I cant comment on your specific plans (altough they look great and i love modern and minimalist kitchens, too!) but... Keep looking til u find people who are good to work with. What cabinet companies are u looking at? The euro style companies are usually very expensive. I wonder if u could look a other companies or maybe custom build what u like? I wouldnt work with anyone who told me i coldnt have what i wanted or were rude.. At the very least they should offer reasonable alternatives and be helpful in the planning stages. Good luck!! Please keep updating on your progress!

Anyone who tells you, "You can't do that, you don't want that, it won't work," is not someone you want to work with. I get that with it seems like every first contractor that comes out. Every time I have given in, I have been disappointed. The cabinet people, the trim people, the appliance people, even the builder has tried to talk me out of doing what I have wanted and planned on for years. At this point I'm not tolerating it anymore. You shouldn't either!!! Find someone else that wants your business. I promise they are out there! If they say it's not normal, it's not normal for THEM and they don't want to do it. There are people out there who enjoy a challenge or just enjoy doing something a little differently. Find those people. Don't compromise on this. If YOU decide something can't be done or isn't cost effective, fine, but don't let other people decide for you. HTH! Lynette

I too have a modern style kitchen. I too thought to use a "euro kitchen design house" because at the time 1. I didn't know of GW and 2. it was my first remodel and hadn't had much experience. I found a KD who "got me" even though at the time she hadn't done that many modern styled kitchens. We ended up going with a cabinet line that did custom and semi custom in the slab style door that I wanted. Going this route saved me $$$ big time. No designer german name on drawer interior, but only I would have seen or noticed anyway. Save the $$ for your super cool appliances (love the column fridge/freezer wall!!). You should find a KD who you are comfortable with. I used Bentwood cabinets. I've attached a link to my finished kitchen below (if you haven't seen it yet!). Good luck, your plan looks great so far and you will love the all-drawer lowers and fridge wall!

Here is a link that might be useful: my kitchen

This is why Ikea thrives. Ikea waechst jeden Tag staerker. (They are in three cities in TX. They deliver, or you can arrange for an installer to deliver.) It's euro style and inexpensive. You can buy separate cabinet doors and drawer fronts. You can mix and match as you like. You can have three drawers in wide cabinets, as you have simulated in your drawings.

In your before photos, what does it mean when you say
" Everything is in the same footprint, and we kept the pantry. This time we will be removing the pantry."
?

In the simulations of what you might install, everything I see there is an easy purchase at Ikea. Frameless, without stiles, it will give you a ton more storage space than you had before. All drawers in all the base cabinets will give you a ton more storage space than you had before, too. Without the soffits, your wall cabinets will go to the ceiling ( Y / / N ? ). Consider using "Aventos HF" to lift both doors in one movement, and getting a custom box shape for the wall cabinets.

Consider a $999 induction cooktop along with a few gas burners. The vitroceramic glass top is a counter surface too. Nutzbar als Arbeitsplatte. Also you CAN have a shallow drawer under the induction cooktop.

You don't need to increase the garage door from 30" to 36". This is case of idealizing every wish into a command to be implemented. Drop this one. It's a tradeoff. Nobody ever has anything that wide to carry into the house, not even furniture (you turn sofas sideways to go through doorways). A 36" door will interfere with the kitchen. Also, it forces your countertops to be smaller instead of allowing them to be larger. In your simulations you could put a larger countertop.

The double glass sliding doors are never open both at the same time, so you don't need to leave that much empty space in front of the one door that will never be open. Then, you could have a round shaped peninsula there, which is like a round dining table to lunch at. Many eurostyle kitchens have that. Your raised lunch counter is a good idea, but not quite right. This will require more re-work than I have time to write today. Besides, millions of other people will have their own ideas and some of them will post them here. Stay tuned and underreact to all stresses. Im your simulations, I noticed the counter material used as a side panel on that linear lunch counter. This is good. I know what it is. It's a way to hide the stuff under the counter, and to present a beautiful material to the other rooms. (It can be called a counter return.) You can still have this when you redesign the shapes and sizing.

As currently simulated, your oven-fridge wall ends when the tall appliances end. This leaves you with a massive opening. A small piece of counter surface extending that wall will serve as a landing pad which is necessary. If that wall stays as a full wall, I would go pantry, oven/combi, pantry, fridge, freezer, wine cooler. Then the first three things are all about 22" deep (or can be, if you need to save space to accommodate a slightly wider door) and the next three things can all be way deeper if they have to be. It will make the wall jog out a few inches, and that is OK. Basically, I'm saying that wall might not end up as simulated. Surrounding the ovens with pantry is a bit more energy efficient than making it touch the fridge. The library wall behind these appliances will be the warmest spot in the house in January. In fact, all the time.

