And the layout

So you have a peninsula between kitchen and dining? I would eliminate the corner cabinet, and access that corner space from the dining room side. That leaves you about 45" for two drawer stacks. How you split that up depends on what you want to put there.

Move the DW to the other side of the sink, to get it out of the prep zone. You'll need some space between range and peninsula; perhaps a narrow cookie sheet/cutting board cabinet.

I know a lot of people love their MW drawers, but I'm not sure you have enough base cabinet space to pull it off. Where will you store dishes, pots and pans, food?

Around to the other side - a 12" drawer stack isn't very useful. Again, since it's an inside wall, you could access the corner space from the living room side (I'd use it for blankets, board games, or rarely used, large kitchen items). That allows you to increase the drawers by the fridge enough to be useful, and gives you more space to work with on the sink side.

Speaking if sink - can you use a smaller sink base? Under-sink storage isn't all that useful.

Have you planned out where you will put things? I mapped out my whole kitchen in advance - in some cases, I specifically planned cabinet space for a category (like bulk cereal, cookbooks, and nalgene water bottles); in other cases I determined what made most sense where. Cooking utensils, silverware, potholders, small appliances, baking dishes, spices, storage containers, towels, bags and wraps - I knew where everything was going to go. Planning ahead helped me to fine-tune cabinet sizes, and ensure that the kitchen would be efficient to use.

Annkh-- thank you! I realized I forgot an important detail, which is that over in the dining I have a large walk-in pantry. I store all the food there, as well as non-daily dishes and less used pots and pans.

I will definitely move the dishwasher, not sure why I didn't think about that before!

I'm not sure about shrinking the sink base. My understanding is that with a 36" base I can only have a 33" farmhouse sink. So if I shrink the base to 33" I could only have a 30" sink. Is that wide enough?

Believe it or not, my kitchen currently has even less usable cabinet storage!

"Is it wide enough?" is a personal thing. I have a double sink in a 30" base, which I find big enough (and functionally bigger than my old double 36" sink).

How big is the sink you have now?

In both my current kitchen and the kitchen I had in my last home for 10 years I've always had a double bowl stainless 33" sink in a 36" base. I've never had a single bowl sink and so I don't know how the usage varies. If I'm switching to the single bowl, maybe 30" will still feel spacious?

There are lots of threads here about double vs single. Folks seem to have a strong preference of one over the other - there's no one correct answer.

What's the distance b/w the top wall and the bottom wall? I understand you have 80" peninsula "legs", but what is the remaining distance to the bottom wall?

Where exactly is the window located?

What we need is the widths of each wall/window/door/doorway and the distances b/w each wall/window/door/doorway.

Is that an 18" or 24" DW?

I have to admit that I find your drawing w/cabinets confusing....could you post an "overhead" 2D layout with measurements instead?

Take graph paper, draw up the walls/windows/doors/etc., label all measurements, and post it here. It might help if you check the Layout Help topic in the FAQs...

Here is a link that might be useful: FAQ: How do I ask for Layout Help and what information should I include?

I'm with buehl: I find your drawing very confusing. Do as she suggests and post a more legible plan. You'll get more advice that way.

Ok, I incorporated some of annkh's suggestions and redrew with graph paper. I don't know the exact window dimensions and they're based on exterior widths and known to the gc, but I know where it's starting and stopping more or less.

The 12" section on the far right will support the open shelves that run next to the fridge cabinet.

All due respect to annkh's suggestion of moving the DW out of the prep zone, that move leaves you with only 24" between sink and range. It also means you have to watch for door collisions between DW and fridge.

How wide is the room? You gave us the length - 185" - but I don't see the width listed anywhere and I'm just not up to counting the tiny squares on your drawing (smokey air here and my eyes are stinging). My guesstimate is that you have about 123.5" (assuming a 39" wide fridge cab) based on the cabs and aisle width listed.

Is there a wall next to the stairs or is it open? Is the window location fixed or can it be adjusted? Can you move plumbing?

If yes to wall and yes to the other questions, then this lay-out is an option:

I eliminated all corner cabinets - they aren't nearly as useful for storage as drawer bases - gave you more counter between sink and range, moved the trash next to the sink and gave you a separate area for fridge and MW. This can be an counter MW, a drawer MW or a small MW in the upper cab (GE Spacermaker II MWs are designed to fit in 12" deep upper cabs).

I don't know wall length of the stairway wall so I'm not able to give you measurements for MW cab or aisles between fridge and doorway to the right and MW cab counter and peninsula counter.

