I think it might be worth drawing an elevation (side view).

The double ovens pop up in the middle of a counter run, reducing it from
a spacious, centrally located, and versatile 80''+ counter, to two little appx 30'' mini counters that will be cramped to work at. Ovens are not accessed often - usually you put something in the oven and then don't go back for an hour or more - so they shouldn't get prime space right in the core of your working space. I would consider moving the ovens to the outskirts of the ''U''.

Where will you prep? Usually the most convenient prep zone is next to a sink. The sink has a 30'' counter to the left, and a 24'' counter to the right, before the''hutch style'' section (what is that?) 24'' is rather tight for prepping, and prepping over the dishwasher is not ideal (block access, get steamed, where are drawers for knives and tools and spices and bowls etc). So the prep zone is probably the counter to the left of the sink. This is not a large area - not even 3 feet. It might be nice to have more elbow room.

Do you like blind corners and the storage in them? Some people (me) really don't. If you really don't, you might try designs that avoid those corners. But some people don't mind them.

I think a second (prep) sink would be a very good idea. You have the space for it.

Thinking about zones - One zone is an eating zone, with chairs and traffic and adj to fridge, maybe microwave, so kids can move in that zone and not bother the cook. Then there is the cleanup zone, with big sink, dishwasher, and dish storage. Then the cooking zone, with a counter stretch, sink (prep or main)and adj to fridge, and the stove, and ovens (do you use alot?).
So apply this to the drawing (IF it makes sense for the way you live in your kitchen) I'm a little confused. Without a prep sink, the main stove, sink, fridge zone stretches the length of the room.

The other technique is to trace through in your drawing, how you would do getting groceries, breakfast, dishes, packing/serving lunch, family dinner, a quickie dinner, an in law dinner, coffee for friends, or whatever you do with the company you keep. See if the zones work for the way you live.

Without relocating the refrigerator and without a prep sink, fresh green beans or lettuce is a 24 foot round trip to/from the sink.

If you keep that outer door swing - it pinches the aisle down to 30" when its open, but its bigger flaw is you have to keep walking around the open door to get into the kitchen because its in the way. It can't open fully because it runs into the base cabinet.

The law of the knees says that both side of a corner can't be occupied at the same time by people sitting on stools. So, one side of seating needs to add 12-15" of blank space for the stool legs and the knees of the person sitting on the other side of the corner.

Thank you so much for your feedback johnliu, lyvia and bmorepanic.

The hutch I refer to in my drawing was supposed to mean a base cabinet with an upper that comes all the way to the countertop (with glass doors) - I may have the wrong name for it? I imagined this holding the dishes we use every day (and silverware, serving bowls in the drawers below the "hutch" part of the upper cabinets).

I had thought of a prep sink in the corner cabinet by the fridge but it feels "wrong" there - I think if I put it there it would never actually be used as a prep sink. Then I tried it in the island but it seemed to crowd the eating space on the island. Maybe I need to give up having seating for 4 at the island and I just live with seating for 3? I've been playing with turning the island 90 degrees, which would allow a 6 ft long, 5 ft wide island. I could have 3 seated on the outer side, leaving the three remaining sides of the island free for working on (and maybe space for a prep sink on the island). This might be the better solution. I'm doing some drawings with the ovens along the fridge wall, I'll post a picture once I'm done.

The current drawing has 2 people sharing 4.5 ft of counter/seating space on one side of the island, and the other 2 people sharing 5 ft of counter/seating space on the other side, I thought there was enough room for 4 people, but maybe not? The island is 6.5 ft x 4.5 ft.

The back door can be changed to a 2'8" which would bring it down by 4 inches. Current drawing only gives 6" between end of cabinet and the door, I can probably give it 12" if that will make a huge difference.

Thank you so much for the feedback, it really helps me to think this through. I'll post a revised drawing as soon as I'm done :)

Denise

I'm not good enough at layout to say "do this or that", but I can point out issues. Your instincts are correct about the corner prep sink. It would never get used as it's too far away from the rangetop with those ovens in the way. Prep is best done BOTH near a sink AND near the cooktop. In your drawing, the prep zone would be to the left of the sink/corner/right of the rangetop. More space would be nice. In their current location, the ovens really cut apart the counterspace as John mentioned.

