Maybe you should move the peninsula to the other side.

I'm not sure about the table. I assume when you're eating on the table, there won't be anyone sitting on the peninsula, so I guess it is doable.

I have 15 deep cabs next to fridge for landing.

You have a LOT of seating here. The dining room looks just as open or more open to the kitchen than the bistro table does, and the island seating would face and be closer to the cook(s) better than the bistro table. I'm not seeing the bistro table's reason for being except to fill space.

What was your reasoning for it?

Mostly, yes. I'm not sure what else to do in that floor space if not a small table. The low windows make adding anything else a challenge. I'm definitely open to suggestions!

I also would plan to get a slightly smaller table than the Ikea one. We also rarely sit in the window seat (the photo is in older threads, but I'm including another photo below).

We do have people over fairly regularly, including several kids. So one thought is that we would have the smaller table and island seating for the kids, while the adults can sit in the dining room.

What about this? I put in 15" deep pantry cabinets, rather than 24", and I put in two armchairs as a stand-in for a small sofa I already have (60" wide).

That looks very inviting! I do think you want to avoid crowding the windows. I would use big cardboard boxes to mock it up - I'm pretty good at visualizing things from a drawing, but nothing beats a full scale model.

Chairs/couch/table - the beauty is that those things can easily be changed to suit your needs, or simply for variety.

Thanks, AnnKH! I need the storage space, and there is enough wall depth there to sort of balance the depth of the units. I'll definitely mock it up, though.

Sena, your post just showed up a bit ago for me. Not sure why!

Is the benefit of moving the refrigerator to get it out of the aisle, in your view? The location you propose is where our refrigerator is now, and I like it. I also like that I could keep my current full-depth refrigerator. Let me mock it up and see. I'm a little concerned with how the peninsula seating would function with the bay window.

Ok, incorporated Sena's suggestion, along with the seating change. I added an additional cabinet in the dining room, because the refrigerator seemed sort of floating. Any criticisms or thoughts?

Looks like your eating table only has 36" on each side or so? Not really enough to walk by of anyone is sitting there? Is that a major pathway? If you decrease the wall cabinets in the dining area to 12 inches that would be much more comfortable, and still very useful.

Here is momof3boyspa dining hutch made from Ikea cabinets that is 12" deep.

Otherwise, I think that this latest round is looking good! I might suggest moving the sink to the peninsula if there is space- that opens a huge swath of counter between the sink and the stove with lots of room for multiple cooks. It follows Marcolo's "Ice, water, rock, fire" rule well. I did this and love it. In this picture, my fridge is on the left wall behind the open basement door that you see. The dishwasher is under the window. My reveal including layout is here if you want the details.

scrappy25-renovation-part-4-final-reveal-white-inset-soapstone

However, when I look at your layout, you'd probably have to extend the peninsula length to fit a sink there (I have the uber useful Stages sink) and if so you'd have to eliminate the cabinets between the fridge and the peninsula. You could still have landing space to the right of the fridge on the cabinet if you used the 12 inch deep cabinets like I posted above.

I havn't read your story but in my home that nook would be a perfect project/homework area so it may be worth putting shallow cabinets on the other side of the peninsula rather than stools, for storage of writing materials and computer stuff. I have a power strip inside one of those peninsula side top drawers which is my "charging station". My boys think it is brilliant and the most useful part of the whole renovation to them.

Thanks, Scrappy! Your kitchen is one I've looked at many times!

The dining room (where the large table is) is a little misleading. It's actually wider than the kitchen area, but it didn't work easily in the Ikea planner. Here's a photo that shows you what I mean (from the real estate listing; not at all our style):

We currently have 24" deep cabinets in here, and that really is too deep.

I really like the idea of putting the sink in the peninsula, but I'm not sure it will work for us. I do need the seating there, and we can't build far into that room due to the bay window. I think if we could do 48" deep cabinets like yours, I would strongly consider putting the sink in the peninsula. Your prep space is huge!

The nook where the peninsula is is sort of out of the way from the entrance. We generally enter through the basement and will set up a mudroom there as our next big project. Then we will probably use one of the shallow cabinets for a charging station/purse/wallet/lunchbox storage space. We have something similar now that works pretty well.

Oh! yes, that looks like plenty of room. Not your style perhaps but still lovely.

My peninsula is 40 inches deep but I understand why it would not work for you if you need seating there.

In general then I like how you incorporated Sena's suggestion.

Scrappy - I thought I would go ahead and mock up a peninsula with a sink, just to exhaust my main options.

Part of me really likes this, but I have a couple of questions/concerns.