I saw in your simulations that the ovens were 24" ovens with filler strips on each side. This proves that EVEN in simulation software 24" ovens do exist and are used. ((Many people have a hard time believing it)). I would get 24"w ovens. Das heisst 600 millimeter breit. This is a big enough size even for an American Turkey, in a regular convection oven 24"w.

One problem with eurostyle is that they have brought countertop overhangs down to a minimal few MM. Remember that Europeans have to plan in general for far far smaller spaces than we have. SO a style trend gets created and replicated even in larger places. You don't need to cut the countertops down to minimal sizes to match the cabinet footprint. You can have the counters overhang.

You've only simulated one faucet, and that means one source of running water, so only one person can be functional truly gleichzeitig at any moment in this kitchen. It is true that drinks are in the fridge and that you may not need fridge-chilled water in a fridge front dispenser. But generally speaking it is a kitchen for a solo operator or for two people who agree to go slow.

Someone else can point out to you that you will have enough space for a prep sink when you extend the cabinet run farther into the lunch counter area.

Someone else can point out to you that you wrote 27" DW.

I like the plan and I recognize that a lot of thought went into the choices made. Don't defend any of your previous choices if perchance you should feel my analysis has trod over some of those that you have decided are decided and cannot be undecided.

The drawers in the corner are the only "can't work" thing that I see. You need to have a filler in there, or opening one drawer may bump into the pull of the drawer at 90 degrees from it.

Keep looking for contractors and KD's. You'll find somebody!

I've had a Dacor Epicure 48 inch 6 burner gas range for ten years. I cook three meals a day almost every day and haven't had a bit of trouble. I also bake our breads. Just passing along my experience for what it's worth.

I agree that you don't want to work with someone like that. I'd either keep looking for someone you can work with. Your appliances are going to be a larger than average budget, so if you want to keep the cost down, you might look at IKEA cabinets. I think they'd be a great option for you. I have Brookhaven frameless and you can get slab doors with them too. I know they have a 15" pantry pullout, but I'm not sure about the horizontal uppers. Kraftmaid had them in at least their more contemporary line. I would look for lines that have frameless cabinets, then look for horizontals, then narrow it down from there. You can look for a custom cabinet maker, but it might be harder to find someone who will do frameless (both for your more modern/European look and to maximize your storage) and get the look you want. Most custom cabinets I've encountered have been very traditional. I'm sure there are more modern ones out there -- you just may have to look harder for them. BTW, what area are you in? I just thought of one custom possibility for you in Houston if I can find their name again.

I like your layout in general. If you bake a lot, you might want to move your ovens out from the corner. Maybe flip them with the wine and/or freezer. I'd say see if you could reverse the swing of the door (to go out into the garage) but I don't know if the interior swing is something done by convention or per code. Might be a question to ask so that you don't bang whatever is there.

I'm already on the record as an advocate for more work space around the cooktop so I would try to create more room here too. You could move the sink down to the corner and have more room to one side and just the peninsula to the other, but it looks like what you have drawn is similar to what you have been working with. If you are comfortable with that, then you already know it works for you.

Have you considered not having a peninsula? I see that you don't need a larger table, but blocking the patio door bothers me. It seems to chop your long clean lines and it blocks that big patio door. I don't know when you took the photos or if you've gotten to the patio yet, but if you had a focal point out on that patio, you'd expand your view and make the space feel larger rather than chopping it and making it seem smaller. With some planting, maybe a fountain along that fence line, and some kind of seating out there, you could have an inviting space that you can enjoy whether you are inside or out. Looks like it would enhance the master BR as well as your office. Even if you took your cabinets all the way to the wall with a hutch for more storage, you could have a small table and chairs -- maybe a pub set since you are tall, onthe side of the rom by hte library and where you could enjoy the view. If you spend most of your time cooking or on the patio, maybe you'd like bringing them together more rather than separating them? Just something to think about if you haven't considered that option.

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First, Thankyou hellonasty and lynettefrancois. You are both absolutely correct. Somethimes it's too easy to feel like "the experts" are always right.

Coastal-Modern - I love your kitchen. In fact, it was what inspired me to use a stainless apron sink. Beautiful. I only wish I had the open spaces you do. I would shamelessly copy your kitchen.