6.5' for the island is plenty big enough for a good-sized prep sink (18") and prep space, but you've got seating in the way of that. How do you envision island seating to be? Just a place to hang out and visit with the cook? Place for homework? Place for daily meals? We are a family of 4, but for us the island doesn't need to have 4 stools.

Also, try moving the island the other direction and see what happens. Put a small sink in the island and see how much lovely prep space you could have there! You'd prep at a sink and right across the aisle from the rangetop.

Now if only I could fix my layout!

I'm new to this story. New construction or old? Existing plumbing, walls, etc? What features are fixed? (Where are the windows? Is the range site fixed? The double sink fixed? other features?)

Scratch cooking? Lots of entertaining? Garden produce? How much baking? Paths from other rooms to the refrigerator? Path for groceries?

Growing family or all adults? number of cooks? size of family?

I agree that the ovens seem to have some prime real estate and that prep is discontinuous with range. What will you do at the island?

Try walking through some typical recipe scenarios: scratch spaghetti sauce, Holiday cookies, freezing a bushel of beans, zucchini bread, eggs and bacon. Notice where you foresee the knives, the bowls, the path of items before and after use, your walk to refrig and pantry and such.

If you draw the entire stool, you'll see that only one of them can occupy a corner. A table usually avoids this by the increased width and the legs centering the person on the end so their chair is 9" away from the corner, The person on the long edge by is positioned being unable to draw their chair up all the way to the end because they run into a leg or apron. Sometimes, the table design doesn't position people and the end person gets swamped.

Generally speaking a 6 foot table is used to seat 6 at the most. Since you have a full table right beside the kitchen, do you actually need another seating area that will be very cramped when all the seats are in use? Or is two on the end enough?

This is what BmorePanic is explaining...

See how two people cannot share the leg space in the corner?

Hello again, I thought I had a handle on what I was doing but I now realize this is much more difficult than it seems - my respect to all of you layout experts! Thank you everyone for your feedback. Some replies to the above posts (grab a coffee, I'm especially long-winded tonight!):

-thank you for pointing out the island seating problem - i guess I was hoping the 2 guests on the long side wouldn't use their entire space, but I can see the corner just gets awkward and squished, so nix that idea.

-turning the island the other direction - I agree, this seems the right thing to do (I'll post a new plan showing this); and I agree breezygirl, a family of 4 can probably live with fewer than 4 seats at the island - my new layout allows for 3 which I think is enough.

Some background (which I forgot to carry over from my original post):

-this is renovation to the studs and an addition (7 ft being added to back of house). Only framing is happening right now, no fixtures, water lines, or gas lines have been run yet. I'll post updated layout showing windows/doors and adjacent room locations.

-the kitchen is totally open to the adjacent dining room - they share the whole space; whole room dimensions are 24' 7" wide by 17' 3" long (I previously thought it was 25' wide, but realized that measurement was to center of exterior walls so I've "lost" 5 inches I thought I had - very sad!).

-Our only eating area is the adjacent dining table, so a few seats at the island is really needed

-family of four - right now I'm the only cook but my 8yr old twins like to help out and I see them becoming more involved

-I cook most meals nearly from scratch, love to bake, and we would normally have people over (for meals, drinks, etc) a few times a month (3-4?).

-fridge as it is on these plans is pretty perfect as far as dining table access, family rm and living rm access; it keeps all fridge traffic out of cook's way

Here is the original plan I posted showing windows/doors, and 2 new proposed layouts and pics from a 3D program (please ignore the details of the cabinets, esp the uppers and the corners - many uppers will be glass, and they won't be perfectly matched the way the pics show - my program doesn't allow me to do uppers that are different widths than the base cabinets, how silly is that?). Any feedback on these would be great - i particular I'm wondering if the location of sink/rangetop/fridge/oven/prep sink/pantry/island make sense.

Plan #1 - Original plan and 3D picture (as mentioned by a number of posters the wall oven "breaks up" the counter space; the island and prep sink doesn't feel right, seating is too squished, I think this plan has to be tossed):

Proposed plan #2 - ovens & fridge on same wall, small (4'6" x 4'6") corner...

Fun to keep playing around with ideas! Or are you at the frustration point yet? One minute it's fun, and the next it's too much. I have a couple of very quick thoughts. (I'm determined to get to bed before 12:30am tonight.)

