Are you open to repurposing any rooms? For example, do you need a family room and a formal living room? Do you need a table in the kitchen as well as a formal dining?

Do you want to move the gas? Do you want an electric cooktop? If the answers to these questions are no....I don't think you have a lot of options.

The sink and cooktop don't look too bad, layout wise. The dishwasher is on the other side of the sink and you have some prep space there. Is the island too close to the table? Do you plan to eliminate the table and have a larger island?

The island looks small. I like a banquette, but it looks like you need more prep space. Maybe make the island larger and keep the window seat?

A pantry cabinet might be nice. Perhaps get rid of the raised bar and replace it with a wall on the first section and under-counter bookshelves behind the sink....facing the TV area?

Can we see a full floor layout?

on the right where it says 'no slab under' - what is that? a wall? a window? a doorway?

It is probably a floor cantilever. Saves on build cost and on footprint if foundation footprint is a zoning concern.

Here is the full plan.

==> Do you need a family room and a formal living room?
Need? That's a loaded question. We do use both rooms daily.

==> Do you need a table in the kitchen as well as a formal dining?
The formal dining table is used multiple times daily (not necessarily for dining). The kitchen table not so much. Its the primary landing space for the pantry right now. I know I want seating in the kitchen though.

==> Do you want to move the gas? Do you want an electric cooktop?
I am currently using gas and I am moving to induction.

==> Is the island too close to the table? Do you plan to eliminate the table and have a larger island?
The table is shoved up against the window seat. When the chairs are in, there's good space. If someone is seated in them, not so much. Would I like a larger island? Yes, but I wasn't able to resolve the traffic pattern and have enough seating.

==> The island looks small. (yes) I like a banquette, but it looks like you need more prep space. (yes) Maybe make the island larger and keep the window seat? (I like large islands)

==> A pantry cabinet might be nice.
That's what I was hoping to do to the appliance wall where appliances weren't.

==> Perhaps get rid of the raised bar and replace it with a wall on the first section and under-counter bookshelves behind the sink....facing the TV area?
I was thinking of getting rid of the raised bar and just have level counter go all the way around with seating. I used to have a bookshelf under the bar and it was an out of control nightmare. I had to move it to my son's room. I have some hoarder tendencies and if you give me a place to put things, it will get consumed and look bad. The bar has to remain totall void of stuff. If anything gets placed there, stuff just multiplies!

I really like the plans that are kind of like modern gallies. A wall with stuff and a parallel giant island. Could I do that? If I did, the max for the island would be 162-48=114, right? Man, I'd need the triple island plan. My non-appliance wall counter-footage is 196 right now. That angled hallway is the killer that messes up all my ideas.

I don't know anything about slabs, but I was wondering if it's feasible that you can rotate the sink 90 degrees and get your modern galley? I (obviously) didn't spend a lot time thinking this through, but thought I'd toss it out to you.

Also, if I remember correctly there was a recent kitchen by mathteachr or a similar name where they moved the sink on a slab by running the plumbing under the cabinets. maybe if you want to do the sink in this orientation you could use that method to slide the sink toward the front of the house since my drawing kind of kills your back door.

Here's mathteachr's kitchen

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3270276/mid-way-construction-update

Your house looks like it's very nice to live in. I like the general floor plan.

I have to admit that I'm about to crawl into bed early. So I'm not sure I've absorbed what you really want from your kitchen. But I felt like playing with a layout a bit before bed so I just designed something I would like.

The island is deep enough to have seating. Or you could make the island narrower and have a banquette or table on the "north" side of it. I think you have space to have options for your seating. Anyway, for better or worse, here 'tis.

@benjesbride , this looks nice. However, I can't move the back door. The drain clean-out is right in the way of doing anything with that door. I wanted to make it a double-door a few years ago and my contractor told me no. :(.

Also, removing the window seat is a possibility, but not the glass. The FR faces north and the kitchen east. I need all the light I can get in there. (The three FR windows are 4'x9' and the two kitchen windows are 4'x5')

This would be workable if I were willing to make a dead-end galley, but those aren't so functional, are they?

I like this one:

It looks to me like that cooktop wall is about the same length as my appliance wall. Do you think that they have to have a pantry somewhere or everything is neatly stored in just those cabinets? Actually...that's a prep sink. There's more kitchen somewhere. Can you have a barrier between your (everything) and your clean-up sink? Like this (please forgive the sloppy photoshop and appliances nowhere near scale..I was in a hurry)

Man, and I could have my GC turn my window seat into that same kind of window-wall like that photo (which would only be 8' tall though). That would be cool.

@funkycamper , I like how that looks. I thought about asking my contractor if we could make that window seat 'part of the house' (ie, put slab under it and give it a floor). I think that the irrigation bill would be bigger than the GC bill though. All the valves for 3/4 of my yard terminate right under that window seat. I think there are probably 10 valves down there. Man that's a lot of re-piping! I live in Texas where they won't let us water anymore, so who needs sprinklers anyway!!

