Another picture...

Another picture... 3rd of 5

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Last picture... 5th of 5

Can you open the dishwasher without hitting the handles on the adjacent drawers? It looks a bit tight.

A GE spacemaker would fit next to your fridge and would not stick out.

pretty good work finessing your small space. Have you thought about some upper glass doored cabs? have some folks at Ikeafans.com done that to soffits....did you, or are you getting some experienced tutorial about that? Just curious....

Any thoughts about shrinking that countertop table? It seems to take up a lot of room and your space, especially sink to range is very tight. The way this is laid out there will be conflict between cooking and cleaning. If you do nothing more that reduce the size of the counter/table by.a foot would allow you more work options

Thanks everyone...

Dishwasher: I'm keenly aware of that issue. I'll make sure that I leave enough space to open the D/W. I even put the 30" cabinet closer to the D/W so that we could open the dishwasher and the drawers at the end (where we plan to store most of our dishes).

Microwave: we decided to get a M/W with convection so that we could get our toaster oven (which we use quite often) off the countertop... combining two functions into one device. There are 24" convection microwaves, but it would stick out about 6". I though about moving the base corner cabinet toward the door, but the path into the kitchen got too tight.

Soffits: We put a lot of thought into hiding the soffits. We definintely saw some photos of people hiding soffits with faux cabinet-fronts here and at IKEAfans.com, but I'm not sure that we saw this exact idea. We are still a bit concerned because the faux cabinet doors are only about 8" tall and won't have the trim on the regular Ramsjo doors.

Countertop Table: Part of our mission statement was seating for 5 at the countertop table. We wanted to make sure there was about 36" between the table and a step-down into our family room, so we made it as big as we could. With our design, we should be able to fit one seat on each side and three on the long side. I am also envisioning using the countertop table for projects with the kids or possibly baking with the kids. @felixnot, can you explain further how we could get more cooking space if we reduced the size of the countertop table? I can't visualized increasing the size of the main (U-shaped) workspace because of the sliding glass door beside the table. Please elaborate if I'm missing something.

Thanks again!

This post was edited by emcsq on Fri, Nov 30, 12 at 21:17

A friend of mine has a similar layout. I know you were smart enough to plan for spacers near the DW so it can open, but make sure you post a reminder on the wall when you start. My friend did her own design too, and had the spacer, but when her contractor put everything in it got overlooked in the chaos and wasn't noticed until the counters were in. They also forgot to put the end panel on the peninsula before templating, so they could not add the filler back since the counter was already foo short (no overhang).

Now for some suggestions. I have no expertise other than what I learned here and through my own remodel still in progress, but more ideas are always better!

The peninsula cabinet next to the DW will be hard to access from the chair side. It looks like you have 24 inches or so overhang based on having a chair on the end. You will have to crawl under there to access that cabinet each time. I know if that we're my cabinet it wouldn't be too long before I stopped crawling under there and forgot what was living in it. I would consider adding spacers to be able to open the drawers on the kitchen side (obviously not when the DW is open), or make it a blind corner, or close that section off on both sides and make it a blind corner that opens to the hair side next to the wall, where the overhang is manageable.

For the Advantium, what about sliding the fridge to the right and removing that tall cabinet (pantry?). Then put a 30 inch cabinet where the small one is now. You could put the OTR model there over some countertop, or move up to a built in wall oven Advantium. Use the bottom for a pantry, there are great base cabinet pantry systems, or do 2 smaller short pull outs side by side. The built in models will allow a 9x13 dish to rotate inside, where the OTR model will not. I have a small space too, and I ultimately decided that if I was going to spend the money for an Advantium, I wanted one that could function as a full second oven, because if I ended up loving it I would be kicking myself every day for not getting the built in. That was a hard 30 inches of space to give up, won't know until May if it was worth it :-)

I think you have done a good job so far thinking of what you need. My kitchen has some challenges too, and I know those trade offs (like 30 in drawers instead of space between the sink and range) are hard and not made lightly.

I am resurrecting my old thread because we need advice again. We did this remodel in January 2013, and everything pretty much went in as we planned it above. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the granite fabrication, so a couple of years after the kitchen was finished, we managed to get a refund. We never did the backsplash because we knew the granite wasn't staying, so we are now about to re-do the countertops and add a backsplash.

So, I have several questions. I have found a very reputable granite fabricator and told them all of the challenges with our last job--because I want to avoid future problems. What specific questions should I ask to ensure that everything turns out well? I have asked about how they do their measuring and templating and sealing. The stone yard is MSI, which is a big operation.

Second, the blessing in disguise with the last job mishap is that the giallo ornamental we went with (mostly to save money) turned out to be way more yellow/gold than we bargained for. We also figured out that the pattern was too busy for our relatively small kitchen. 60+ sf of granite is a lot for our size kitchen.

This week, we went to MSI and picked out Colonial White slabs. We were looking for a lighter, less busy granite. We had a sample of SF Real (or Light Ornamental) in our kitchen before we went to MSI, but although the colors seemed good, the pattern was too busy. So I would love opinions on whether this granite will work in our kitchen. The cabinets are Ikea Ramsjo (the closest stain color is Red Mahogany), the floors are butterscotch oak (which read orange-ish, but they are in the rest of the house and we have tried to tone them down with beige and white kitchen rugs). The appliances are SS. If you zoom in close, there is a paint chip above the drawer front for SW Accessible Beige. This is the paint color in the kitchen and the family room that is open to the kitchen.

We have a lot of south facing light, with the kitchen window, the slider, and two windows in the family room.

We did decide to take the advice of one of the other posters in this thread, and reduce the size of the tabletop overhang a bit, but not much (maybe 4"). We aren't planning to move the table supports and apron.

Thanks!

You would get more responses if you started a new thread with a new header and then linked in this thread. Many people here will just skip over a 2012 thread....