Another option would be to move the window towards the range area and swap location of sink and range. That means a shorter path for setting the table and clearing it off. If your kids help with that, having the sink closet to the DR and not beyond the range would be a plus, IMO.

I would take the time to accurate measurements.

Instead of a 24" drawer base with 3" of filler- make it 27". Actually, since it's so close to a range, more than 3" may be needed, so use a 30" cabinet. You want to be sure the drawers facing the kitchen side will clear the range - including the range's door, drawer, handles. So:

1" filler (if next to a doorway with trim) + 30" cabinet turned toward the outside + 48" of cabinets facing inside the "U".

On the lower wall, I would make the MW side at least 36" wide, preferably 42" to allow a "snack center" - assuming you have the space. Then, I would put additional cabs + counter for a Command/Message Center (for keys, calendar, charging station, etc.) on the other side of the refrigerator - again, assuming you have enough space.

If you have a lot more space, consider an 18" pantry cabinet next to the refrigerator as well for more often used items (e.g., sugar, salt, cereal)

Who's plan are you commenting on, Buehl? If your comments are about my plan, you should know that it's only a rough plan and will definitely need tweaking. The OP did not provide us with enough information for me or anyone else to draw up a more detailed plan. I was just throwing out an idea to get the OP to think of other possibilities.

Understood (yes, it was yours Lisa). I just wanted to point out about using a wider cabinet instead of filler and give ThreePinkTrees some food for thought about the bottom wall as well.

Lisa-- the wall the fridge is on is 78", then the aisle is 39.5. The fridge cabinet is 33" and the fridge is 30". So 117.5 is the total width of the room. There is a wall where the stairway is. The opening behind the fridge in my aerial view goes to the living room and a hallway to the beds/bath, so my feeling is that walkway gets too much traffic to move the fridge to that wall.

I love the idea of switching the stove and sink, but the window unfortunately can't shift as it's location is determined by the outside architecture of the home. I had not thought much about drawers opening while range and fridge are open, so I need to think about that. I am now thinking about just putting my microwave in the large walk-in pantry in the dining area as I honestly rarely use it and that way I won't waste countertop or cabinet space on it.

Can you tell me what it is about lazy Susan corner cabinets you find inefficient? I have one in my current kitchen where I store my pots and pans and find it much less annoying than the cabinet I have to access from the opposite side of the peninsula currently. I just assumed it would be better to have both corners with lazy Susans. I don't want to put them in and the regret it though!

I really appreciate the feedback as it helps me think outside the box and consider all the possibilities which is so hard to do after you've been looking at a room for so long!

Re: lazy susans - it depends on what you put in the space. I have one in my U-shaped kitchen, for small appliances, and it works great. The second corner is closed off completely, with drawers on each side. I thought long and hard about "wasting" that space, but eventually I realized that what I needed room for on that side of the kitchen (utensils, towels, bags and wraps, plastic containers, canisters) fit much, much better in drawers. I don't miss that corner space one bit.

Lazy susans eat up 9 to 12" on each side of a corner. That means the next cabinets have to be 9 to 12" shorter. It isn't that a LS is inefficient; it might not be the best use of the space.

The only way to know for sure is to map out where you will put things in the new space. I made an inventory of the contents of my cabinets pre-remodel, and assigned a new home to each item. In some cases, this was driven by convenience - I wanted space near the range for potholders and utensils. I need a place to put cookie sheets and cutting boards. Glasses, cups, plates, baking dishes, cake pans - everything was measured and planned for.

That was what finally convinced me to put drawers on each side of the corner, between sink and range - a solid understanding of what things needed to be close to the range.

That also ensured that my drawers would be the right size (height as much as width). I specified to my cabinet maker how much usable height I needed in certain drawers, to make sure I could fit what I wanted to put there. I have two 3-drawer stacks, where the bottom two drawers are not equal in height. If they were, my canisters and cake pans would not fit (cake pans are stored on their sides).

What about this?

1) There are no corner cabinets at all now.

2) The placement of the fridge means where the window has to go is less random -- it's centered on the open wall now.

3) All counters are 30" deep for a bit of extra work space, so the fridge is flush with the cabinet fronts, so the walking distance between the two sides of the kitchen is roughly 5 feet, and so the upper cabinets on the stove wall are a bit less in your face while you're using the counter.

4) I liked the idea of the glass shelves -- it would make your kitchen feel special. I ran some of them in front of the window so whatever you place there will sparkle in the light, and I repeated the glass element on the other side of the kitchen with glass cabinets (I picture those with both glass doors and glass shelves).