I think it's a great start! My comments have to do with the pantry/desk. Would you expect to sit at the desk, or are you simply planning a space for desk-type stuff? I wouldn't want a desk chair in the walkway (though a stool that tucks in would work). My Mom had a desk in her kitchen, and she used it all the time; I had one that was noting more than a dumping ground.

That said - a home needs a place to put keys, mail, etc. And you need a place for office supplies. I built in a command center: a cabinet with outlets inside, for charging; drawers below for pens, tape, stapler, stamps, etc; two file drawers below that. Inside the cabinet doors I have a magnetic white board and a calendar. I'll confess - often I still end up piling stuff up on one end of the kitchen table - but if I want to clear it off, I have a place to put it. You know how you live - whether you would rather have an open counter space on that wall, or if you would rather have it concealed.

I have a wall of narrow cabinets, but that's expensive. A reach-in pantry with bifold doors would be wonderful in your space!

Perhaps cabinetry at the end of your fridge.

I like it, but I think you have room for a bit larger island/ prep table, which would be a good bit more functional. I'd try a 3'x6' island oriented where you have it, with a ~48" aisle facing the fridge and a ~42" aisle facing the range.

You could put a drawer microwave in that island if you don't want an OTR microwave. Since you rarely use a microwave, maybe it'd be better to just put one over on the pantry wall -- on a counter top or on a shelf below or above the counter. Drawer microwaves are pricey, so if you don't use it regularly, some other type might be smarter.

You could also put a little prep sink on the island. That'd really make a very useful working space.

I'd put as large a fridge as you can, as even if that isn't critical for you right now, that can change quickly if someone decides to take up green juicing or take up some other diet that requires a lot of veggies, etc. (Important for resale, too, if that's an issue, as plenty of families must, must have a giant fridge.) Likewise, if you really don't want a D/W, I'd be sure to allow for a 24" cabinet next to your sink (and pre-wire, too) for an easy swap out later if needed. We once moved into a "temporary" home that had no DW, and swapping out the lower cabinet for a DW was one of the first things I did after getting over my shock that there was not already a. DW.

1) Can the footprint of the house change? I want to move the bottom wall out a few more feet. The table looks crowded on both ends. You don't want people to have to skirt too close to the wood stove just to get around the table. This would allow for more counter space in the kitchen too, especially between the range and the exterior door, which would be both useful and better in terms of safety.

2) It gives me a little pause that your seating area is so small relative to the kitchen and has no focal point. Will there be no TV? You don't want to cluster it around a fireplace or the wood stove? Something?

3) Is there a basement, or do the stairs go up only?

I agree with szruns about leaving space for a future DW, between fridge and sink. If you were a one-cook family, I'd say the layout is perfect, although I'd prefer a bigger island, rather than the BB cart. With 2 cooks you need another water source, so I also agree with having a prep sink on the island. I have a 3x5 island, no prep sink, but I have another small sink in close proximity.

I'd put the prep sink in the top left corner of the island, close to living spaces, and convenient for anyone who needs to use a sink while you're cleaning up, especially during hand washing. Adding, I'd keep the island parallel to the sink wall.

While I agree that it's usually good to have water near where you prep, in your case a butcher block table (everyone else keeps referring to it as an island, which it isn't, in that it's not built in with cabinets below), even at 3 x 5, is simply too small to waste space on a prep sink. If one person is prepping between the sink and the stove, and another is prepping at the "island", they can both access the main sink without getting in each other's way. I do agree that a slightly larger "island" would be much more useful than 2 x 4.

That built-in pantry with the pocket doors (first picture) is awesome!

Since you have windows right next to the refrigerator, you can't really put a microwave there, so as an alternative, I think I would make part of the pantry wall open, with a microwave on a shelf above (or in the pantry cabinet itself), and the command center below. If you don't put the microwave above the command center, you could put shelves above instead.

I pretty much agree with everyone's comments. I'm wondering if you could move the stairs a bit? How much would that impact the the floor where the stairs go? I just think there's more floor space in the laundry/bath area than necessary. Could you scootch the stairs up maybe two feet into the laundry/bath area? I would rather have those extra feet in the main living areas. That would help alleviate the traffic around the wood stove issue.