Oh boy. I can't get behind the three rectangles above, but I lack imagination :-)

What is this orange rectangle?

That orange rectangle is all the audio/video equipment for all the TVs in the house. TiVos/Amps/DVD/BluRay/etc. The a/v equipment faces the main hallway and has a pocket door. There is another door on the smaller hallway to get to the back of the equipment (on left when you enter) for wiring and there's a/v related storage on the right (dvds, video tapes, extra wires, boxes, batteries, video game paraphernalia, roomba supplies, etc). There's a patch panel in there too for the wires out to speakers and stuff around the house.

Is the door the only door to your back yard?

Alrighty. Unless your husband is looking for and excuse to switch over to all digital and all wireless A/V, we'll just leave that closet alone :-)

@benjesbride, yes, that is the only door to the back yard.

Actually, all the a/v equipment is mine. My ex never cared about such things. Except for the speakers, it is all already digital. I would gladly pay for a good quality wireless HDMI, but sadly that doesn't yet exist. Even the bad ones are restricted to line-of-sight. Most of the wires in use now are speaker, ethernet, coax (for moca -- so still network), and HDMI. Our TVs run off of a network connection to the central TiVos, except the living room TV that uses a giant HDMI.

That's enough boring a/v stuff...kitchens again!

I'm sorry I assumed and I hope I didn't offend. My husband is all over that stuff. It's not my thing. I didn't realize people still had all that equipment. We just have apple TVs and stream everything.

Oh no, you didn't offend. I know that my predeliction for a/v equipment is abnormal. There's actually a lot less in that stack of equipment than 20y ago. A single amp that will service everything and mega multi-tuner streaming TiVos account for most of the 'downsizing'. I have a TV addiction issue that I will readily admit to.

How about this?

The table is set against the island like this normally:

• I've rearranged the hall closets a bit to give you a proper front hall closet in the foyer and substantial pantry storage (of two different depths!) handy to the kitchen.

• I straightened out one of the walls of the master closet. It should make storage in that closet easier (nice straight line of hanging stuff vs. all the previous weird angles), and it removes the weird hallway angle that was causing trouble. It also leaves some empty space (the red box with the question mark) that has possibility. You could build storage there to serve the family room -- games, more AV equipment, whatever. It could be a little bar. You'd know better than I would what would be useful.

• The island is 9-10 feet long. That makes your prep counter to the left of the sink about 4.5' wide.

• The range hood vents through the roof, assuming there is no upstairs.

• There is nice flow and point-of-use storage:
  
  If you are preparing for a meal, you'd start at the fridge to get your ingredients. Wash them in the sink immediately behind the fridge and prep them on the prep counter immediately to the left of the sink. As you are prepping, you will need the trash/compost/recycling, which will be handy under the sink (get an offset sink drain to make this possible), and you will need your prepping materials (mixing bowls, knives, peeler, chopping boards, etc.), which will be handy in drawers under the prep counter. Once done with prepping, you'll need the stove, which will be immediately behind you. As you start cooking, pans are in the base cabinet drawers to the left of the stove, pots are in the uppers to the left of the stove, cooking oils (and salt, pepper, etc.) are in the upper to the right of the stove, and cooking utensils (tongs, spatula, slotted spoon, oven mitts, etc.) are in the small drawers to the right of the stove.
  
  If you are cleaning up, the aisle should be wide enough to be able to open the dishwasher and full extend the dishes drawers, so the two end up right next to each other. Pop dishes out of the dishwasher into the dish drawers, easy peasy.
  
  If you are getting a snack, the dish drawers are right next to the fridge, and the MW in an upper right above the dish drawers. Everything you need to make a snack.
  

@Jillius, that seems pretty cool. I like the looks of those pictures too. Especially the grey one. I'd like someone to pick it up and lay it down in my house.

Barb- can you mark on your drawing exactly where the plumbing comes out of the slab?

The drain and water are coming out of the center of the sink cabinet, so I assume that's where they are in the slab:

I was thinking along the lines of Jillius, with respect to carving some space out of the walk-in closet. I think the thing about the kitchen that most keeps it from looking contemporary is the angled corner.

That closet may look gigantic on paper, but its not in real life. If I cut the closet off so that its square and put rods down both sides, you wouldn't be able to walk down the middle without turning sideways. I guess builder plans aren't so exact.

What do you think of this?

I would keep the window portion cantilevered and just use the portion over 18", which is high enough for the cooktop and microwave. The cabinet would appear full-size from the front. There's already a 220 stubbed out under the window seat that I could use for the cooktop. Put windows on both sides of the cooktop.

