My best advice is not to start thinking of features (island, range, flip-up TV for examples), as a first step. Start with thinking about a functional layout for your kitchen. What activity where, how would you move around the kitch doing the cooking? How does the food travel around your kitchen from storage to prep to plating, etc.? The first step is to make a correctly measured floor plan of the space, showing unmoveable objects (windows doors, etc.), possibly moveable thing (water, gas, power, outlets) and then sketch on your initial layout ideas to see if they fit. Probably, not, but don't fret, that's how every well-planned kitchen starts. You'll probably make dozens, if not hundreds of sketches as you refine your plan. With a floor plan on graph paper you'll quickly see where you need to make changes, or where you have to move things to get the best functional flow. No special drawing skills are needed: graph paper, pencil and eraser for laying out the initial lines, straight edge plastic ruler if you need one, dark fine marker (Fine Sharpie works great) for going over the lines to make them easier to see once you sketched them in. Photograph the drawing with your phone or camera, put it on Photobucket, post it here and you're in business.Once you have a functional layout down, you're well on your way to being able to get a fabuous design. n, then populate with the style features that you like. It's easier (and often, faster) to do it that way. Once you have a floor plan, you'll get tons of advice here, if you ask. You can go through as many iterations as you like to fine tune it. Then you can go to your KD and get her input on styling, etc., knowing that the basic layout is this best it can be. HTH, L.

I'm concerned that you are going to find that your deep drawers under the baking center aren't big enough for what you want to put in them. With our 36" high counters and frameless cabinets, we have a bit over 28" of interior height in the boxes - the rest of the 36" is toe kick, cabinet box top and bottom and counter thickness. With 30", you will have about 22" to play - or less if you have framed. Your picture shows 3 equal size drawers - that means 7 or maybe 7.5" drawer face height. It varies a bit depending on the exact drawer construction, but interior drawer height will be about an inch less than that making your deep drawers about 6" deep. We have an 18" wide drawer stack for baking supplies. Our flour and sugar drawer interior is 10" high and 15" wide (those pesky cabinet box and drawer sides take up the rest). We decided on that height after measuring convenient flour storage containers. At that size it can hold a container with the sugars and 2 5-lb flour containers and a few smaller bags and boxes or 1 5-lb flour container and more smaller bags and boxes. We have ended up doing the latter. Our bread flour (because challah gets made every week) is stored there along with corn meal, cocoa, flax seed and some specialty flours. All purpose and whole wheat have to be fetched from the pantry. I wouldn't want to go any smaller than that. BTW, that is in our bottom drawer - since the containers are mostly tall, it requires less bending to get them than having small stuff where you need to reach to the bottom of the drawer. A slightly shallower drawer (7" drawer front) holds other baking supplies like baking powder, baking soda, etc. A much shallower drawer can hold a lot of the utensils. Our main pot and pan drawers are about as deep as our flour drawer. One 36" x 11" (drawer front dimensions - interior about 33" by 10") drawer holds a pretty complete set of everyday pots and pans (we have one for milk and one for meat plus a couple of smaller drawers for parve). Therefore, rather than having three drawers about the same height, I'd suggest a deep bottom drawer (10" interior depth at least), a medium size (~6" interior) middle drawer and a shallow top drawer. That's if you are going frameless and your cabinet construction is similar to ours. For framed, it might be best to go with just 2 drawers per stack. One use for the 9" cabinet by the range would be storing flat pan items such as cookie sheets, baking sheets and cooling racks. If they are half sheet size laying on their sides, that would take up the bottom 13" of the cabinet. We have ours in a 12" wide cabinet and 6 of each plus a couple of muffin tins take up the bottom. We have a pull out for other cake pans above. It might be tight to do 2 levels of 13" high flat pan storage. If you had a fixed shelf in just the right spot, you could do it. Our cooling racks and muffin tins are less then 13". You might do the bigger sheet pans on the bottom and smaller ones like muffin tins above. Cutting board storage is another possible use. Our food processor accessories are in a custom insert that my husband made for a pull out in another 12" cabinet. I don't think they would fit in a pullout in a 9" cabinet, but maybe if yours is smaller they might. 16" is very deep for a bookshelf. Is the cabinet to the right of the range all bookshelf? We have 12" to the left of our rangetop. It isn't ideal, but it works for us. What is the rationale for wanting at least 16" to the side of the range "for safety" when 4" at the back of the range is okay with you? We have an island rangetop and really like having the rangetop and prep sink on our island. But I'd rather have a foot of counter behind the range. If you had the space, you could do 12" deep cabinets on the back of the range. Rather than looking for cabinet companies with nifty inserts, I'd look for how they use the space in the cabinet - how much interior space do you get for a particular size cabinet or drawer. I think that the microwave will be really difficult to use where you show it. It will have to be accessed from the side making the panel difficult to read. Perhaps you are taller than me, but you mentioned kiddie cups so I assume that you have kids. That height and sideways access will make it difficult for your kids to use when they are old enough. I'd put it under the cabinet to the right of the fridge in the snack area. You might at least have an outlet there for it in case you find the other location inconvenient. The open shelves to the left of the sink would bother me. They will interfere with use of the counter to the left of the sink and you have minimal counter to the right of the sink. I'd suggest getting rid of them or doing only one shelf for more clearance between the counter and the shelf.