1. The overhang is 12" right now (I know that's narrower than usual and will get as much as possible when the design is final). I think that is too little space between the seats and the sink, right? Could I need to do a 2-level peninsula?

2. Because I reduced the size of the clean-up sink to a 30" cabinet, I decided to add a small prep sink, probably 18". Is this too close to the clean-up sink to be useful?

3. I envision cabinet #3, the 36" drawer stack to the right of the prep sink, as my dishes storage. Is this an awkward location given the dishwasher location? I might need to put the dishes in an upper again, which would be ok.

4. Finally, I'm not sure I have enough drawers in the kitchen proper in this configuration, especially if I put the plates/cups/bowls in a drawer.

I also realized I got rid of the microwave cabinet in this one, but I think I can find a solution to that.

Ok, I've been working on this. I've decided I would really miss the oven stack and would rather sacrifice the counter space, so I have 2 options.

Option 1 would place the dishwasher at the end of the peninsula, perpendicular to the sink wall:

Option 2 generally keeps everything in the same spot but has far less counter space (second photo shows the peninsula cabinets). There's less than I have now (basically, an 18" cabinet top and a blind corner cabinet; I currently have about 18" more than that):

I don't think you need 2 sinks in your space.

What if you put your sink in the peninsula , the dishwasher in cabinet 2, and decrease your cabinet 3 to 24 inches. That would decrease the space between the arms of the U to 6 feet and give you another foot of space on the back side of the peninsula for your counter, plenty for facing a sink while sitting.

if you really want your sink in cabinet 2, I would leave the dishwasher in cabinet 3 and have a 12 inch pullout cabinet between the dishwasher and the peninsula so that you can sort of stand in that 12 inch space to put your dishes away

You could add some uppers along the back wall for dishes as I did . I am concerned that you will not have enough dish storage close to your dishwasher . HTH

There aren't 2 sinks. Sorry if the drawings were confusing. I tried a different way of creating the images.

My intent was to do open shelving next to the peninsula, but wall cabinets are a better solution if I move the sink and dishwasher.

Maybe my main question is, if I do keep the sink and dishwasher on the window wall, will I regret the amount of prep space there? With the peninsula, someone else could easily be working in that space, and we would both have easy access to the centrally located sink.

Oh, I recall where you saw 2 sinks! Sorry, that was a plan I rejected in lieu of one of these. :)

Ice-water-stone-fire would suggest that the sink goes in the peninsula but I can see strong advantages of having sink and dishwasher on the window wall also. You could have a great buffet layout on that peninsula.

The most used prep space will be that between the sink and the cooktop so keep that in mind. I do not consider the counter over the dishwasher as lost prep space since I find that prepping and cleaning does not occur simultaneously. Some people load the dishwasher as they prep and having the dishwasher in the prep space might not work for them. Is there any way of having the blind corner cabinet become a 36" super susan cabinet? Then you could put your dishwasher to the left of the sink on the window wall and increase your prep space between the sink and the cooktop.

With respect to the double oven stack, you have now decreased the open view of the kitchen from the eating area with the fridge on one side and the oven stack on the other. If you look at the thread about what people love about their kitchens the most common thing is openness and light. You could put a range in the cooktop area (or cooktop with under counter oven) and a 24" speed oven (Miele?) under counter where your oven stack is in this last picture. Make up for lost cabinet space by adding some uppers along the sink wall. Use glass or mirror in those uppers to keep the open feel.

Also that diagonal upper end is awkward- either add an upper cabinet along the sink wall or if you are not going to add cabinets, terminate that in a straight run.

Scrappy, I really appreciate you helping me with this and talking through ideas with me! I'm going to incorporate a 36" super susan and post it shortly, but I wanted to answer some of your questions.

As drawn, the double oven stack is even with the existing wall with the basement door, pictured above. I definitely appreciate what you're saying. I am sort of torn on this; I don't love any of the induction ranges, except the Miele (at $7k!), and I have a 1-year-old Bosch induction cooktop already (I also have a Miele 24" combi steam oven). On the other hand, I will have to replace my existing wall oven, so a mid-range induction range, like the Bosch Benchmark, would not be SO much more that it wouldn't make sense. My husband, though, is very attached to having the oven stack, and he's doing more of the weeknight cooking, so I'm inclined to give in on this. Is that suitably wishy-washy? :)

The diagonal upper idea is to add floating shelves next to it, like so:

Rustic Modern Kitchen · More Info

The shelves need an anchor, so I have to turn the corner. I like the idea of shelves, because I'd like a backsplash "border" on that side, if that makes sense. I tried voiding out that corner but ended up with a 12" wall cabinet on either side, which is basically useless. I would rather not extend wall cabinets across the window wall, but, as we discussed, it may be necessary if I don't have enough dish storage near the dishwasher.