1. Some wall ovens need a slightly bigger cab than their outer dimensions. Check the dimensions and install guide of the ones you want to see if you'll need a 33" cab for the 30" ovens. (I thought that the 27" double Kitchenaids I'm leaning towards would fit into a 27" cab. Turns out they don't.)

2. A 5' wide island is very wide. You'll have a lot of unusable space underneath unless you plan on putting a cab in to open under the 15" overhang. You'll rarely want to crawl under to get in there so don't count it as good storage. You may also have difficulty reaching the middle to clean if you're on the vertically challenged side of the ruler.

3. I like the prep sink on the island. It still gives you good prep area next to it and convenient to the rangetop.

4. The drawing with the corner pantry does look crowded, but it looks like a great deal of storage. I've never had a walk-in pantry, so I can't speak to exactly how much that would give as a benefit vs. being crowded.

5. Have you determined what you need store in each zone? The bookshelves in one of the drawings looks to me like they take up valuable real estate in the prep zone. I don't know about you, but I have a ton of items to store in that area.

I've missed my bedtime deadline as usual. Goodnight!

Aisles...your aisles are all 1.5" to 3" narrower than you state. Your layouts show cabinet-to-cabinet measurements, not counter edge-to-counter edge. Your counters will have around a 1.5" overhang all around. You also need to factor in appliance depths. So....

• Island width...if you have 12" + 36" + 24" cabinets, you also need to add 1.5" overhang on each end (& in front). So, your island width is really:

  1.5" overhang + 12" deep shelves + 36" wide cabinet + 24" wide sink base + 1.5" overhang = 75"

Island depth is really:

1.5" overhang + 24" deep cabinets + 21" wide cabinets + 15" overhang = 61.5"
Sink run is really: 24" deep cabinets + 1.5" overhang = 25.5" deep
Ditto the rangetop run
Ditto the refrigerator run if you have counters.
Refrigerator...non-built-in counter-depth refrigerators usually stick out 5 or 6 inches past the surrounding 24" deep cabinets. Standard-depth usually stick out 10 to 12 inches. What do you have? Built-in? True CD (Liebherr and similar)? Regular CD? Standard-depth?

Are you certain you can recess your refrigerator into the wall? If so, then knock off approx 3" of depth. You appear to have accounted for the recess. Be sure, though, the doors stick out past the surrounding cabinets and/or counters (and remember, counters will be 25.5" deep).

So, with all this, your aisles are really:
39" b/w sink run and island
39" b/w rangetop run and island...but, you can probably move the island "east" another 3" so that aisle can stay 42"
39" b/w refrigerator and island

Island width/depth & cleaning....How far is your arm reach (that's the key factor, not your height)? If it's at least 36", then you probably won't have trouble cleaning the island. Yes there is potentially "wasted space" in the middle, but I would still put in cabinets there. You can store rarely-used items there. If you only have to get into the cabinets a couple of times a year, I don't think it will be that big a deal. If this were my kitchen, though, I would probably only have 24"W x 12"D shelves and put in a 21" drawer base b/w the shelves and the seating overhang. That would be a much better use of space. That only leaves 24" of space under the overhang. For the shelves, remember that we're talking about 2 or 3 shelves, so with 24"W shelves, that's really the equivalent of 48" to 72" of shelving.

Oven and/or Broom Closet and/or Pantry cabinets "pushed forward"...be sure these cabinets are not pushed out any further than the refrigerator carcass/box. The doors of the refrigerator need to extend out past all surrounding cabinets & counters.

Oven Cabinet width...Our 30" ovens only needed an extra 1.5". So we have a 31.5" wide oven cabinet, not 33".

Double Ovens height...Unless you and your family are very tall, I would lower the ovens. Right now, they look even farther off the floor than mine and I think mine are about 4 to 6 inches too high. Think about using the top...

I have my m/w and fridge on same wall next to one another with m/w in a built in wall at counter height. I hate that when I go into fridge I have nowhere but behind me to put food. I designed my kitchen in Fl to make sure i had counter space on both sides of my fridge for that reason. Much easier than having to constantly turn around and walk a couple of steps!

I prefer option 2. Much better than the original!

