Do you have a floorplan that includes the cabinets/appliances, and any adjoining rooms? This looks eerily similar to our current kitchen, but I'm having trouble telling where things actually are. If it is in fact the same, I have a lot to say on it. :)

Questions:
- Is the position of the refrigerator in the last rendering accurate---that is, does it stick out across the doorway into the kitchen? Where do those doorways go?

- What's on the other side of the peninsula next to the refrigerator? (Is that a window or door? Hard to tell...)

Artemis:

These are the only floor plans that I have.

The refrigerator has 2 doorways near it...one on the same wall to the left and one directly next to it on the adjacent wall. One goes down to our den/garage and the one right next to it leads in from the living room. It's a CD fridge...only choice I have really.

The other side of the penninsula is our 11' x 10' dining room...plus door to our yard (to the left of the run of cabinets where DW is).

The trash location is definitely a problem. I would perhaps put it on the end of the peninsula so you can access it and the dw easily at the same time, and you can also reach it from the stove area...Although it's hard to get the true idea of distance and relationship between elements without a floor plan. Can you draw it on some graph paper or something? Doesn't have to be fancy, just to scale.

Is the window existing/not able to move? It's hard to tell from the drawings...One looks like the uppers crowd the window and the other looks like they give it a little space. Do you need all the uppers, and is there any chance of a larger window?

The only thing I see that might bother me is the traffic pattern leads right through the kitchen. Is it possible to make it a u-shaped layout so that the traffic doesn't go through the kitchen?

Also, do you need the entrance from the living room into the kitchen or can you go from the dining area into the living area?

I can throw out the things that bother me about our current layout, which I think is quite similar to this---whether these are an issue for you will depend on the specifics of your room, since I'm still a bit fuzzy on the backyard/dining room side of the space. For us, they were big enough issues to warrant a gut remodel, though.

- Walking into the kitchen and having the fridge immediately in your path bothers me a lot. Not as big a deal if your primary entrance is through the LR door vs. the den door, though.

- Lack of a clear path/connection to the backyard. This is an issue for our house but I'm not sure where your door is (is it what's marked 32 1/2", or is that to the DR and the outside door isn't marked?), so you may be fine on that front.

- Peninsula is not good work space given the proximity to the fridge. This is fine if your plan is to use it from the other side of the peninsula, but if you're thinking of using it for prep space from the refrigerator side, you may want to test this out and see. It doesn't work for me at all, and our layout isn't quite as tight as this.

I generally find that I feel a little trapped in my kitchen since I walk in and am immediately greeted by the refrigerator followed quickly by the counter---they create a barrier to the space on the other side (a breakfast area in our case). Can you possibly move the peninsula to the other side so that it adjoins the dishwasher counter and creates a U, or is that where your backdoor is? If it's possible, that would resolve that conflict but still be close enough to be landing space for the fridge. Better yet, is there somewhere to move the fridge where you could potentially recess it into a wall? (There wasn't for our kitchen, in which case a counter depth is the only real option---but still not ideal.) At a minimum I'd try to move it farther away from the kitchen entrance so it's not the first thing you walk into.

Alternatively---and again, I'm stuck on exactly what's what in your layout so this may not work---could you put the refrigerator against the left wall so that it faces the door to the den, or is that area open to the dining room? (I'm thinking the sink wall is the top wall of your diagram and the range is on the right side, so if that's backwards this may not make any sense!)

These are just issues we have with a similar setup---the variations in yours may make it work for you, or you may not find that you're bothered by these things. But just some food for thought!

The right refrigerator door could be a problem as it doesn't look like it can open more than 90 degrees with the peninsula there. Is the picture accurate as to scale? My experience with side by sides is that door has to open more than 90 degrees for full access to the pullout bins, etc.

Thanks everyone...

The walls and windows and doors are staying. The traffic through the kitchen has to be...my back door is directly to the left of the last cabinet by the dishwasher. The only wall that is coming down is the wall where the penninsula is now...that wall divides the kitchen and dining room. The other 2 doorways cannot be moved...they lead in to the house from the garage/den (to the right of the range) and to the upstairs/living room (to the left of the fridge). Unfortunately, the house was designed with the kitchen as a pass through to get to other parts of the house.

We have tried to put the refrigerator elsewhere, but it works best there (at present it is where the range is).

We are thinking of a french door fridge vs. the side by side...and can even do a top fridge and bottom freezer with a left hinge. There should be room to open it (those base cabinets on the penninsula are 18" deep vs. 24" so they're pushed back a bit).

The window cannot be made bigger as we are not replacing it. Our budget was $15k but being the cabinets are going to be around $10k by themselves, and we need all new appliances, etc...we upped it to around $17-20k.