The things I'm noticing right away:
-Do you have enough dish storage near your cleanup sink?

-I highly recommend against split dishwashers. I did that once, because it seemed to make so much sense to have one near the eating area and one in the cooking area, but it was a pain. If you need to adjust contents (you have too much for one while the other isn't full) you have to go back and forth to make all the pieces fit. Things that should be in one always end up in the other and you go back and forth to find them. The dw that is used less can actually get smelly and moldy in surprisingly short order. We have ours flanking the main sink now and love it.

-If you want to keep a dw in the island, I would move it to the top end, so the door isn't opening into the range.

-The deep fryer seems quite a ways 'out of the loop' as do the ovens, and, particularly the warming drawer which seems should be handier to the cooking area.

Best wishes!

Thanks for the feedback. We expect the island sink and dw to be the ones used for pots and pans and cooking stuff. The dish drawers will be in the island and will have Blum plate carrier that you set into the drawers.

I like the idea of moving the dw to the end and I'll look at that.

I'll move the warming drawer next to the range and give it a matching wood panel.

The single wall oven will be used for baking only. The range ovens can be used for the range stuff to be transferred to an oven.

The fryer is out of the way intentionally due to the way it looks (gaggenau 15" )

My suggestions are --
Put the cleanup sink and dw's in the peninsula between the kitchen and ?family room? and site the dish storage there. I'd probably make the full height wall about 6 inches longer for a 30" wall cabinet beside the ovens.

Do a prep sink and trash in the island. The sink might be best on the end near the ref.

Place the warming drawer next to -or inside of- the butler's pantry so its accessible from the range and the warming food and dishes are easy to access for service.
Take a second look at the island overhang and deep fryer position. I'd rather have the deep fryer where I could keep an eye on it and had room next to it to drain stuff.

About the deep fryer: I assume the place you have it is called "Butler's Pantry" because it is between the kitchen and dining room? If so, this is the wrong place to put it. And downdrafts just aren't very good, especially for grease. Much better, if you're going to have a built in deep fryer, to have it in the main cooking zone, and with a proper extraction hood. A Bulter's Pantry is a place for clean items--service ware, dishes, stemware, bottles (the butler's purview). Hiding it because of the looks is fine--get a cover for it. But put it in the kitchen, with a fire-extinguisher nearby, and a good place to clean it handy, not in a clean zone.

Also, I'm assuming you deep fry several times per week, minimum, to make it worth getting a built-in. Having to remove yourself from the kitchen proper to do so that often could get really old. If you don't fry almost daily, it might be worth considering doing a lowered counter with a small profile hood, and a portable fryer. Some of them have excellent function. Then you could hide it when it's not in use, and use the lowered counter as a rolling station for pastry, etc. Having the oil there would be actually helpful, since it's that much less oil you'd have to put on your rolling stone. :)

I agree with Bmorepanic--a warming drawer in the butler's pantry could be useful if you're serving from there, but next to the range also works fine. Under the ovens is too out of the way to be useful.

Rhome is right about the DW's, so I concur with moving the island one to the top end. In addition, the large sink is well out of the kitchen proper and looks rather inconvenient to me. If it's there for access to the BR and the family room, I'd want it to be a smaller sink with more counter space. What you show is adequate, but if the pots and the prep are both being done elsewhere I'm not sure why such a big sink there when there could be more put stuff down space.

I get the whole long run of counter space that you have where the family room counter and non-working side of the island are, but I fear that these would be underutilized. I had long long counters in my old kitchen that were a bit similar, and they were really only useful while baking large quantities. Do you bake huge batches? What I see is that the people at the family room counter are going to be far enough from the real action that it won't keep them from being under foot any more sitting there than in the breakfast nook.

What I'm tempted to do in your plan is make the island a "Water Station" (the new lingo), and put a prep sink on the range side, and the clean-up sink and dishwashers on the other side. Maybe make it an oval, for interest, and also to make it a little easier to get around. Keep the MW with some snack prep items more or less where you show them. Then put dish storage where you currently have the clean-up sink.

OH! But I think I see an overhang on the island for seating? Then where is the island dish stoarge you mentioned? And is the overhang deep enough?