A few comments though:

-Where is the microwave?
-Agree on the bookshelves-can you store your cookbooks elsewhere?
-It might be better to put the wine fridge in the dining area.
-I know you are going for symmetry with 2 sets of 30" drawers on either side of the range but the pullout would be much more functional next to the range. Also I would center the renge on the island. Just move the 18" pullout to the right of the range.
-My island functions as a landing area for my fridge/MW/toastr oven and I have no problem just turning around and putting something down. I don't need to take any steps.

For both my ovens and my refrigerator, I have landing space both on one side (to the right for my refrigerator/to the left for my ovens) and across the aisle from them on a peninsula....and I almost never use the space on the side...I always use the peninsula in front of them.

For the refrigerator, it's a simple turn (no steps) to place things there. to use the counter on the right, I would have to reach around and behind the door on the right. With French Door refrigerators, the ideal landing spot is usually in front of it where neither door gets in the way. (I have a French Door refrigerator.)

For the ovens, I find that I stand to the side to avoid the rush of heat when I open the oven and when I take things out, I just reach in, remove and make a slight turn to the right (not steps) and place my items on the peninsula. Again, I don't use the side very often. Even if I do stand in front of the ovens, which I do do occasionally, I find the peninsula is closer than the landing space on the side. BTW...it's easier to pull out racks, etc. in the top oven from the side than it is from the front.

Buehl--How did you get a 31.5" oven cab? I didn't think you had custom cabs. I didn't see that as available size in any of the cabs I've looked at.

Like pps7, I wonder where the MW is.

In looking at your plans with a fresh eye today, I do like the corner pantry the best of these. The storage would be invaluable and the layout still seems to work...specially with Buehl's much more eloquently stated tweaks than I could come up with so late last night. That's why Buehl rocks!

I like the corner ''pantry closet''. Lots of space, neatly uses the blind corner, and an unusual, interesting feature. A fun place for kids to play hide and seek too.

Random thoughts:

Perhaps look into narrow double doors for the pantry that can swing either way, instead of a single door that has to open ''out'' and block the aisle and/or a good bit of counter when open. Also check the clearance between the corner of the island and that pantry.

Also, a trash pullout near the prep sink - where the the wine cooler is drawn - might be a good idea. You might want two trash pullouts in this kitchen. Otherwise you may end up playing ring-around-the-rosy with the island while cupping dripping trash in your hands.

You could build some wine storage into the pantry.

I don't have custom cabinets, I have semi-custom (Omega Dynasty) for the most part. I do have 4 Omega Custom cabinets, but the oven cabinet isn't one of them. Interestingly, Omega's semi-custom line does allow you to specify sizes...in my case a 31.5" oven cabinet. There was no upcharge for this.

As to putting a wine cooler (or any refrigerator) in a pantry, remember these appliances put out heat; so if you do this, be sure to provide some kind of ventilation other than the "open" spaces that are naturally around a door (primarily the bottom and the sides & top somewhat). You don't want heat to build up in the pantry...food will spoil quickly.

Here are a few threads that might be useful for your corner pantry...

Thread: I have a pantry suggestion... Ventilate!

Thread: What size should a step-in corner pantry be?
[Note: The dimensions of my pantry changed when it was completely built and finished. See the next thread for the final dimensions. BTW...I recommend making it a little bigger than mine if you have the room. My pantry was supposed to be bigger, but it was a victim of my KDs measuring errors (there were many!) 5'x5' would probably be ideal, but 4'6" x 4'6" is much better than mine! Oh, and don't make the shelves too deep...12" on one side and maybe 15" on the other are plenty deep enough for food, small appliances, etc. Believe it or not, the deeper they are the more useful horizontal storage space you lose.]

Thread: Sharb-inspired Pantry Done!

Here is a link that might be useful: Gallery Thread: Pantry photos/ pics of pantries

Wow, I can't thank all of you enough for all of your suggestions/advice. I'm doing some fine-tuning based on all of your comments above. I think the corner pantry layout is the clear winner so I'm assuming I'm going with that layout. So based on the corner pantry layout, here are responses to questions posted:

1) Where is the MW - I couldn't figure out where it should go, that's why it's noticeably absent! We want a MW shelf (to make replacing future microwaves easier), I was thinking a shelf above and to the left of the range, right beside the pantry wall. Thinking the wall would help to camouflauge the microwave a bit, and this might allow the shelf to be a bit deeper without sticking out like a sore thumb?

