Set up your coffee/tea paraphernalia on your counter and figure out how much space you need in front of it to make a pot or cup. Ditto for space on the sides. I have a 118" wide buffet with open upper shelves and a 17.5" deep counter. I have used it to serve coffee and dessert to a crowd. I don't think I'd go any shallower for a coffee pot--the base for my coffee pot is 11" front to back, not counting the pot handle.

ETA, forgot to mention that my shelves are 10" deep--for over the center area for coffee service on 18" counter, I wouldn't make them any deeper. I'd probably make the side cabinets 15" deep, so that the center counter extended only 3", and I'd clip the corners of the counter, which is what I have.

I'd probably opt for 9' wide, but that will depend on how wide you need the center, and how many small appliances you want to keep there. I would put the charging station inside a pantry, maybe on a pullout shelf. My remote phone and charger are in an upper cabinet. Of course I have to remind everyone who asks to use the phone where it is. Lol, I have an old non-working rotary wall phone that belonged to my uncle--many times my own brother has tried to use that phone. :P

We have two pantries, one for food and one for storage (batteries, light bulbs, paper towels, small kitchen appliances) and charging. They are are 44" inch wide and 16" deep. Our kitchen is narrow and long, so we kept innings as shallow as possible. I love the shallow cabinets, I wouldn't want anything deeper, things have a tendency to get lost in our house. Our sink area is 66" wide, and goes from 17" deep to 20" deep. This is pretty shallow for a sink, but with the bar sink and wall-mounted faucet I wanted it works great.

(Photo is bad panorama on iPad, excuse quality and warping issues.)

@mama goose -- thank you!! There will be a prep sink on the island. I thought 4' would be wide enough, but I just measured our existing counter that has almost all of the paraphernalia, and 4' is juuuust enough. Given that there might only be an inch or two in front of the machines, I think I'd like that extra foot of width. What do you mean by clip the corners of the counter? If I made the center counter 18", the cabinets would be... 17ish? Is that big enough for drawers?

@my_four_sons -- how wide is your island? It looks like it's 24"? Your setup looks really nice! I wonder if I should have just a smaller section bump out like yours, rather than the whole counter area, and put the deeper machines there.

Clipped corner means cut on a diagonal, so that it's not a sharp 90°.

I think you can have drawers with 17-18" base--it looks like my-four-sons' are 17" deep.

Mama goose- what exactly is a tray drain? Would this set up work for filtered drinking water without the need to add a new drain?

It's a shallow tray with a drain and usually a grid, just for draining liquids. Also called a drip tray, or beer drip tray.

Images of tray drains

This one has its own backsplash--you'd need to cut a hole for the water tap, or mount it above.

Thank you for the explanation! It's very cool and putting in a faucet would be no problem, but the drain would. We are on slab and dh does not want the floors torn up to put a drain in on the opposite side of the kitchen from the sink.

I met with another KD today that suggested 18" tall cabinets and 15" middle section. Her drawing/illustration was realistic, so it was easy to visualize. I did like the look, and the tall cabinets are going to be much more useful to us than the center section in terms of what we plan to store in those cabinets.

She also suggested a narrower island than we had thought to do. We were going to do 24+12, but she said the 12" side really won't hold as much as I think. I might be better off having more storage on that pantry wall, with deeper cabinets there. She really wanted to keep the aisles at 42-44" minimum.

She did suggest a ~4" overhang on the island for a larger work area. Is this an unusual thing to do if you're not going to have seating?

I would include the 4" over hang, if, as you said, there is a sink on the island. Seems that would prevent a lot of drips and splashes.