I have had all kinds of configurations. I've really never minded the wall behind the sink, because when I'm working at the sink I'm looking at the vegetables, or the dishes, or whatever else I'm doing, not at the view. I've never been without artificial light, but nothing beats daylight. When I've had sinks backed by walls there has been light coming in a window to the side. It's not so much what it does for lighting up the sink, per se, but being able to see sunlight when one is indoors during the daytime. Similar to the studies they've done showing that classrooms with lots of windows for sunlight are better for kids than ones without them due to windows being "distractions".

Is that your front door, next to the garage? If so, isn't it useful having the window where you can see who's calling.

Thanks for the insight on wall sink pllog. The kitchen is at the back of the house. We have back alley ways in my town, so I don't get to see whose coming. The other building beyond my garage is my neighbor's house.

Well I guess this is moot. DH nixed the idea of getting rid of the window. It's a kind of box that juts off the side of the house, so he thinks there'll be too many issues dealing with the roof, etc. He DID agree that we could go a bit smaller within that space. Right now that window is roughly 44" w x 55" h. We both think a smaller, 24 or 28 inch window would be a better fit.

Thanks to countrygirl217(?)'s suggestion, blacking out the window, I've taken my kids washable paint and blocked out one side of my window. I just wanted to get a sense of what it would look like.

I'd gain about 20" of wall space. Probably a bit less when you include trim. Right now there isn't any trim around this window, but it would look way better if there were. So ~ 20" seems like it might be a good compromise. I could keep the sink/window combo and hopefully now feel so squished? I'll try doing a layout to see.

Is it the wall space you are wanting or you just don't like the view? I think blacking that part of the window out definitely makes it darker. I'd put some nice shelves up and some potted herbs.

I saw your other post too about the double oven open up in the doorway. We are putting in a new double oven and it will open into the main pathway but we figure it is not like you use it all the time like a fridge so someone having to wait to walk by isn't a sacrifice.

Our oven was an issue. My kids are 8, 7 & 5. It's not unusual for them to run down the adjacent hall into the kitchen. Coming from the hall, you can't see into the kitchen at all, it's a blind corner. If you saw the other post where I mentioned placing an overhang into the family room (the pic with the orange stool), what you see from that hall is the load bearing wall. I use the oven fairly frequently, so when I was using it, I'd have to yell out a warning that the door was open. Our wall opening is only 29" wide so the oven door would completely block that opening when it was open. Even the kids couldn't squeeze by.

If you don't have young children, then this is probably not a big issue for you or in your layout you might have more space. In the very first picture above, that house in Northern CA had the oven to the right of the fridge. It was a totally open space, so anyone could see the door was open even though it was sort of in the traffic path.

As for that pesky window, I was hoping for a bit more wall space. The view isn't great, but that was just an argument for losing it all together. DH says, it has to stay in some form or another, so I'm thinking onee that's not so wide. Yes, it's definitely darker. That picture was taken with no artificial light or flash. We've already cut power to the kitchen.

There's about 66" from the corner to the window. If I do a blind corner cabinet opening on the fridge wall, that will take up 24" of the 66 leaving 42". My range is 37.5" wide and needs a ~38.5" opening. Basically, the range would end up sandwiched between the corner and the window. I'm thinking if I could gain that 20" of wall space, I could liberate the range from that tight corner, even if it's only a foot or so.

DH and I were hashing this out earlier. He works from home ; ). We both think this might make venting overhead a little easier too. With a smaller window, we could vent directly outside. Defnitely a bonus.

I'm just curious, if this was your space what would you do?

I don't even know if something like this is possible but you could keep the main box out for the window and put in new ones. Of course you would have to do work on the outside and inside as far as framing out the the wall portion but at least you wouldn't be messing with the roof line part your DH was worried about. Also depends on vent hood you are going to have.

If not something like below you could still brainstorm about having a higher horizontal picture window and then get the wall space below.

{{!gwi}}

Wow. I really like that picture. What program are you using?

Here's my hood:

As for the double windows, I love that idea. Unfortunately, that's what DH nixed. This existing window is a box that juts out about 12" off the back wall. The roof overhangs the box. I wanted to eliminate the box altogether. In the 80's when it was designed, I'm sure it was intended to be a "feature", but it's totally not. I can't even put in a garden window due to that stupid roof overhang and the fact that the right side of the window box is the garage wall. Can you tell I have no love for it ; )? I'm definitely keeping ideas in my back pocket though. We still have to address that whole water leak issue. I think it's due to condensation dripping from the A/C pipe above. Maybe, if I'm lucky, damage or mold will force us to rip out the whole thing, then we can go back to the drawing board.

We'll probably find out today...

I can't find the blog to show you, but I have seen several beautiful kitchens that have shelves and/or glass front cabinets over a window. Usually glass is displayed in the cabinets. The room is flooded with light, and the view is somewhat obscured. The deep sill on your wall seems ideal to install something similar.

Glad I could help. I will say to make myself clear about the blacking out, my architect called it something else, but that is the term I made up in my head. He was saying to take out the mouldings around the window and actually board it up but paint the back of the boards black so when you look at the window from the outside, it just looks like it has window coverings, but on the inside you wouldn't know a window was there and it would be drywalled on top and actually completely covered up so that you could have backsplash and cabinets over the top of it. We are leaning towards this because it would be significantly less expensive and achieve virtually the same thing as taking the window out completely without the hassle of fixing the outside of the house. Does that make sense?

There was a blog posting somewhere with tons of pictures of sinks that look onto the wall. There were lots of gorgeous options. I'll see if I can find it, or someone else may know what I'm talking about.

The program is home designer 9.0 if you were talking about my mockup.

Can you post a photo of the outside of your window?

Found the post I was thinking of...

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Sinks on Walls