It might be a moot point if you're keeping the BB cart, but I respectfully disagree about a 3x5 island being too small for a prep sink. As I mentioned, I have an island that size--we didn't add a sink because of expense and mobility, but it is large enough for a small prep sink on one corner (my 2nd sink is 19x17) to be very useful. I just went in and measured. :)

With a family of four, you probably keep the table pushed against the
window wall most of the time, and don't use the chair on the stove end
on a daily basis? I can see that easing the walkway constriction
somewhat.

I prefer the bigger kitchen, but if the footprint can't
be changed, this plan gives m/l equal billing to the kitchen/DR/LR, and
the table can be pushed against the window wall and still seat four. I turned the BB parallel to the range. You mentioned fewer upper cabs, but I added them on each side of the sink for dishes, and on the range wall. Maybe the windows could be between counter and cabinets in those spots, or above cabinets all the way across. Or forget the uppers, if you don't need the storage space. Forgot to address the DW--for the time being the 18" could be drawers, with everything in place for a future DW, or have a 30 cabinet on that side.

More room to walk around, and someone gets to cozy up to the stove. ;)

Are there more bedrooms upstairs? Usually the laundry is much handier on the floor where the most laundry is created. So if the majority of the bedrooms are upstairs, laundry should be there too.

I apologize for being so disagreeable today, but my bedroom is on the first floor, with 4 others upstairs. I'm not running up the stairs with their laundry--they can bring it down to me. And take it back. Actually, for most of their lives they've done their own. And if (my friend keeps saying, "Don't say if, say when") they leave, and I'm no longer able to negotiate the stairs easily with an armload of clothes, the laundry room is still convenient for me. If the master is on the second floor, YMMV.

1) Can the footprint of the house change? I don't want to move the wall out more but I agree this could be a problem. However I think that funkycamper's advice may neatly take care of the issue and chairs could be moved next to the stove at times when that is desired. We were planning on having linen storage under the stairs anyway

2) It gives me a little pause that your seating area is so small relative to the kitchen and has no focal point. Will there be no TV? You don't want to cluster it around a fireplace or the wood stove? Something?

There will be no tv in the living room. It would be nice to cluster around a wood stove but the wood stove will be our primary heat source and needs to be located more centrally. It will also not likely have a viewing window so not be much to look at :)

3) Is there a basement, or do the stairs go up only? up only

An advantage of the open plan is that we can move dining room furniture and living room furniture around as we see fit as we live in the house.

We plan to keep the BB prep table for now. We can invest in something bigger in the future but we like the mobility of a prep table rather than an island and would not want a prep sink in the island. I don't think it is something we would make use of with another sink just a few feet away. We also prefer to have the kitchen "disproportionately" large. It is a room we spend a lot of time in, we will probably do some food preservation in it and we are much more active in the kitchen than in a living room we just sit in. So we will probably stick with the relative sizes.

There are more bedrooms upstairs and one bathroom. We could plumb so that we will have the ability to move laundry upstairs if we chose but I would rather my kids have to haul their clothes up and downstairs to the laundry than me :). Also, when the kids move out we would like to be able to do most of our living on one floor.

I think if you take my suggestion and move the stairs over, it is even more important for you to move the shower into the middle, between toilet/sink and laundry. Since that would be the least used, it makes sense for it to be the most isolated. And use pocket doors instead of swinging doors between the different areas.

We had laundry on the floor with the bedrooms in our precious home and I loved it. However, the master bedroom was on the same floor so it made sense. I can totally see having it downstairs if the master if downstairs. If space and budget allow, I would have one laundry on the main floor with master/kitchen and another upstairs for the kids so their piles of laundry stay up there.

I agree with funkycamper. If you can afford it, having laundry on all the floors with bedrooms seems like the best solution.