Davidro1,
" Everything is in the same footprint, and we kept the pantry. This time we will be removing the pantry."
We had to replace the kitchen in the house when we moved in. It was just nasty. We took out the sofits then, and just replaced the cabinets with new cabinets- same size, except we got taller upper cabinets. These are really cheap. we redid the entire kitchen for under $5000, including appliances,sheet rock and insulation. (It looks like it too). But it made the kitchen usable, and we never planned on living with the replacements this long. The pantry is "built in" with sheetrock and studs, not load bearing or anything so we will remove it like we should have when we moved in.
We looked at Ikea, and I really like their cabinets, we just have an issue with the sizes on the upper cabinets. One consideration was to use Ikea for the base cabinets and pullout pantries, and something other for the uppers, but I'm not sure how we could get a decent match, or just go all alum& glass for those. I need to spend more time on some research.
Aventos HF - yeah... I've spent way too much time on the Blum website That is really the inner workings I want, no matter what cabinets we go with. Or maybe we will go industrial - no cabinet fronts and showcase the innards.... LOL
I'm almost hate to admit - I don't like induction... More a user error than appliance problem. I see the advantages, but in the end flames work best for me.
The garage door is already 36". I looked at the pictures and it does look smaller in the before pictures, but we measured, and it is 36".
I have some issues with the design software on the counter return, same problem with the 24" ovens. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get the return aligned or put the 30"ovens in a 30" oven cabinet. Go figure. But 24" ovens aren't entirely out of the question. I have a lot of thinking/asking to do about the ovens.
The general shape/size of the eating area. Good points. A round shape would have it's plus points. I'll have to tinker with that.
The depth of the appliance wall - I noticed that too - and still waver on whether to pull everything out to 24" or make everything 22". Or recess the center appliance section, or or or.. Thanks for the ideas. Good to have more viewpoints to consider.
I'm having a hard time to visualize what you mean by small piece of counter surface extending that wall do you mean between the kitchen and library?
Hmm.. countertop overhangs - I'm glad you brought it up. I have lived in places with no overhangs, and the cabinet fronts seemed to pretty messy. I wonder if minimal overhangs would cause a mess in the drawers. Something to ask about.
LOL... The drinks are actually in the wine fridge... therefore we do tend to go slow. We are already trying to stuff so much in a basically small space, I worry that a prep sink would put it over the edge. (or into the library)
OOPS on the 27" DW... good catch
I really appreciate the time you put into your response. Thanks!

Janet, the drawer under the eating area is deleted and re-added everyday - I can't decide if we should keep them or not. I'll make sure if they stay we account for clashing (or I can add that as another reason to get rid of the drawers)

Pheasantfarmer. I'm glad you posted. I think I like the overall looks of the dacor more, so it's good to know someone with a good experience. Do you have a full range or just the rangetop?

Thanks everyone!

I tried and tried and tried to get an open path to the patio. We have a pub table there now and it is just in the way of the door. We have redone the patio and will be putting in an outdoor kitchen.
The patio between the kitchen and bedroom is one of our favorite part of the house!

can you show the "empty" peninsula view? no cabinet under? I think even if that does not give you clear path to the patio door, it will look lighter and more open.

You may run the uppers all the way to your patio wall and gain storage there.

Two things that would help you work in a pub set -- 1) you are taking down that half wall, so you can bleed into the library space without running into a wall. You have a change in flooring there, so that might require making them the same. That's another budget entry you might not be planning on. 2) Scoot things down on the sink wall so you can open up space for a pub set along that wall instead of the hutch. Make the 24 next the rangetop an 18, make your sink base a 33" or 30"-- you can even look at an 18" DW for 2 people.

I hesitate to say it, but you could even go to a 36" rangetop. I understand the lust for a 48", but for 2 people and with a nice patio in Texas, you can grill outdoors most of the year. You can also use a cast iron grill pan or get a griddle to use on top of the burner rather than having one built in. I would have loved to have the 48", but even with 4 people daily and 16 or 20 often enough, I couldn't justify it. Maybe if I had gone to a range, but like you, I am tall and bake and no matter how much I liked the look of a range, I wanted wall ovens. For me and our crowd, I really wanted 6 burners, so my tradeoff is we grill outdoors and I have both a single and a double griddle. If you want 4 burners, you can have a griddle on top of the burners and still keep the grill for roasting some peppers, veggies or cooking when it's too hot or too wet outside. Although it's hard to remember it being too wet to grill these days. I digress. A 36" rangetop and those columns opposite -- you will still have a fabulously appointed kitchen.

Just thought of a third option -- change the slider. I am thinking French doors that open both sides and you could use the left rather than the right (or a door in the center with two sidelights), but there might be other slider options that open on the right or in the center.