2) Book shelves currently on the island layout - I agree, I may actually scrap those shelves because our plan is to line the dining room wall with narrow (9 to 12 inch) cabs/shelves and the cookbooks can easily be placed there.

3) wine storage in island layout - I agree it can be removed, it was only a wine rack area, not a cooler, so I can easily put a crate-style wine rack in the pantry

4) Island dimensions, counter overhangs, and aisle widths - Our countertop place has told me to expect a 1" overhang, is it normal to have a 1" or is 1.5" almost always the case? Either way, I see my aisles are too narrow. We think we'll shrink the island to 55" x 68" - is it usual to have such a non-standard size measurement for the island dimensions? Having the one side max out at 55" means we don't need to use a second slab of quartz countertop, that's the reason for this dimension. The 68" was shrunk from the previous 72" to allow for the 1" countertop overhang on the island and on the cabs along the sink wall. That should leave me exactly 42" in each of the three aisles. The "new" island dimenstions would have only 12" for the seating area but I understand that should be sufficient.

5)Wall oven dimension and height above floor - the ovens I'm getting are the GE Monogram, the installation guide online says it needs a 30" cabinet and I called the GE line to confirm, they also said 30" cabinet. My neighbour has a wall oven, and she can't believe a 30" oven would fit in a 30" cabinet - does anyone else out there have a 30" that actually did fit in a 30" cabinet? I hope it does fit because that leaves me space for a 9" cabinet between the ovens and the fridge which could be the perfect spot for cookie sheets, cooling racks, serving trays, etc.

And re the height of bottom oven from floor, the install guide says 12" so I believe that's how high it would be in reality (my program doesn't allow any change of where the ovens are in the picture). And I'll definitely make it a drawer below (I'm so grateful everyone here has emphasized how useful drawers are and how impractical doors can be - I'll be putting drawers in nearly every location...

6) French door fridge - it's a Samsung 36" W standard depth fridge, with...

Here's the latest, but ignore the fact seating isn't shown on the island - IKEA's program won't allow it - I'll have 3 chairs along the long side of island (those sitting at the island will face the range wall).

Notable changes:
1) MW shelf beside pantry
2) changes to upper cab sizes - I think I like these sizes...
3) Change cabinet beside back door to regular upper and lowers; originally the upper was going to come down to the countertop, not sure if that serves any purpose or not, might just crowd up the door area.
4) included drawing showing the general plan to place cabs/shelves along the din rm wall - huge amt of storage to be gained if I do this.

Any thoughts on this updated layout?

Entire room layout:

3D view whole room

3D view sink wall

3D view oven/fridge wall

Din Rm with shelves/cabs along wall

Any more input appreciated!

Denise

I hope it's okay that I bump this, this forum moves so quickly my follow-up post has gone to the 6th page in only a couple of days! I'm wondering if any of the previous posters have any opinions on what I've added above? Any and all feedback is appreciated :)

Denise

On the last set, you might move the 12-15" wide tall cabinet from between the ref and oven to between the ref and corner cabinet. This moves the ref doors away from interfering with the pantry door and also to let the ref doors open completely.

It places the ref opposite some free area so you have counter space to sit down items pulled from the ref. There is still the potential for interference with the oven doors, but I feel ovens are less used than pantries.

Choose your poison on the pantry door swing. It either swings towards the ref causing issues or you get a kinda odd issue if it swings towards the cooktop - you've got no landing space.

Full disclosure: I built the littlest version of a corner pantry (3 x 4). I would be happier, designwise, if it was a flat one that included the corner. but didn't have angular walls. I chose not to have a door because of the same issues. We are some DIY and some pro, and we're just now futzing with the pantry guts and I ain't got no pictures yet.

The photo gallery wall makes be nervous - with those perfect ends, it kinda makes odd little corners that can't be vacuumed with a floor head or swept with a broom. I think plain open shelves would work as well.

Remember your starter molding at the pantry - for both the upper and lower cabinets. It will prevent the doors and drawers from binding on the wall and provide some insurance for wall that aren't square or plumb.

You might need fillers for the over the ref cabinet. Depending on exactly what your ref specifications say, you may need to add some to both sides to provide required air circulation space.

Thanks bmorepanic, you bring up some great points.