I agree about swapping the shower...but I think the kitchen would be MUCH more functional, as a dead-end space. This gives you room for the second sink MamaGoose suggested and some pantry storage in the kitchen. There could be more pantry storage in laundry and maybe under the stairs?

Also...moving the porch gives you access from the middle of the house...so easy to reach from kitchen, dining and living areas. And pretty view from dining into the porch. If you want east-facing windows in the kitchen, you just lose a little upper cabinet space.

The master closet seems far too narrow, so making that a little deeper makes sense. It should be about 30" (I think) but maybe someone else will chime in on this?

And...if you'd like a larger porch, I would consider a sun/screened porch (windows that open with screens). Then have a pass-through window over sink, out to porch. If you think the porch will block too much light, east-facing skylights would probably solve that issue.

Small houses live larger with big porches! And if you can't afford it now, you can plan for it now and add the porch later :)

Closets for hanging items can be as narrow as 24" deep.

I like your original proposed kitchen. It would be nice to leave room for an 18" dishwasher.

If the refrigerator moves to the pantry/storage wall, I would want to swap the sink and range locations so you can go from fridge to sink without walking around the BB cart. Would that put the sink closer to the dish storage as well?

The house is going to be what, maybe 1400-1600 sq ft? I think 2 laundry areas would be overkill. In a house this size (and with no basement), I really would rather have an extra closet than an extra W/D.

Good luck!

Well, here's my suggestion.

I was trying to fix these concerns:

1) In a kitchen meant to accommodate 2+ cooks, you really didn't have many work areas (large stretches of counter).

2) In a kitchen meant to accommodate 2+ cooks, having a small island table thing in the middle means less room for people to easily walk around each other. It actually forces you to squeeze by and bump into each other, rather than just walking cleanly behind someone and not disturbing them.

3) There was a lot of space wasted for walkways through the laundry/bathroom stuff.

4) Despite expending so much space on the laundry/bathroom, you had the space all broken up with doors, so it would never feel roomy.

5) The amenities of your master were really pretty basic. One sink and an adequate shower.

6) The living room seating area was a little small and most of the seating faced the foyer.

7) The dining table was crowded and required walking too closely to the wood stove.

8) The master bedroom lacks privacy -- it opens right off the living areas.

So what I did was:

a) I moved the left wall of the entire floor out two feet. I know you didn't want to change the footprint, but just two feet isn't a lot and what it allows is for the living room seating area to rotate 90 degrees. This means the majority of the seating is now facing other living areas (nice for social interaction) or facing out the window (pretty). It is now no longer facing the foyer, and it is no longer seems out of proportion with the rest of the floor.

b) I moved the staircase to left two feet (so it remains the same distance from the front door after moving the left wall over two feet) and moved the staircase up a bit as funky camper suggested to get the wood stove farther from the dining room table. I also added a linen closet to the end of the staircase where I now had two extra feet. This'll be nice because that closet is right next to the wood stove, which means all your towels and sheets will always be warm. :)

c) I centered the wood stove on the dining room table, which will look more deliberate and also puts the wood stove almost dead center in the middle of the house (better for heating).

d) Since you seemed amenable, I assumed another washer and dryer would be installed upstairs for the kids to use and considered the one on this floor to be just serving the master bedroom (and the kitchen). In consolidating the bathroom/washer situation to lose less space in walkways and to create rooms/areas that feel bigger and to create a real hallway for your master bedroom to be down, I put your washer and dryer in the hall with a counter on top. I'm envisioning hiding them behind bifold doors like this:

Or behind cabinet doors that just cover the washer/dryer and leave the counter and window above it exposed, like this:

e) Your new bathroom is going to feel ENORMOUS. With a VERY roomy shower, very roomy walkway, and double sinks. This second sink is especially nice with laundry next door, so you can occasionally use one to soak things (utility sink style) without putting your vanity out of commission.

f) I realize now I forgot to rearrange the windows for the bathroom/laundry. Just know that where I left them is not deliberate.

g) I moved the master bedroom door down the new hallway so it is more private.

h) In the kitchen, I eliminated the freestanding table island thing and created a u-shaped kitchen with a peninsula instead. This alone gives you more linear square feet of counter and also creates a nice big open space in the middle of the kitchen for people to move around each other comfortably.

i) In order to create several long stretches of counter to work at, I put the range and sink in the corners. Now you have three long stretches of counter for three cooks to use simultaneously. There is pony wall behind the peninsula so sink water won't splash and some kitchen mess (mostly the dishes area) will be hard to see from the rest of the living areas.