In the laundry room, are you sure you want a stack? They're great if you have no space, but I'd prefer having the machines next to each other. The surfaces are a useful place for pre-treating, folding, etc. There's nowhere in there, other than the desk, to put anything down. I love the idea of a drip dry area, especially if it's ventilated! The broom closet might be more functional if it opened out to the passage rather than into the laundry room. Is there a place somewhere there for a mop to dry? The sink is in a good place for laundry, but what about the mop bucket? That sink is awfully far from the kitchen for cleaning duty. I'd move the drip dry area, unless this is the only place you can get ventilation to it, down where you have the sink, and bring the sink next to the broom closet. Is the broom closet big enough? Do you have any other places in what looks like a big house for cleaning supplies, vacuums, etc.? What's at the far end of the laundry room?

Good concerns expressed here. There are only a few comments I see. Why a breakfront cabinet in the laundry room? If that is meant to be glass, do you store stuff in the laundry room that looks good enough to display?

Consider moving the extra fridge closer to the kitchen to keep functions similar.

I agree about the long run of empty counterspace. It is easy to junk up and rarely used for cooking.

Do you have enough mud room type storage by the back door? It's not just for cold climates. We live in a warm climate, but need storage for hats, sunscreen, coolers, outdoor/indoor shoes, etc. by the back door.

Plllog - i should clarify a few things. Despite the drawing, there is no overhang for seating at the island so that is where the dish drawers will go (as of now).

The fryer will likely be used maybe once per month and has a drain built in that drains from below. There will be 2 feet of landing space next to it. The downdraft vent is a gaggenau too (designed for use with their modular stuff) and is a smaller, more affordable option than the $4000 telescoping vent they make that I'd prefer.

The sink near the window is a must-have for my wife's dream house. A 30" shaw is what is intended for there.

I'm attaching a pic of the entire utility room that is actually not a laundry room as that is upstairs with the bedroom. The utility is plumbed for a stacked W/D in case we ever want one for the gameroom that is downstairs (and may be a future bedroom).

We don't bake in large quantities usually that side of the island and the area next to the oven is intended to be a baking area.

That you all so much for the ideas. Please keep them coming.

I would suggest moving the micro out of the island. You already have enough going on there and I think you're going to have a big conflict with someone trying to get from the range to the frig/freezer and then someone trying to use the micro at the same time. I would move the micro either above or next to the oven, depending on how those items are being stacked or to the left of the range. Depends if it will be used mostly for snacking items or heating up frozen foods for meals.

There are 48" between the microwave and fridge and 52" between the long sides of the island and the other walls.

Do you think this is not enough room for the MW and fridge.

If I move the oven or microwave to the range wall, I'll lose valuable landing space next to the range. I suppose I could mount the MW below the counter to the left of the range with the warming drawer below it.

I can't put the warming drawer in the butler's pantry as the is only room on the exterior wall and I have a photo I'm trying to duplicate. We want to keep that side of the butlery clean and pretty.

Also, in the utility (labeled laundry) there will be cabinets where it says the w/d will be.

The deep fryer needs to be under a GOOD overhead hood and close to the actual cooking. It'll be a total PIA and get grease everywhere if you put it where you've indicated now. A downdraft absolutely will NOT be enough for a deep fryer. It's like using a match to sear a steak. Even if you used a whole book of matches, you're only gonna get a small small portion of that steak even slightly charred. ANd, a deep fryer is enough of a BIG safety concern that it needs to be constantly monitored. It belongs in the food cooking zone only. Look at Trailrunner's kitchen for an idea of how a deep fryer can be successfully integrated into the cooking zone.

I'm not crazy about the location of the cleanup sink either. It really doesn't make sense in the flow of things. It'd probably work a lot better on the run by the ovens and just put in pretty glass dish storage where you have the sink currently. Or, place it in the butler's pantry and enlarge that and combine it with the pantry so it becomes more "storage central" for dishes and foodstuffs.

Okay, 42" just isn't enough for the fridge and MW to open into the same area. Most people like their warming drawers higher than beneath a microwave. It depends on how you're planning to use it, however, and how much you like bending down. How about doing the same below counter MW next to the wall ovens?

Also, building on LWO's suggestion, if your wife really wants a sink under a window, how about doing one under the Butler's pantry window, with a drawer DW, with the dish storage where you have the fryer listed? Or is the motor court view not worth it?

Re the deep fryer, there are freestanding models that are really excellent, and no downdraft vent is excellent. I believe there are models that have drain features as well. For 12 times a year, I wouldn't devote that much of the kitchen to it, and certainly wouldn't risk having a greasy mess in clean storage area, or in the passage from the kitchen to the formal dining room. It's just a bad, bad idea. With what you save there you can stop questioning the price of the steam oven (over in appliances), which I'm betting you'll really like.