All appliances are under-counter except the fridge. The fridge would have to be french-door and its landing space is the 'spice' section. I had a problem placing the fridge so that it wasn't in the way of something.

I like this because it gives the giant island look (well, its not a look; it is a giant island). My walkways are bigger. I can still seat four. You can only see one appliance from the FR; the fridge. As far as I can tell, this has WAY more storage than before.

Problem? I'd have to re-floor 1/4 of my house.

Reflooring 1/4 of my house isn't necessarily a bad thing. I have square-edged clear natural hickory which is really beautiful and hard. However, it wasn't made well and the wear layer gets damaged by water too easily. I never had this problem with the oak flooring that came before it (it was only in the kitchen and halls; we changed products when the whole house re-floored about 8y ago). With a savannah cat that takes great joy at knocking over absolutely everything that has liquid in it, after 3y, I'm more angry at the floor than I am at the cat.

Thanks for the analysis @jillius. I was expecting the counter perpendicular to the sink over the two ovens to be my prep space. Is having prep space over those appliances not practical? Its like 80ish x really deep. There's 33" on each side of the cooktop. There's ~24" on one side of the sink and 48" on the other.

Here are the numbers for my untouched layout:

Prep space: 26x42

Cooktop: 24" on left (really zero because purse/phones/ipads/watch/rings kept there), 32" on right (shared with sink)

Sink: 24" on right, 32" on left (shared with cooktop)

This proposal is probably doubling my current workspace providing I can use the counters over the ovens as prep space. If not, then its totally not doable. If the location and size of the prep space is good, it just can't be over the ovens, the ovens can be located on the pantry wall either right next to the fridge or on the other end.

Like this?

My astronomical cabinet bill could actually be smaller for this. I count only 13 boxes here. I think that there's at least 16 in our current plan. That difference is almost enough to pay for the floor.

The larger issue is not the ovens, but that the sink is around the corner from your prep counter, rather than right there with your prep counter as it should be. You cannot use the sink while prepping without walking around a corner, and most people go back and forth between the sink and counter a lot while prepping as I described above. This is an outside corner, so that's actually a fair walk (four or five feet and the same back again) every time you need water while prepping. I predict you end up working on the two feet next to the sink, even though there is much less room there to work, simply because it involves so much less walking and dripping. Also if you are clumsy like me, less banging your hip on that corner.

Put a table against the back of your current dishwasher to approximate having a longer counter around the corner from your current sink. Prep a typical meal on that table while going around the corner to the sink. See what you think of that set-up. It would not work for me, but that is a fast (and free!) way to see if it would work for you.

I also don't like ovens under my prep counter because they heat up the counter, which doesn't help when you are rolling out dough. And I usually am going to need the ovens on occasions when I'm rolling out dough. I think that is a baker-specific issue, though. If you don't bake, it wouldn't be an issue. But I am a baker primarily, and I grew up with ovens under the prep counter, and I really didn't like that set-up.

I was thinking of a sink in the prep area, but I thought that was being greedy. I've never had a prep sink before. Is this better?

I've been looking at photos with cooktops in front of windows and they're really quite stunning. If I do this plan, I think that I'd have the window go all the way across. I also think I'd waterfall granite/quartz where it jogs for my viewing pleasure when I'm sitting on the sofa :).

It looks like this modification makes the prep area about 5 feet (from counter edge to sink edge). 60w x ~40d. Is that a reasonable size?

Yes, a prep sink there fixes the prep counter issues we were discussing, assuming all the measurements work out (prep sink as drawn looks quite small -- I assume it'd be bigger in real life). A 60w x 40d prep counter with easy water access is ideal, as far as I'm concerned. I do really encourage you to mock things up, though. Tape off a 60w x 40d area on a table and try prepping there. See if you want more or less room in either direction. That's how I decided for myself that 6' was too wide for me, but there are plenty of people who would love such a wide counter. Carrie B (a gardenwebber who just remodeled her kitchen) tested 30" deep counters when she was planning and found them to be uncomfortably deep for her and required too much stretching. I forget how tall she is, but she is on the short end, so that is why deep counters were uncomfortable for her (difficult for her to reach the full depth). I'm 5'9", and I love extra depth in my prep counter and have no trouble reaching anything.

• You will want to use the counter on both sides of the sink, so the counter in front of the seat closest to the prep sink will likely always be in use while cooking and often wet. You can put a seat there, but I think it will not be a popular seat.
• Trash should go under the prep counter/prep sink somewhere. You generate almost all your trash while prepping, not while doing dishes at the clean-up sink.
• The walkway between the prep counter and cooktop looks very narrow. Like, 30" wide, which would be ridiculously uncomfortable. How wide is it actually meant to be in your approximation?
• The island is huge and very deep in places and almost square-shaped. Slabs come in rectangles usually, so you are probably setting yourself up for a gnarly seam if you get stone/quartz. What counter material did you have in mind?
• Very deep counters can be hard to clean because you can't reach all the way across or even to the middle. Try making a to-scale island top out of cardboard in this shape, put it on table and see how you feel about wiping that counter down.