Keep trying different things until you find "it". You have a good vision working. Oh -- maybe someone can direct you to the Ikea forum. You said the uppers were a size issue. If I remember correctly, folks have modified IKEA cabinets to customize the sizes. Not sure if that is trued for depth and width. There are also folks who have used IKEA boxes and ordered doors for them -- that would let you get the right size doors for your modified boxes.

Hope we've given you enough to think about for a while. ;-)

To visualize "... what you mean by small piece of counter surface extending that wall..." : Yes I mean between the kitchen and library, there is 8 or 9 feet wide opening (in the plan i saw yesterday).

A . / A "floating" counter surface would be practical, beautiful, and still let the area appear open.

B . / A countertop on base cabinets would close off the space a little bit.

C . / Some of both A and B might be ideal.

That "full appliance" wall could have niches in it, and these may be visualized by seeing the inspiration kitchen linked to above. Niches gives it "depth of field" from a photographer's point of view. They lighten it and deepen it. They are practical too.

--

The big subject you have not mentioned yet is the lighting.

Hth

Good luck Tex-Sue. I don't have layout advice; I haven't earned my design stars yet. But I do just want to support the notion of keeping walking when someone starts in on "you can't". It's a really tiresome mantra and it's really, really ubiquitous, like mentioned above, I've come to realize. By life I've been trained to believe the words "you can't" mean there's some structural danger involved or a physical impossibility. To be sure sometimes that's the case. But far, far more often the phrase simply translates to "I have no idea how to do that and even less of a clue as to why you would want to and therefore I won't; it can't be done".

I used to make fun of librarians observing they came in two flavors, the 'shush-take-your-hands-off-my-books' sort and the 'smile-grin-beam-I-am-so-happy-you-want-to-take-this-out' sort. Diametric opposites: dont-touch/please-touch.

I now think contractors come in these same flavors: can-do/wont-do. Mr Can-do will tell you when it can't be done, literally, shouldn't be done or oughtn't to be done. But Mr wont-do will conflate them all -- with a few extra thrown in for good measure!

You're not going to be doing this renovating-thing very much. Don't gunk it up with obscuring negativity. It's hard enough as-is.

=.02; meant as encouragement. Sorry to get preachy! I'm exasperated too (should've heard my plumber recently: the stove's no good, it doesn't come up high enough: (me) did you extend the legs on the bottom. (him) legs? They're on the bottom...and there are wheels in the back; that range is heavy. etc.) 8-:

I am a humble learner here but with my own kitchen reno I have found it very helpful to say, "Please don't tell me it can't be done. I want you to look at it and imagine how it CAN be done and tell me what it will entail."

My word, I hate it when "professionals" have no vision and no desire to get one. =/ Give me the lowdown and I will decide if it is worth it!

As far as your upper cabinets and IKEA, keep in mind that upper cabinets are easily made or so my cabinet maker tells me.=) It will be the door choice & material choice that may complicate things but don't despair you may be able to go IKEA bottoms and custom uppers without breaking the bank.

I'll also second the landing area on fridge wall, especially with 2 cooks. Pullout landing area...kinda like a pullout cutting board???

Love your story and love you know what you want!

I have recently installed Ikea cabs (Applad, which are slab front) and love them. They are spacious and operate so smoothly with the soft close feature. We had been quoted up to $35k elsewhere for slab front cabs just like these (not special imports, mind you) and the Ikea versions came to approx $4k for the cabs and another $4k for installation. That gave us the chance to come in under budget in the kitchen which helped a lot since we were over budget everywhere else. $35k was the high but others quoted in the $17k range for the same layout, style and brand of cabs. The Ikeas are obviously not the same brand, but other than fewer choices in sizes, which I designed around, there were no true differences. Since you are ripping out and starting over, you have more flexibility than some other people. I managed to design the entire space with only 1.5" total of fillers on the back of my island to compensate for a 37.5" stove on the other side.
As for uppers, you can do open shelving and totally sidestep trying to match the lower cabs. Sochi has a fabulous modern kitchen done beautifully open on the top, here on GW. I chose only uppers over the fridge and freezer and 3 tall cabs on another wall. All my base cabs are open above.
I am not ready to post finished pix, but here is the Ikea planner version of how ours look. We went retro by using vintage chrome pulls and a vintage stove and sink, but the cabs are meant to be modern and ours is really retro modern in feel. Keep in mind where you see brown on the backs of my cabs, there are actually cover panels... Also, the cab shown in the peninsula ended up as another drawer stack. Our only bse cab without drawers is our sink cab (which is actually wider than shown and the drawers next to it are more narrow. To give a size reference, our island is just over 9' long, the peninsula counter is 7' and the sink wall is approx 7' as well.

never_ending, yes, upper cabinets are easy to make.
There are reasons for this.
Several reasons that all combine to make it worthwhile.