I liked having the separation of fridge from ovens, but having some space between pantry and fridge probably would be more important. Hmmm perhaps I make the pantry 4x4 and I may have room to have some separation between all three pieces. I'm a bit unclear on what you mean about pantry size - is there a more ideal size for a corner? If I'm devoting too much space I am willing to give some up (i.e. go for 4x4 as mentioned above).

And re: the photo gallery wall, the cabs are going to run end to end, I didn't even notice that the 3D shots show a gap (the floorplan shows them fitting flush). So there will be no little gaps beside the units. And I do plan on a combination of open shelves, doors and possibly a few drawers (thinking junk drawers, batteries, notepaper and pens, etc).

Thanks for the feedback, I'm going to draw another one tonight with the smaller pantry.

The last layout is definitely the best so far. I can't offer a whole lot to improve your design, except I might suggest that you consider all options with regards to a pantry door. Perhaps a folding door(s) would work?

I don't know how I missed this. You really did do your homework and had a great start. I can understand your idea regarding the oven in the middle of the counter run...but just not 100% sure you'd like it. Could also support it if you decided it would work best for your family. I have a run of cabinets on one wall with a fridge that separates my baking task area from the snack/breakfast counter. Some would've argued that I split expansive counter into 2 limited spaces, but that's how I wanted it. I didn't want things from one are overlapping and sharing with the other.

I do like your option 2, and was thinking the same thing about the pantry that I think Bmore is trying to suggest...Get rid of the 45 degree angle and flatten the pantry against one wall. Almost as much space inside without taking so much out of the kitchen:

You can use the fridge depth to make the pantry that deep (so won't have the need to recess it into the wall). I reduced your island by 6" to make up for that and to give you a little better aisle on that side. 36" is a little tight in front of the fridge and oven...not only in everyday use, but also if you need repair or replacement.

Yeah, well, the ideal size for a pantry is bigger than my entire kitchen. :)

I was trying to say that mine is smaller and asymetric but I have the same issues. The problems I know of with any diagonal wall are

ÃÂ 1. The wall with its coverings needs to end completely behind the ref doors. Some refs have doors that need to open more than 90 degrees but also actually need a little empty room immediately to the side of the doors to open to 90 degrees.

ÃÂ 2. The door circus - how far across the pantry door can the ref door open, how far across the adjacent cabinets does the pantry door travel? Do open cabinet doors or drawers block use of the pantry door?

ÃÂ 3. They can feel really small while they look like a lot of real estate. The diagonal corners need to be solid and the door needs to be big. YOU NEED 30ish inches of floor space for elbows and knees and to be able to turn around. This generally means that you can only use the two back walls for storage and only one of those walls can have deep storage.

ÃÂ 4. Where is staging space? Staging space would be a place to sit down a grocery bag and unload it into the pantry. Sometimes, staging space is as easy as putting in a section of counter in place of a shelf. Sometimes, there just isn't any.

ÃÂ 5. Where is landing space? At some point, you want more stuff out of the pantry than you can carry. Some nearby counter can serve as the pantry landing space for unloading, then you close the pantry door and go on. Also, if there isn't staging space, piling stuff in the landing space gives you a short hop to put away stuff in the pantry.

ÃÂ 6. Is there room for accessories to be used? A micro, a toaster, a toaster oven, blender or whatever might be important to you.

I did not have very much space, so I sacrificed staging space for one accessory - the microwave. I have landing space right outside of the pantry and I should be able to stand in one spot, reach out and get most things and place them in the landing area.

I got rid of the door circus by getting rid of the door and I just have an opening. But the inside of the pantry needs to look good at all times. I'm orderly inside of my cabinets - much more so than inside of my head ;) It's been a pita finding a design we could afford to build that contained enough shelf space for what we want to store and looked good through the open door.

A flat pantry starts in a corner and goes straight only along one wall - no diagonal wall). Then a pocket door avoids the door circus.

Bmore...Apparently great minds think alike and sometimes at the same time! LOL

Have I told all of you how wonderful you are? All of this advice is so helpful, and thank you for the clarification re: the corner pantry, I finally understand what you mean about the door circus! I'm working on a modified plan right now.