I am envisioning the range positioned like this with a hood above it:

j) I moved the fridge and recessed it into the master closet. You will need a counter depth fridge, but it should leave a foot behind it, which is the perfect depth for shoe storage in the bedroom.

k) On the bottom wall, I shifted all the windows over the left. They are now centered on the seating area, the dining table, and the kitchen wall not occupied by the range hood.

l) I made the door to the porch swing out since it is less likely to hit cabinets or people that way.

m) What I would really like to do is move the right wall of the whole floor out two feet as well. I'd use it to add:

• 2 feet to the counter between the range and the sink (the best prep spot in the kitchen, and it would mean two people could work there side-by-side, making this a four-person kitchen)
• 1 foot of width to the walkway on either side of the master (giving you four foot walkways on either side of a king, which would just feel a lot more easy and airy and spacious)
• 1 foot of width to the pantry on either side of the fridge
• 1 foot of width to the master closets on either side of the fridge

Like this:

If you compare that to your original plan, the most striking thing is just how much more white, empty space there is. That means more room for bodies to move around, which means an easy, open, airy feeling in your home. Where everything fits and nothing is a squeeze, and nothing and nobody is in your way all the time. Ample empty space for movement, for me at least, means noticeably less stress when I am at home.

Slight change to bathroom, after input on Building a Home forum :)

Lavender_lass I like the changes to the bedroom/bathroom doors.

Jillius. Thanks for all the input! I am inclined to expand the width of the house by 3'. 3' rather than 4' because straw bales are 3' long :). We plan on doing straw bale wrapped timber frame walls. I love the washer dryer behind the cabinet bifold doors. Very tidy looking. My husband and I are not quite ready to give up a mudroom off of the main entrance. We will be living on 80 acres and we are all likely to be coming in rather dirty at times and I would not want to have to tromp through the living room or have everything dumped at the bottom of the stairs. But with the house a little wider we can get another foot and a half or so of vanity in there which will be plenty for us.

Oaktown. Thanks, I like my original layout as well. Though I came up with it and that may bias me. :) This house will be ~900 downstairs with space under the roof upstairs, so you are right, somewhere from 1400-1600 depending on how you measure it. We would only have laundry in one place. Most likely downstairs. I agree with mama goose. My kids can haul their laundry up and downstairs :) If I am feeling generous I might put in a chute.

mdln. I can see why everyone liked those photos, there are some great ideas there!

annkh. Based on what we do now I think the desk space would mainly be a place to stick stuff, charge stuff, store office supplies etc. I generally prefer to spread out on the dining table and then stack stuff out of the way when it is time for meals. So concealed is probably best with a chalkboard/whiteboard for lists etc on the outside.

szruns I agree it is smart to plan for a dishwasher. I have been known to change my mind... I think we will stick with our BB table we already own for now. If we want more space we can always build a bigger one later.

sjhockeyfan I like the idea of the microwave in the pantry. I will need to remember that there should be outlets in there.

Prep sink? probably not. I just can't imagine how I would use it :)

The U shape plans from lavender and jillius are interesting. I will have to ponder more on where I would keep various ingredients/tools and what that would mean for the meals we cook most often. I will have to pull out some graph paper and do some vertical sketches.

Lots of great ideas here. I particularly like how LL has repositioned the bathroom doors. FWIW, my friend has almost the identical layout that you originally posted and finds it super functional for her and her partner. The key that makes it work so well is the pantry wall. She has a dishwasher to the right of her sink. I agree though, that it's too small for a prep sink.