Now I get the rationale behind the organization of the utility room, and I understand why the sink would be useful for crafts. Even if the laundry is upstairs (for now) you need a proper mop sink, or your wife's dream sink is going to turn into the house cleaning sink. Is the drip dry for bathing suits? If so, is there any way to put it outside? Have a little cabana? Then increase the cleaning supplies storage and put the sink next to it, equal access to the brooms area and the crafts area. Or something.

Now, this sink thing. I get the wife's dream sink, but with modern dishwashers there isn't actually much sink work to be done. Is it the light she wants? The view? Wouldn't she rather have her prep sink there? A lot more kitchen sink time is spent on prep. If you put the clean-up in the island a ways down from the range, which is better for the pots and pans, which sometimes need to be soaked or hand washed, and flank it with your dishwashers (though this would put one in conflict with the range), it would make a lot more sense. The sink is available to the range for pouring out water, etc., and whatever prep work must be done right next to the cooking area.

It wouldn't be convenient to do prep under that window, any more than it's convenient to do clean-up, but if it's to get a sink in the window for your wife's dream house, why not give her one she'll be standing at for more of the time? That area could also house a coffee maker or juice bar or something. Maybe even put some fridge drawers under the counter. That would be handy for the BR too, having a small fridge there.

There are three sinks in reasonably close proximty in these layouts. One is in the utility (labeled laundry) and it is a 'mud sink' for cleanup. One is my wife's 'dream sink' a 30" shaw in front of the windows next to the breakfast nook. The third is on the island, a 33 inch prep sink with a cutting board.

Any other thoughts
thanks

Yes, what I meant was to put the "mud sink" closer to the kitchen so that it would be convenient to do the mopwater thing there.

Here's a link to a of Trailrunner's layout, as referenced by Live Wire Oak above. The fryer is there to the left of the cooktop (could be a range instead), under the hood. And one with the .

With the cover, the fryer really wouldn't cut down on the landing space by your range. And when you're frying, you can put a griddle or something similar over the closest burners on the range, and put your blotting pan on that.

We're not trying to talk you out of the fryer, just out of putting it in the butler's pantry. :)

Regarding the downdrafts, they make those for retrofitting ancient European apartments for use with modern equipment. The downdraft, the telescoping one, or a pop-up from a different maker, are all better than nothing, but that doesn't make them sufficient. I wouldn't want my dining room textiles to smell like grease.

I haven't seen her posts recently, but you can find Trailrunner's kitchen in the finished kitchens blog, and you may be able to contact her through there.

It's Monday, any other thoughts?

It's obvious that this kitchen was drawn by an architect rather than a kitchen designer. Architects focus on aesthetics and everything fitting just so in the space. Kitchen designers focus on function, with aesthetics an important but secondary concern.

Your kitchen will look lovely, but it will be sorely lacking in many areas when it comes to function. Some of the people commenting in this thread are professional kitchen designers, and everyone here is concerned more with a kitchen's functionality than anything else. You're awfully quick to dismiss most of the advice you're getting here, or at least it seems that way. Perhaps your goal is a showcase kitchen rather than a workhorse kitchen. That's fine, but it would be helpful to know that. As it is, and as lovely as it would look, I would not want to cook in that kitchen.

As others have mentioned, the location of several key features are problematic. Your wife's "dream" sink will quickly become a nightmare as she has to hike long distances to put dishes away and has traffic bumping into her as she works there. The clearance between the refrigerator and microwave is not enough, and it doesn't look like a typical microwave will even fit in that space, let alone a drawer microwave. The deep fryer will be such a pain to use in that location that once a month will become once a year. You have a lot of workspace crammed into a few small parts of a large kitchen with a lot of wasted space in between. You have a wonderful, large space that could be used so much more efficiently.

You could solve the isolated clean-up sink problem by moving the family room opening to the kitchen down four to six feet and putting an L of counter in the corner by the sink. This would put some of that useless counter and cabinetry near the sink, making both areas more useful. That corner would become a protected and useful clean-up zone and dish storage area, while preserving that dream sink under the window. It would make the traffic flow less of a straight shot through the kitchen, but it would make more sense.

I would also suggest switching the location of the refrigerator and ovens. The fridge now is convenient only for the cook. Its relation to the breakfast nook almost forces traffic to it through your cooking and prep zone. Moving it over would leave it still convenient for the cook, make it more accessible to snackers, and keep your cook/prep zone more protected. I would put the microwave under the remaining counter across from the island, next to the new fridge location. When you move the ovens to the space where the fridge is, you could either expand the pantry a bit or eliminate that bit of shelving behind the pantry door and expand the oven area to accommodate the deep fryer. The covered deep fryer could then serve as landing space for the ovens.