If you can stand it, I've done a revision with the squared off corner pantry. BUT I've also moved the wall ovens so they're between the pantry and the rangetop. Have I crowded this wall too much? Here's what I've done:

Floorplan:

3D pic (fairly accurate, some cabs not as seen, but dimensions and appliance location are correct):

Yea. Rhome was there first - rhome wins!

bump

I'm calling it a tie. ;-)

You have the pantry labeled at 4 ft wide (although it seems to be drawn longer?), so with the oven a tiny bit over half of it, you have less than 24" left for a doorway, so I wouldn't take any of it up with a door frame and door, but leave it as large as possible. Truthfully, I think it needs to be longer so you can get yourself a little larger opening. If it was more like 5 ft, you could do a pocket door, like Bmore suggested and I drew in the plan above.

I would want to flush out the cabinets and fridge with the pantry...but the island would need to be adjusted for adequate aisle width. If you bring the front of the fridge (not counting doors) out even with the front edge of the pantry, you don't need to have a cabinet in between...Or you could put the microwave in between, so you don't have 2 smallish cabinets? Do you have a need for the 15" tall cab? Do you have your microwave or have it chosen? Will it fit with the required clearance in a 24" cabinet? Mine wouldn't, because of the air space needed around it, so wanted to be sure you checked.

What about two 24" pull-out pantry units? I would put a small pull-out next to the stove for olive oil and other bottles. Have you considered a 15" overhang for stools on the island, if it would be used a lot? I would strongly suggest hiring a kitchen designer. I consulted a great one that saved me from making a big mistake. I think it would be well worth the money considering how much you are putting into this kitchen.

Oops, pantry dimensions on the drawing should show 4ft6 wide, so should be able to accommodate a pocket door (although I prefer swing door just because repairs, etc are less and easier to deal with than on a pocket door). Would the pantry still be functional if it was only 27" deep? That would allow me to keep my island as is, which would be nice...

I believe the MW we already have should fit in a 24" shelf, but I'll have to confirm to be sure.

I think the next step is to actually map out the pantry dimensions to see if 27" depth is workable.

THe other thing I like about the newest layout with blind corner pantry and ovens changed to range wall, is that the oven doors now open into an aisle so very good clearance. My plan with the tall cab beside the fridge was to store all of my baking things (sheets, cooling racks, pans, etc) and seemed a good width, also helped to give the fridge doors "space" to open into.

So I don't have a lot to add, you've gotten great advice so far.

I have to say that I like the idea of making sure you have 42" all the way around. I think it would bother me to have the island closer to the cabinets on one side of the kitchen than the other. We were in our neighbor's kitchen tonight and the distance between her island and sink was 44" - frankly it was almost too far for me.

Have you considered a curve on the seating side of your island? It really makes it nice if people are sitting there so their not lined up elbow to elbow like at a lunch counter. And it seems like you have the room for it. Plus it lets you get more overhang in the middle. We have 14" in our old overhang it it's just not enough at all. And it looks weird when you push the bar chairs in - just open air between the back of the chair and the granite. 18" and even more is really nice. We have a huge table next to our kitchen but everyone still always want to sit and eat meals at the island.

Thanks brittu, I originally gave 15" undercounter space for the island seating (it's going to be a furniture style island with legs on each corner) but the cabinet place told me 12" was sufficient. I was skeptical, so I think I will keep at 15" minimum - I definitely don't want to make the island an uncomfortable place to sit. I could go to 18" (means the island drawers would shrink to only 12" wide, but I think I could live with that). I did think of a curve on the countertop, but the widest our quartz piece can be is 55" so that would mean shortening the corners of the island.

Hi Denise. You are in BC? I'm in burnaby.

I have the same French door samsung fridge recessed into cabinets. Be aware you'll need a couple inches of space behind it for air circulation. My cabs are about 29" deep and the fridge does jut out alittle.

Be sure to let your plumber know your aisle widths. Many operate in robot mode and assume std 36" widths and place their roughins there. Same with electrician with island lighting.

I think 27" should be good for a step-in pantry.

We have pocket doors all over our new (2 1/2 yrs) house. A lot of people have bad impressions of pocket doors because of old flimsy ones they've seen or used. I don't think you should have to worry about repairs if you use good quality hardware, which we did, and also used solid core doors...5-panel style or 10-lite French door style to match the rest of our doors. A pocket door would usually be stressed less than a hinged door, I'd think. You could do a bifold that pulled and folded toward the fridge side if you'd feel more comfortable.