couple of questions for you...

1. do you have kids?

2. Do you do a lot of baking??? I see a kitchenaid mixer and note you want a double oven.

I totally think you can mix a soild surface counter, quartz, granite, corian with a laminate.

You explain so much above. So I'll start with each paragraph.

Florescent lighting does give you a lot of light. It happens to be ugly light IMO, so I'd rather have more recessed lights with more pendants. But you said you choose function over form. That would explain flourescent to me. I like to have both: function and form which I think you can achieve.

Yes, if you never sit at the overhang then it's just wasted space. Use it for your pots and pans. "Many people discourage island cooktops" My response: "who cares". Are you happy cooking there? That's all that matters.

I don't know the answer to your laminate question re: sizes. I'm a stone girl myself. I've never seen laminate that makes me want to caress it. Stone on the other hand == well don't get me started cuz it'll end up "R" rated!!! ;-)

About having laminate with stone, I'll tell you what I think: You can do anything that makes you happy. So yes you can mix textures. I would put stone on the island especially if you cook there because you can put hot pots on a lot of diff. stones. Not all of them because not everything that is called "granite" is actually granite.

Here's something I copied from a question and answer section about hot pots and granite vs laminates etc. from the site findstone.com. I put the link. you'll have to go half way down the page to find the question I'm referring to. this site has thousands of questions/answers.

>>With regards to heat, it is always prudent to test things. Granite started its existence in a flowing state then cooled. The temperatures to melt granite are so much higher than any man made product it doesn't really bear discussion. I have taken hot pots and put them on my countertop without incident.
I think that if you get a low absorption stone ( use the lemon slice test devised my Maurizio - a good expert on this site) and test each piece of stone your self. All the sales people are telling you things that are correct in specific contexts. The contexts are the following--
1) Many stones get called granite that are not. The swirly juparanos and many of the really light stones are not granite. If you put them (light & swirly) in the kitchen you will have to be very diligent about wiping things up as they occur and use trivets for hot things. Many people do not clean as they go and they forget the trivets. This will lead to problems.
2) Many people are attracted to stones with veins or fractures. Veins and fractures typically are the weakest point in a stone. So back to the stone versus the hot pot question. If you ever touch a piece of stone you will find that it is quite cool. So if you take something really hot and place it on something cool you will have a rapid thermal change in both items. Rapid thermal change causes stress. If the rapid thermal change is near a fracture then it can cause it to crack. So, if there are not any fractures near the point you put the hot pot you should be fine.
3) On the Mohs scale most kitchen knives fall between a 4 and a 5 for hardness. The granites are usually a 6 or a 7. Therefore you should expect the knfe to dull rather than the stone to cut. But don't trust a sales person, ask for a sample of stone you like. Put hot stuff on it to see if the shine is harmed and the stone is affected, try and scratch it with a knife, put a slice of lemon on it for a minute then take it off. See how fast the stone gets wet. If it greater than two minutes you are in good shape.
Sorry to be longwinded, Regards, Steven, USA, I'm not sure if I helped at all but good luck with your remodel.

Here is a link that might be useful: findstone

becktheeng: We're now empty nesters which is why I finally have time to start working on the house again. I have a 30" Dacor convection wall oven and a convection/microwave on the counter and another microwave in the nook. I hate my Dacor oven because it does NOT bake evenly (which is the whole reason I got it), but I'm fine with the configuration I have, especially since the kids are gone.

buddyrose:
I definitely want to lose the fluorescent. I'm just wondering if I'll need recessed around the room if I have under and over cabinet lighting. There is no access from above so adding extra cans will be tougher. I've already got a can light over the sink so that area is covered.

As to the island cooktop, I'm not worried about going against conventional wisdom if that's what I like. I just don't have anything to compare to. I can see the advantage of having a nice big work area and although grease hasn't been an issue with the light box, maybe it would be with pendants. I was mainly wondering if anyone thought moving the cooktop next to the dishwasher would even be a reasonable option. I definitely do not want to move the sink and dishwasher to the island.

That stone info was perfect. I saw a countertop of juparana crema bordeaux last week and that was the first one that actually appealed to me. I thought it was a little wild for all the surfaces but was contemplating using it for the island. From what you said, that doesn't sound like a good choice for that. I'll check out the findstone link.

Thanks!

mdod: my kitchen is self contained and 12' x 17'. I do not have any ceiling recessed lights. If I had a much larger room perhaps I'd feel differently, but with my small room & the lighting I've chosen I it is not necessary at all.

I have a single pendant fixture that is long & skinny (31" x 11") with 6 shaded halogen spots over the island. It is bright & beautiful & gives 300 watts of light at full strength. It washes the whole island (7' long) with light & makes the kitchen sparkle, but is oh so much nicer than having a overhead ceiling light.
I have 2 undercounter Xenon lights (26" each). There is lots of light.

I will also have a single 7 1/2" pendant over the sink & a bowl pendant over the table, but these additions aren't in yet and I could do without if need be.

So, yes I think if you choose your pendants to give you good light you will be just fine without recessed.

Either consolodate the tall cabinet to the left of the fridge with the pantry and make a corner pantry that is smaller in dimension on that left wall, or turn the pantry around so that it's on the top wall next to the fridge and you'll have more room on the wall with the ovens. That's the perfect place for a cooktop, and then put a prep sink on the island.

