I am dealing with this situation as well. I want a complete full overlay look and I do not like the look of the 36" farmhouse sink in a 39" base with the cabinet frame exposed around it. I prefer the look of the 36" sink in a 36" base cabinet so the edge of the sink lines up with the cabinet door edge. It's a cleaner look. Our sink is under mounted so won't the countertop be able to sit on the sink as support since the sink has supports under it that braces onto the cabinet base? Our cabinet guys is thinking we should have a 9" pull out to match the look of the 9" corner section on the right of our sink. I get that it will keep it symmetrical, but I personally do not think it is necessary. I have seen them before right next to each other and I prefer the look and on top of it, it save buying an extra cabinet since 2 smaller cabinets is much more than one larger cabinet the same total width. I guess the other argument is that when the dishwasher is open you see a space? Can someone explain this more or have a photo of this so I can decide if this will bother me? If so I guess we could do the 3/4" end panel instead of the 9" pull out, but I'm thinking then you will have a weird spacer you will notice with everything else being full overlay. Suggestions and comments if I am missing something.

Thanks for the feedback all. I am thinking about doing the entire area lowered. We have 3 small kids (our oldest turns 4 in July) so we like the idea of table height seating, and now that I added legs I really like the expansive workspace for rolling dough, making cookies, a serving buffet etc. It's funny because a long time ago buehl suggested this (all one level) and I didn't listen. But now that I know what I didn't like about most of the one level peninsulas I had seen was the lack of legs, routed edges or at least interesting corbels, I'm fully onboard with the one level plan. I'm worried that if I don't have enough difference in height between the normal counters and the lowered counter it will look like a mistake or the cabinets will look bizarre next to each other. I will mock it up though. How hard is it to find chairs like that? Would our local woodshop (which we love, shout out for Stillwater Wood & Iron, Stillwater NY) have cut to height chairs? I will measure our working heights when I get home, well mostly my wife's. I only cook seriously when she is pregnant so it's mostly her domain. And we are planning this to mostly be a cookie/baking/chopping area, because at least for me I think I would gravitate towards doing prep to the right of the stove. And I think I'm passing on the sink. Driving 6 hours for a possibly shady sink is not worth it. I just needed to sleep on it. But hey if anyone is closer to Danbury(?) CT, go look on eBay for a waterworks sink, $450 is a good deal if you are close by.

Home- Nice layout! I really like all the example pictures you posted, too. It's so much easier to see if something will work in the space, with a picture. My only concern is no sink in the fridge/snack area, but that's what Control said she wanted. There was a prep sink in the snack area, in the earlier plan (kitchen on other side) and I wonder if it's going to be too crowded having both sinks (and dishwasher, etc.) so close to the cooking area. Personally, I'd like to see a window on the short wall (between the laundry room and family room) and somehow incorporate the prep sink into this corner. A view and more light would be really nice. If Control doesn't mind an 'island' hood, than I'd think about putting the range on the peninsula, so you can see into the dining area and the family room. Since you don't have seating planned for this area (stools on family room side) it would be a lot safer with the range here...and you could have bookshelves/display facing the dining room. A raised backsplash would hide a bit of the mess and keep things from falling off the back of the counter, too. Maybe something like this? Yet again, I'm running out of white out, so I hope this is readable. Basically, same back wall, with prep sink in the corner (like Circuspeanut) and a window on the side overlooking the backyard...and the range on the peninsula. The wine fridge is by the door to the mudroom, but still handy to the prep sink. There should be room for some big drawers, where the range used to be...and between the wine fridge and the prep sink. A trash could go just left of the prep sink (to the right of the drawers) and still have a lazy susan in the other corner. You should have at least one, just for the extra storage...great for punch bowls and other rarely used items. From Cottage house plans

You mean like this 30" Shaw's sink in a 36" base? See if you can find acountryfarm's dimensions -- she has the definitive Shaw's sink installation-done-right pix.