There have been some good ideas proposed--I like elements of each of the above plans by Jillius and lavender_lass. I would keep the mudroom/laundry in LL's plan, which retains the flow of your well thought out plan. It's convenient for kids coming down the stairs to drop or pick up clothes, and as you say, if anyone comes in grungy from working outside, it would be easy to strip dirty clothes and continue to the bathroom. Although visitors will need to walk through the mudroom to use the bathroom in this version, it insulates it from the living spaces.

In Jillius' plan, I like the extra kitchen counter space and definitely would keep the exterior door. I can imagine getting a cup of coffee or tea in the early morning and going out on the porch to enjoy the sunrise.

Having said that, I can say that having a second sink when there are multiple cooks and helpers is very nice. I don't know if there's room on the corner (by the back door) in this plan, but I'd try to fit a small sink there. You can have a cutting board made to fit over it, so that it's much like counter top until you need the sink. I thaw meat in mine, because it's smaller and easier to clean and disinfect. Circuspeanut's prep sink and cover:

Thread with more pics.

I actually got the kitchen idea from Jay's kitchen (Flgargoyle) and his very cute smaller home, he's building on the Smaller Homes forum.

While you don't NEED two sinks, with washing dishes by hand and cooking from scratch, it might be nice to HAVE two sinks :)

If you decide you'd rather have the porch on the east side, then you will need a door. It all depends on your views, your lifestyle and the way you want the house to function for YOU. We can all give you ideas and some of them might be great, but they might not be best in your situation.

A shady screened porch is lovely in the summer and a cozy sunroom is wonderful in the winter. I'm not sure exactly where you'll be located...and how long/cold the winter will be. That would make a difference, since long winters (like we have in eastern Washington) would push me towards a sun porch, while milder winters (like western Washington) might be more about outside spaces and screened porches.

The climate we are building in is a compromise between easter and western Washington. The temperature rarely drops much below freezing in the winter but gets hotter than W Wa in the summer. About 30" of rain a year, not as much rain Seattle's 38" but a good bit more than Spokane's 16" or Pullman's 20". With the porch on the east side it will still have southern exposure in the winters but be more shaded in the summer, probably a good compromise. :) Views are pretty good all the way around but maybe a bit better N and S, up and down the valley.

That sounds pretty nice! We normally have cold winters (sometimes down to -27 F) and hot summers, but short. Are you down by Pullman, now? We're about 1/2 hour south of Spokane Valley.

It seems like the east side will be a perfect place for the screened porch! Did you want access form the bedroom? Maybe a deck on the south side, off the dining area?

Oh, quick change in kitchen...now with door to porch. I still kept the prep sink, because MamaGoose is my kitchen guru and she says you should think about it :)

I really like the changes and how this project is progressing. I''d still consider pocket doors for the laundry and bathroom areas.

Even though prepping in a traffic zone may not be the most optimal location, I think Lavender's last plan is pretty good. It would be more functional without the door to a porch there but I can sure understand why you'd want access to it. Could you walk around on the deck to go into it? If you could do that instead, you could eliminate the door. Just a thought.

I am totally on board with mamagoose. Have a prep sink!! Especially since you intend to not have a DW (unless I've missed it that you've changed your mind?). With two of you enjoying cooking, it will really be so much easier and cause less congestion to have one. I really don't think you'll regret it. Since it's in a traffic zone, I can see it being more a secondary prep sink to use if someone else is washing dishes or the main sink is otherwise occupied. Have a cutting board made to fit it for when it's not needed so you won't lose the counter space. I'd actually have that cutting board made in two halves so you can take half out and set it aside and then use the other cutting board right over your sink so you can just scrape veggies into a colander sitting in the sink. Easy-peasy.

I know I'm not adding much to the discussion but I've been enjoying watching the suggestions and progress.

Funkycamper, thanks for your input. It is fun watching other's plans develop. We are up in the air on a dishwasher but we will definitely have a spot ready for it just in case.