I like your last plan, Barb. The prep person and clean-up person can chat with each other and people sitting at the island while they're working. Nice. It also gives you good drawer storage in the prep area for all your prep tools. The only thing that concerns me is the fridge location. It's in a very handy place for the cook. But people wanting a drink or quick snack might bug the cook and/or clean-up person by walking behind them to get to it. An open DW door could block access and cause someone to walk behind the cook which isn't a good idea for safety. How wide are the aisles?

I'm just throwing out something else for consideration. I'm not sure that it's an improvement. Also don't know if a pantry that size with roll-out shelves will give you enough storage.

@jillius, I intend for at least 40" walkway in front of the cooktop, maybe 42"? I need to make an adjustment. The 60x40 prep space is about the size of my kitchen table so it would be super easy for me to test out. You have a point with the big island thing. I love the look, but I'm imagining attempting to snag the cat off of it and I can see that it won't take her very long to figure out I can't get to the center.

Correction: From measuring, it looks like there is 42" between the cooktop and counter. There's 48" between the wall and the post and the bump-out is 18" deep, so 48+18-24=42. Is 42" good for that aisle, or would I want more?

@funkycamper, you have a point about the fridge. I know I have a fridge placement dilemma. The prep area looks good on the plan, but I'd rather not prep facing a wall. Embarrassingly, all the work spaces 'need' at least a partial view of the TV. Perhaps there's some ipad streaming in my future.

Is this better? I made sure I encompassed the utilities (the electric and gas ones have to be posts), I made the prep sink bigger and put trash next to it and squished the island around so that I could reach mosty-most of it by walking around it. I left the fridge where it is because its more convenient for kitchen use. Since its only me and my 15yo son in the house 95% of the time, there's not much contention for space. Also, the closer it gets to the corner the less of a focal it becomes to the rest of the room and the less likely I'm going to want a $8k fridge!

If I could figure out a good place to put all the junk (and cleaning stuff) that's in the junk closet, I'd put my pantry in there and turn that pantry cabinets/drawers space into a seating area. Because everyone needs a cozy bench in their kitchen. Would that be a weird location for the pantry? (because I just thought of a place to put the 'junk').

This plan creates a strange dead-zone in the room. Or not. It may be nice.

I really love this look. The islands are about 45" apart and the two sinks face each other.

I would prefer that the sinks both face the same way, but the usability of that isn't so good, is it? I googled 'two island kitchens' and I saw them done both ways. Here's a huge one and it doesn't even have a prep sink!

Barton Creek Residence · More Info

This one isn't too terribly far from me, and I didn't even google 'two island kitchens near my house'!

BTW, isn't too terribly far = multiple $100k's south of me.

Of the plans so far, I like the L shaped island with the prep sink. I don't like the one with the 2 separate seating groups at all. The two stools in the inside inside corner look like they'd bang together when people try to get in or out. Personally , I'd avoid a 2 island plan with a 10 foot pole. Unless you like playing ring around the rosie with 2 large islands. I'm not an organized enough cook to get all my stuff out at once and would be doing laps around both islands! And 2 islands gives you twice the horizontal surfaces to try to keep clear.

Normally, I like an island top that's one flat plane, but your L shaped one might be a good candidate for a raised center portion that would shield the sink from the family room. This would make the main work counters easier to reach for regular wipe downs. The center section could be more decorative and wiped less frequently. Just a thought.

I don't think I really expect 4 people to sit at the counter at once. I just wanted to give myself multiple seating options. If I'm having a meal with my son, I can see using the two seats at right angles. If I'm hanging with my sister while prepping, she could sit at one of the closer ones.

First, a question... how are you getting water to the cleanup sink in your last drawing? Are you open to demoing the slab?

In the two-island floorplans that I've seen, one island is basically a replacement for a table; it doesn't have a sink in it. If you love it, you love it. But I do think it's functionally a bad idea. I recommend you read Marcolo's Ice-Water-Stone-Fire post and think about how you would prepare a few meals before you decide on a layout. This line represents IWSF in your recent layout and it looks like a hip bruiser. But again, if you really want it it's your kitchen.

Most of my food goes from the fridge directly to the microwave. Notice that I've made that a very convenient straight shot!

Realistically, with the amount I cook (not a lot), I can probably get away with a single slab sized island (all of these have been larger) with a single sink. My prep space really needs to be suited to screwing things together, fixing chairs, science projects, reading mail, giving cats pills, putting stuff together, opening packages....you get the picture.