I'm happy to give input but it's always better if others do also for different points of view. I hope others will chime in also.

Your link to the basement door does not go anywhere so i am not sure what you mean by "double oven stack is even with the existing wall with the basement door". Does that mean the plane of the basement door is in the same plane as the wall behind the oven or even with the oven face? If in plane with the wall, then the oven stack is definitely cutting into your view when in combination with the tall fridge on the other side.

If you already have a cooktop (36"?) and a combi steam oven, you could just add a single wall oven to go under your cooktop, no need to go to a range. You can always place a Breville smart oven on the counter alongside your eating area for a backup second oven if needed. Or get a combination microwave convection oven to place over the under counter combi-steam. Where are you putting the microwave? Here is my combi steam/microwave area with toaster oven. I have a hidden pullout shelf under the counter for landing space from the fridge and the microwave. Note that the microwave cabinet is deeper (19") to accommodate the freestanding MW. There are also under cabinet MW's designed to go under 12" deep wall cabinets. All that said, the person that cooks does reign in my book but perhaps hubby has not thought about the alternatives for the second oven. PS you can see that I have a wall oven under the induction cooktop.

Thanks for clarifying about the open shelves. That makes more sense. If you do go for the standard cabinet instead just use the last cabinet on the straight run as a blind end (36 inch from hood to end?) and add a perpendicular cabinet, looks like you could get in one between 20-30 inches there to the window which would be a very useful cabinet. Here is my kitchen diagram that uses a blind upper corner cabinet (upper right corner as you are looking at the diagram). The blind corner is where I put the bulky transformer for the under counter lights and other rarely accessed items. Better to have access to the space than void it. You can always choose not to use it.

Ok, new options using Scrappy's idea (aka, put the dishwasher in the prep zone!). Note that I did NOT put in wall cabinets (just realized that, actually). Assume that each would have wall cabinets on the range wall, at least, and likely turn the corner as above for shelving on the sink wall.

1: Oven stack, corner super susan (note I only had room for a 9" cabinet on the sink wall; I would make that a cutting board storage space).

I actually probably like the flow of option 2 better. I would be ok with the dishwasher in the prep space; as it is, I don't typically keep the dishwasher open, even when I clean as I go.

Scrappy, here's the basement door:

Also, my induction cooktop is a 30" Bosch 800 series, and my understanding is that I cannot fit a wall oven underneath. I could fit the combi-steam there, though, which is an idea.

I plan to do a very small microwave in an upper cabinet. We very rarely use it.

only a moment so can't read everything but few thoughts-

I have a Bosch 800 induction 36" (replaced the Gagg in the picture above) and it was one of the few that worked with the clearance to my wall oven. Are you sure you can't have a wall oven underneath? Have you checked your specs?

Move the narrow 9" cabinet from the left of the dishwasher to the right of the sink to get the sink out of the corner- otherwise you could never have two people using the sink at the same time. Decrease your sink cabinet width to 30 inches if that is what you need for the sink. Your U is a bit on the large side and you could use a bit more depth than 12 inches on the countertop seating, just a few inches.

I still don't understand the basement door but it if is the cause of the visual block rather than the wall ovens then that is a non-issue.

Thanks! The 36" cooktops ARE approved to be installed over a wall oven, but the 30" are NOT. It's really disappointing!

I'll move the 9". I have a 33" sink in mind, so a 30" cabinet won't work. I don't disagree about the depth, but I'm going to figure out what i can do about that.

I'll continue to tweak this and see if anyone else has ideas! I do think you've given me a ton of great food for thought and advice!

Al- does anyone use the front door or is the basement door your primary entrance?

We definitely use the basement door most. We are in the planning stages of putting a mudroom in the basement, because it makes the most sense there.

May I change my mind about the location of the peninsula :))

I feel like this approach to the kitchen is a lot of compromise and perhaps short-sighted considering all the future changes you're planning to the whole house.

I know you nixed the idea of moving the kitchen to the back of the house, but what about the front room? I think it might be worth exploring moving the kitchen to the formal living room. If it's greater than around 12'8" from dining room wall to front windows we can probably get you an L shaped kitchen with island that's open to the corner room and a doorway toward the family room...

I made a lot of assumptions about dimensions and how you might use the other spaces, but my point is just to ask about the kitchen in the formal living...

Good question. I've been following this thread with no ideas to offer and was wondering about moving the kitchen to the dining room or some other area.

Thanks, guys! I won't say that the move to the back of the house is 100% off the table, but it's highly unlikely. In addition to the cost of moving plumbing, we'd also have to address insulation issues, as it's an elevated room. I know I could make a really great kitchen that would improve a lot of things in the house, but I just consider it a long shot at this point, when I'm weighing it with other things I want to do.