Lavender. Thanks! We are near Pullman but on the ID side of the border, so about an hour from where you are :)

We are hoping to have a porch eventually wrap from the door on the W around to the door on the E. I am still thinking about the prep sink. :) Not sold on it but as I am cooking I will try and imagine how much better my life would be with it. :)

The door on the E does add some traffic to the kitchen but I think it will be very nice to carry food straight to the screened porch from the house and to be able to just leave that door open in the summer and not get bugs in.

In order to try to figure out what we need from a kitchen my husband and I looked back on the kitchens we have had in the last 12 years. Of the 5 houses/apartments we have lived in 4 had around 8-9' of upper and lower cabinets including the sink, excluding range and refrigerator. Some of those were miserable but because of layout, not because we lacked space. The one with a much larger kitchen (an 8x10' U shape) had empty cabinet space the whole time we lived there and we found vases and odds and ends shoved back in corners that were never used and we had forgot we had :).

The lessons learned from this exercise:

1. we are too lazy to dig into the back of corner cupboards :),

2. 8-9' of upper and lower cabinets is the bare minimum,

3. more would be nice, especially as the kids get older but not too much more

4. we can have "too much" storage so that some of it lies empty,

5. drawers are better than cupboards

Here is an adaptation of Lavender's suggestion. I made the kitchen a little more narrow to shorten the distance between the two sides and eliminate some walking while cooking. I also added in some ideas about what each area might be used for. This plan basically doubles (or more in some cases) the average amount of space we are used to for each of the activities.

Not sure about the spacing of counter/appliances on the south wall.

One that isn't all marked up

I like your kitchen ideas! The only problem is that the dining table is getting shoved into the living area.

With a small home, it's all about balance...so think about keeping the range 'as is' in the other plan and also keep considering that prep sink. You can keep the island, because you don't need to walk from fridge to sink...you can use the prep sink :)

You know...if you don't get much snow, can you have that door open into the porch? Maybe something like this? Then the door isn't blocking any of your kitchen work areas. And I'd put the tea stuff next to the prep sink. I love tea, too!

The command center...is that for charging phones, contact information, etc? Can you put some of that in the mudroom? Command centers almost always get overrun by kitchen stuff. I know mine does! It's going to become the new baking area :)

Especially if you want to leave that door open in the summer, you should have the door to the porch swing out.

What a fun thread! Not sure if it would work with straw bale or budget constraints, but I'd love to see the windows in the dining area be bumped out to help get the table farther from the wood stove and get the table and chairs farther out from the traffic zone.

Please do consider a stove with a viewing window. Flames, especially in stoves with re-burn tubes like the nc3o, are utterly enchanting to watch. Much better than tv! : )

Where will you store wood? It's nice to have a spot out of the weather to store several cords so that you don't have to rustle it up out of the cold very often (but we have colder winters without all that cozy straw around us to contend with.)

I'm going to also recommend a prep sink. It won't add much to the cost, but it will add lots to the function, especially while canning(!), prepping veggies, prepping meat, getting drinks, watering pets, art and science projects, tea prep while the main sink is in use....so handy!

I think the kitchen design by Julius is the most functional, given all the counter space, especially in a very hard working kitchen. The counter on the peninsula has some extra depth to it which would be nice when a lot of counter is needed for canning.

Thanks for all the great input. I love the counter space available in the options you all have thrown out but I do not really like the (relatively) large work triangles that having a ~12x14' kitchen seems to necessitate. I have realize that one thing I have really liked about our small kitchens is how little walking is needed. Almost everything is within reach practically without even taking a step. I would like 2 cooks to be a possibility but it isn't something that regularly happens. I was thinking that the 4.5' aisle should work ok for that?

So I looked for some ways to reduce the work triangle. I am think that I if I reduce the kitchen aisle to 4.5' I can move the entrance to the screen porch outside the kitchen, getting that walk way out of the kitchen. Then I can also have a shallow pantry wall (so everything is easily visible) in addition to the kitchen. The back of the range side would have 1' deep and 1' high shelving behind the counter and then 1' deep shelving accessible from the other side below.

My thought is the elevations would look something like this:

With maybe an adaptation of this inspiration photo for the N counter.