--

The thing you can have is 1 big box as an upper cabinet
(therefore continuous, long, shelves inside the 1 cabinet).
The front cover could be *either*
2 or 3 sets of panels that open with Blum Aventos HF hinges, *or*
several narrow (vertical) doors that hinge on a front frame.

In either case, you have continuous shelves.
At first glance it looks like wall "cabinets" but,
it's a single entity, not a series of boxes stuck together.
So the shelves are uninterrupted by cabinet sides.
When you open door 2, you can reach things in sections 1 or 3 as well.
Storing things is easier too since your things don't bump up against barriers.

--

1 big box is easy.

Here is one of the several reasons why wall cabinets are easier to make than floor cabinets.
A wall thingie has to look good (straight and level), and be well screwed to studs.
Looking good is less demanding than being truly level to a fine "tolerance".
A run of floor-standing boxes has to be far better aligned: it supports a level countertop.
So, a 1/8" misalignment becomes a serious problem, even if the floor is perfect, rigid, flat.
A floor-standing box has to hold up to max. physical stress AND
could have an unstable (squishy, spongy) floor under some of its legs.
So, it can be a chore. Or more.
But a wall thingie doesn't have to be square or level, to the Nth degree.

Executive Summary: wall cabs are a few panels joined at 90 degree angle. They hang on the wall. The cabinetmaker doesn't need to work to the same degree of "perfection" as for the cabinets that stand on the floor and become a base for countertops.

I second the notion that "you may be able to go IKEA bottoms and custom uppers without breaking the bank."

--

Open shelving is not as easy to make as 1 big box.
Because each shelf has to get its entire support from the wall studs.
With 1 big box, shelves are supported by the two sides of the big box.
(Between the two sides at the ends of the long shelves, the shelves do need some support too)
((and this is "easy" or easier to arrange than for individual open shelves))

--

"They are spacious and operate so smoothly with the soft close feature."
sample budget:
$1500 Ikea cabs (floor-standing)
$2000 any "front" from Scherr's, ikea or anywhere
$1000 installation DIY along with a handyman helper who has a level

Thanks for all the input, and especially thanks for the thoughts regarding standing up for what we want. I like the Mr. Can vs Mr. Won't.. We will keep searching until we find Mr.(or Ms)Can.
For now, I have lots of ideas to try out, like really thiking the range/sink size, table vs peninsula, etc.

Dianalo - I like your layout and can't wait to see your finished pictures. It's amazing the price difference $35k to $8k.
I will spend more time looking at the ways to resize the Ikea uppers. Davidro1 - you made me realize something. I always try to match the upper cabinet widths to the lower cabinets. Now I'm wondering if that should even be a consideration. That may be another thread on it's own.
As for the lighting - yeah - it will be incorporated into the plan. I think we'll try to get more final on the layout before we really go there. As it stands, I seem to want everything I see, undercounter, in drawer, toekick, under counter, faucet, strobe lights, mirror disco balls... oops... obviously I'm not ready for the lighting plan LOL

Here are a few first attempts at the modifications:
View with out Drawers - I like this and think it's much better than the drawers under there
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With a pub Table and the counter at the end of the appliance wall - It seems a little too crowded - I need to work on the size/placement of everything
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Again, Thanks everyone!

I echo the notion of keep looking for someone to work with your vision.

Also, without having read every word and someone may have said this and I missed it, but Wolf also makes a 48" gas rangetop. I thought they were much more common than you make them sound.

Good luck and thanks for posting your cool vision.

Thanks Breezy. There are many 48" gas rangetops available, some really nice ones too. After hours of looking, we refined our (requirement, need, want, desire) to a 48" with only 6 burners, so we would have 14" width for each burner to accomodate larger pans/pots. Most of the 48" rangetops are available with 6 burners, but also include a grill or griddle, making each burner only 10 or 11" wide. (Hopefully that makes sense)
I didn't do a very good job in explaining a lot of our decisions and how we got there on thius current design. I'll be going through all the suggestions, both here and on threads by other posters and develop our more "final" final plan and then I'll include a better description on we decided on our choices.

a mirror on the wall next to the patio doors will being a lot of indirect daylight into the kitchen. If it's shaped like a door, it makes people feel there is another batch of rooms "over there". Optical illusion.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hovet mirror at Ikea. Anodized Aluminum frame.