners. It works pretty impressively. But it still lets some cooking smells come into the rest of the open-floorplan living space. Our remodeled kitchen will have an even more powerful hood, 100+% overlap with the burners, and reposition the stove. On the other hand, I regularly visit friends in their mountain cabin, and they have a gas stove and downdraft. It works. In fact, it works better than I would have thought. And with a good gas stove, it doesn't impact the flame too badly. Does it work as well as the hood that I have at home? No. Most definitely not. Would I want to put it into a newly built kitchen. Again, no. But your mileage may vary. If you don't mind cooking smells as much, then maybe it's an acceptable compromise.