Kitchen Island · More Info

I like that idea. The pantry is close enough to be easily accessible and the traffic will be out of the work area. Do NOT put a door in that work area. But a window pass-through would be great there.

The only thing I don't like at all is the fridge/freezer placement. It will be a big visual block isolating someone in the kitchen from interacting with people in the rest of the living space. I would put it on the sink side. It's still close enough to give you ice-water-stone-fire for prepping.

I realize you would lose your upper storage for cups and dishes. I would move them along with your silverware to lower drawers where the fridge/freezer was and then move some of the other items to the pantry area. For example, instead of a drawer of towels, you could just have half a drawer of them with the rest in the nearby pantry. I would probably also keep potatoes and onions in the pantry. This should make up for the loss of the upper cabinets on the sink side.

I prefer your original proposal

You have the space for an L with an island. I'd run with that.

A dead-end galley is pretty much a one person kitchen. If you really want to proceed with that idea, I'd recommend what we did (I'm sorry I've said that so much): the fridge and sink on the exterior wall and the range on the opposite, there's a wall behind the range (for upper cabinets and a standard type of exhaust hood) and then 3.5 feet of a peninsula type of counter. People can hang out at the peninsula and chat or help without getting in my way :-) This kitchen is TIGHT, but effiecient and so far so good; our house is only 1200 sq ft, so this size kitchen is proportionate.

Our kitchen is an L with a peninsula so one end could be considered a dead-end galley. With 54" aisles, we have had 4 people working in the kitchen at the same time with few issues. The L does change things a bit and our fridge is not in the kitchen proper so that also opens up space so I realize my situation is a bit different. But I really see no reason why two people couldn't work in this kitchen if the aisles are 53". Any narrower, no. But 53" should give enough clearance for two to work comfortably, imho.

When measuring aisle width, make sure you're measuring from countertop to countertop, not from the cabinet fronts. You lose several inches with the overhang. If you truly don't have 53" aisles, then I agree with Benjesbride in that it will be tight.

Oh, it just dawned on me that with your range where it's at, you'll need to install a hood from the ceiling. Ensure that you have the ability to run your ductwork to the outside. I suppose it could go out either direction but I'm not a hood expert. I believe that the longer the ductwork, the stronger fan you'll need but double-check that.

I didn't pay much attention to the shelving photo when I first responded. While I like that idea in a bigger space, I think it will make your smaller area feel too closed off. If you decide to move forward with it, I'd try it on just half that counter length, just surrounding the range/hood, and leave the rest open.

I tried to keep the space saving ideas you like....but make it look more like the picture you posted. The range hood might be better on the outside wall (easier to vent with upstairs, too).

Would something like this work? More like picture, plus you have stool seating, which is always nice...and panty storage in kitchen, as well as other places.

In your picture, I really like the windows on two sides and easy access to porch, without going THROUGH the kitchen. Also added a plate rack(?) above sink peninsula and an upper cabinet by range, on each side of the pantry.

Finally, I couldn't resist adding a parent's area with hot tub...everyone needs a place to get away, but it's still accessible from screened porch, too. Just a few ideas :)

Thanks lavender! I admit it did not occur to me to rotate the kitchen. That is what I love about getting more pairs of eyes looking at it. Having the sink there would allow dishes to be stored near where they are used and where they are washed. I have mixed feelings about stool seating. I have never had it and my friends growing up who did just piled stuff there :). It could work out well though with command center stuff stored nearby. Could be a nice place to sit and talk to the cook (or clean up person) as well. I could sit there with a glass of wine and chat with my children as they wash dishes :).

I love the idea of the parent's deck, mostly the idea of a hot tub (we keep talking about having a wood fired one). I like the door straight from our room. I think I might keep the screened deck there though, avoid mosquitos. The nice thing is we are unlikely to screen it in immediately so we can live there a bit and see what we would like.

What about two screened decks/porches? It would give you protection from the mosquitoes...and one could be for family meals/seating (off kitchen) and the other for the hot tub!

You could keep an open deck between to connect them for extra seating....or just look up at the stars :)