Katienic: It's great to hear that you have enough light. I don't like black holes all over the ceiling from recessed lights anyway and getting my husband to remove the light box is going to take enough persuasion as it is. I've been getting him used to the idea for several years now.

live_wire_oak: thanks for the suggestion but there's no way I'd still be married if I asked my husband to move the pantry and put a sink in the island. That pantry wall is also a load bearing wall. I've got a great work triangle now and I don't need another sink to clean.

I forgot to add that I will have my cooktop in the island. The Pendant fixture will partially be above the cooktop, so yes I expect I may have to clean that a bit more often, though I am not really too concerned about that as people who have hoods with lights over their cooktop have to clean those also don't they?

"people who have hoods with lights over their cooktop have to clean those also don't they?"

I was thinking the same thing last night. People with island hoods must have lights in the to see, right?

I did have a question about the downdraft. Do I have to replace it? It's 18 years old but we hardly ever use it's hardly worn out. Are the downdrafts similar enough in size and cabinet requirements that I could change it out in the future if this one goes bad or does that a bad idea?

I did have a question about the downdraft. Do I have to replace it? It's 18 years old but we hardly ever use it's hardly worn out. Are the downdrafts similar enough in size and cabinet requirements that I could change it out in the future if this one goes bad or does that a bad idea?

Our hardly used 7" pop-up downdraft is 15 years old but we're opting to replace it, along with the cooktop, before we put in granite counters. I don't want our replacement choices to be determined by the cut-out sizes, not by wants and reliability. If we were doing laminate, I'd be less concerned about replacing the appliances later.

We're leaning towards the Thermador 14" pop-up downdraft with an in-line motor. The additional inches will help it draft cooking fumes, steam and such and not gas flame plus the in-line motor is quieter (the noise is in the crawlspace with the motor) and take up less room in our cabinets. The downside is that it's not cheap. It will be about $2000 but that's still cheaper than remodeling to add ductwork in the ceiling and an island hood or going with a range along the perimeter - that involves redoing cabinets, moving gas line, adding a 240 for the oven, adding ductwork for the vent.... It's the better option when it comes to venting but would it be worth the thousands it would cost to do this? Not to me.

I don't find that I need to clean the pendants over our cooktop any more often than my other pendant lights. Now if we did lots of deep fat frying or high heat sauteing or such, that might be a different story - but that's not how we cook.

As for where else to put a cooktop (and I'm not an expert so take this with a grain of salt) how about putting it in the corner where your corner cabinets are?

$2000. Yikes! I was wondering how much those Thermador pop-ups were. That would probably work out to about $20 for every time we've used ours over the past 18 years ;-)

The cooktop can't go in the corner because the countertop is 3' deep along that wall. We bumped out the section where the refrigerator is 6" so it would be flush with the counters and the section between the base and wall cabinets 12" so I could put the ocnvection microwave on the counter and still have landing space in fornt of it. I got a matching 24" tambour door to make a recessed appliance garage for the area on the right but we never got around to doing anything with it. Then I wasn't sure I wanted to roll the thing up and down to get at my appliances. I still love the space because I can push the small appliances back out of the way when I'm not using them and have plenty of room to work. I have all the spices in the cabinet and top drawer but my son gave me the rotating spice rack for Christmas a few years back so I have to keep it for a while. ;-)

back to your lighting question. Here is a photo of the fixture I mentioned above to show you how much light washes the island & room with the pendant fixture. Notice how much light bounces off the ceiling.

Here is a photo with the light off: Different day, but it will give you an example. There are 3 in-cabinet recessed lights in the background.

Thanks for the photo Katienic. That's a nice fixture and looks like plenty of light.

I was just running through the finished kitchen slideshow for inspiration. I'm glad I found that. I was looking through the alphabetical section before. The slideshow is much faster!

How about something like this?

You might consider making the sink/island aisle 39" and the oven/island aisle 47" because there's seating on the oven side.

Would your DH be willing to move the door on the Pantry and extend it "south" a foot or so...that will give you a bigger pantry and much more flexibility on layout. (That's what you see in this layout.)

Buehl: wow, you put a lot of work into that! I know that the pantry door being close to the wall limits my options but my kitchen works too well to be worth moving any walls, let alone load bearing walls. Plus, the pantry is only 2' deep so I can easily access everything with the door how it is now. Bringing the door farther out would make it harder to access that right hand corner.

I don't want to mess with my 3' counter depth on the back wall, which is why I said left of the dishwasher was the only alternative I could see for the cooktop. But, other than getting rid of the downdraft, that spot doesn't seem like a good place for a cooktop.

As to the island, I am probably going to get rid of the overhang and fill it with cabinets. I was thinking of making the middle cooktop cabinet a little deeper so I could fit drawers and the downdraft. Then I could put cabinets on the ends of the backside, possibly leaving the middle empty and turning it into a pet center. The question is whether I go 3" deeper so I can put 15" deep cabinets on the back side of the island. It seems like there's plenty of room there now and there's not much traffic back there so I think I'm safe with that.

If moving the cooktop back a little to give room for the downdraft and drawers under won't work, any opinions on moving the cooktop 3-6" to one side or the other? I suspect I won't like that because I really like symmetry but 21" drawers just don't cut it for pots and pans.