I don't really care for the front room kitchen. Even thinking out of the box, I can't see it.

I'm happy to throw a kitchen in your front room using the Ikea planner if you're interested in seeing a 3d representation. Just post the dimensions. I understand if it's an absolute no, though.

Thanks! I think all ideas are worth looking at, but it's hard for me to picture this one! The depth is 138", and width is 216". The front windows are mostly floor to ceiling, so nothing can go on that wall.

I will say that in some ways I like having the kitchen in the center of the house. I recently saw a house listing that had a similar layout to ours but had eliminated the main load-bearing wall between our front room and kitchen/dining. But the separation works well for us, as we have a nice TV space (sunroom) and a nice record listening space (front room). And I'm not sure how financially or structurally feasible that is.

So here's my attempt at placing the kitchen in the former formal living room. The room is not deep enough for island seating, but I think you can fit about a 28" x 76" set of base cabinets in the center for work space, storage and landing space for your double ovens.

At the sink wall, you could frame in an 8 foot wide pass through with counter height seating. This would allow light to come into the fireplace room (dining room?) from those front windows and you can see the fireplace and family room while you work around the sink area.

View from dining entry:

View from "front door" entry:

View from fireplace area through pass-through to front windows (base cabinets will be behind wall. pass though is basically just a window with an overhang.)

View from exterior wall, through pass through into dining room:

Thanks! That is interesting. I like the pass-through idea quite a bit! It deals with the load-bearing wall in a way that is a lot more cost-effective.

I think some of my drawings may not have been clear, though. The front door is on the same plane as the windows.

Here is the view if you are standing at the front door. To the right is the area you are proposing as the new kitchen; the doorway straight ahead goes to the hall. To the right is the dining room, and the bedrooms are to the left.

The front door can't be moved, because the wall on the left is the master BR wall. I'm not sure I would want any kitchen cabinets at all on that wall, either, due to the traffic flow.

I assumed you had a foyer and had given the dimensions of just the living room, not including an entryway.

Yes, no foyer. :(

The pass-through has given me an idea, though. Let me mock it up.

Sena,

Thanks! For some reason, your responses come through late? It's weird.

I was sort of thinking of using the pass through BUT putting the kitchen on the other side. Something along these lines, but it isn't really doing it for me.... Old kitchen could be pantry/laundry, closed off by pocket doors?

Also, benjesbride, I realized that one of our neighbors, whose house is somewhat similar in layout to ours, has their kitchen in the front room! It's kind of odd, seeing it from the street, but it makes me a little more receptive to the idea. I know their front door opens straight in, like ours does.

And, not to serial post, but I did a variation on Sena's edit, and I kind of like it. (You'll note that I decreased the size of the dining room; the measurements I was using initially were for the living room, which is about 3' wider than the dining room. Again, the dining room won't be as tight as it appears from this.)

Have you considered removing the fireplace? Once we decided to remove our fireplace a whole new world of floor plan possibilities opened up to us and it would be the same for you as well. We removed our fireplace ourselves over two days starting at the top, down through the first floor and out of the basement. If two unskilled laborers can remove a huge pink fireplace with an impact chisel, buckets, a wheelbarrow and a rented dumpster I can't imagine it would be cost prohibitive.

You could put an island right about where the hearth is. If the fireplace is structural, maybe you could just put posts in the island.

The Ikea Planner isn't working well, so the drawing isn't as nice as I'd like.

Thanks, but the fireplace is definitely staying. We have 2 fireplaces, one on the main floor and one in the basement, and they're expected in these houses, if we ever sell.

If you haven't totally lost patience with me yet, I did some doodling around this weekend and came up with this, which I'm calling "anchored island." (Ha!)

Strengths of this one:

1. Ample counter space, including 2 prep areas. I don't think the second sink is necessary, but I put it in there as an idea. I don't use the sink a huge amount when prepping, typically.

2. Bar seating that is attached to the dining room.

3. Space for 2 cooks.

4. Adequate (48" plus) aisles.

5. Keeps wall ovens (not required, but preferred).

Weaknesses:

1. Refrigerator position, particularly in relation to the bay window and the dishwasher. That's potentially a bit of a traffic jam. I put in a counter-depth fridge, but I would be willing to consider a built-in if that would make a workable plan.

2. Still a relatively small prep area between the main sink and the stove. I do think the proximity of the "island" to the refrigerator and cooktop helps alleviate that. Cooking prep could be done on the main cabinet wall, while secondary prep (salads, etc.) could be done on the "island."