About the island, as others have mentioned, having your DWs separate probably sounds better than it will function. Do you wash all your pots and pans in the DW? How many other cooking utensils do you wash on a regular basis? I ask simply because I hand wash my pots and pans, and it would take me a long time to generate enough other dirty cooking utensils to warrant running a DW load. The vast majority of my dishes to wash are plates, glasses, serving dishes, and eating utensils. Having two DWs but only having one convenient to the clean-up sink would drive me nuts. The second one would inevitably be used for overflow of plates and cups, etc., but it would be inconvenient to load and unload, and I'd never know where anything was.

Your space has loads of potential but, as drawn, it's a long way from reaching that potential. It all depends on how open you are to suggestions.

agree with nearly all commentary above. I am into super-functional and we cook alot. Functionally:
-- distances between cooking, sink and cooling are not easy in this layout. But alot depends on your style. I am a "mis en place" person, so the refrig only gets accessed once or twice for or duuring meal prep. Therefore having cooling all by itself is fine. I need at least 12" counter near my refrig and freezer b/c of always re-arranging or storing groceries or searching for that "froz chicken stock". in your case perhaps turning 180 degrees suffices but your aisle is spacious so you might consider taking that nook out of the pantry and letting that be part of the refrig as a staging counter?
--- The sink DW positioning does not work for me --- Too much congestion around the stove espec if multiple things happening simultaneously
--- having a Butlers and storage pantry is divine and a real luxe. I would want the Butlers pantry CLEAN too, and let it double as a bar area as well. I would not deep fry there, espec so close to what is likely your formal DR. I definitely would NOT have a wall between Butlers and storage. that is constraining in terms of use and storage, espec when staging a big party and needing more area to pre-plate etc. Just removing the divider wall would suit me, since it wont be visable from DR in any event. You can always have some sort of way to close one section off from another.

Good luck

The MW has moved to the opposite side (behind) of the island from the DW.

I like the idea of switching the fridge and ovens, perhaps making room for the fryer there.

Glasses will go in the upper cabs next to the window sink. That will be close to the breakfast and counter height seating areas. (There is no seating at the island despite the picture)

The dish drawer will go on the island behind the sink. We were planning on using blum dish carriers to make setting the table and transporting dishes easier and they can be placed directly into the drawer:

I'll have to think about making the counter space at the window sink "L" shaped. I think that might make the traffic pattern through the kitchen to the utility room too strange.

The sink in the island is large enough to use as a cleanup sink as well, and we do wash everything (and i mean everything) in our dw. Pots and pan storage will be to right of range in a drawer and across from the island dw, so that should be convenient to that dw in the island.

Thanks for these suggestions. They are very helpful!

I think that might make the traffic pattern through the kitchen to the utility room too strange.

I'd be more concerned about the main traffic flow being directly behind the person standing at the sink and right through the middle of all the clean-up and storage functions. Having the DW open into that aisle is just asking for banged shins or a broken DW door. Transporting stacks of clean plates across that traffic aisle, whether or not they are in a dish carrier, seems like it's also asking for trouble. Even storing glasses right there seems at least somewhat inefficient. The first thing I do when I get a glass from the counter is get ice from the freezer and a drink from the fridge.

I think the dish carriers are a great idea when you usually use most of your dishes. I have 12 everyday plates, but most often only use 2 to 6 of them at a time. I'd hate to lug my whole set of plates out every time I use four of them. I also don't see myself carrying the dish carrier to the DW, placing the clean plates in it and carrying it back to its drawer--and doing this again for salad plates, bowls, etc. So, this means I would be carrying a stack of dishes across that traffic aisle without the carrier. If the kids are helping load and unload the DW, there's even more opportunity for disaster.

Think through all the steps from beginning to prep a meal through the meal itself and to the last of the clean-up. Picture what each member of the family will be doing during each phase, whether they are participating, milling around, sitting, or running through. As I picture what my family would be doing in that kitchen, I see lots of crossing of paths and bumping into one another.

Prepping and cooking would be OK until someone needed something from the fridge. If dinner is in the dining room, there would be traffic to and fro through the cook zone as the table is being set. If it's in the breakfast nook, setting the table will involve carrying the dishes across the main traffic path and carrying the carrier with the remaining dishes back to its drawer. Filling glasses will involve two trips through that traffic area, once to get the glass and take it to the fridge, and once to take it to the table. And how many glasses can one person safely carry? Figure that into the number of trips to be made. You get the idea, and we haven't even started eating yet!