Did you plan storage before or after finalizing the cabinet order? Believe it or not, most of my storage plans were made after my cabinet order was finalized. I did plan for the tray storage, extra shelves so I didn't have to stack different items together, spice pullouts flanking the cooktop (long story about that), trash pullout, Pet Center, and pots & pans. Most other items, fortunately, fit where they were needed/used so I could easily place them. Having almost all drawers helped immensely! Most of the other planning that you see in the Storage FAQ I did after the cabinet order was placed. My storage plans were incredibly useful when I was planning where to put everything while I was waiting for the cabinets to arrive. Note that everything didn't go as planned...I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease around that time and ended up having to make space for extra sets of some items like pots & pans, measuring cups/spoons, knives, prep tools, mixing bowl, etc. (Yes, that is necessary for many, if not most of us, with Celiac Disease...so please don't pop in here and say it isn't necessary --- I discovered it really is necessary!) . What sort of criteria did you use for what made the cut to get in the "good" cabinets? Primary criterion: How often was an item used. If it was used fairly often, it went in a "good" cabinet (i.e., at point of use and in a useful cabinet). . What did you do that you are thrilled with? Drawers, drawers, drawers! Trash pullout - 2 bins. It's so easy now to toss things into the trash and recycle bins b/c they're both right there! No more running out to the garage with recyclables! -- The dogs no longer get into the trash (They learned how to open the previous stand-alone trash cans -- including the one that required you to step on a pedal to open!) -- Bins are a perfect size -- big enough not to have to take the trash out all the time but small enough that trash doesn't stay inside long enough to start smelling. The bins take 13-gallon "tall kitchen" bags. -- No more "basketball throws" when throwing things out (my DH is big into that sort of thing and, of course, passed it on to both kids!) Tray storage, including a shelf for long platter storage Extra shelves for each upper cabinet Knife in-drawer tray (https://www.amazon.com/Wusthof-Drawer-7-Slot-Knife-Storage/dp/B000066SYQ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8) Mine has two rows of slots -- one for short knives and one for long knives. I got rid of all those various knives you get in sets that you never use and now just have the ones I really need and use all the time: 20cm chef's knife, 9cm paring knife, bread knife, & "tomato" knife. 3 drawers under the cooktop -- two deep for pots & pans (gluten cooking) and a shallower top drawer for knives, prep & cooking utensils, etc. It's nice having utensils right where I need them. Utensil organizers everywhere! Sliverware, prep/cooking utensils, junk drawer, miscellaneous tools, electronics, etc. I think every top drawer in my Kitchen has at least one organizer in it, except the pot holder drawer. Pet Center cabinet for dog food, treats, meds, leashes, collars, etc., as well as flashlights & batteries in the top shelf. It's a corner cabinet turned 90-degrees to face outside the Kitchen. It also happens to be very close to where we feed the dogs. -- AnnKH...I'm not opposed to voiding a corner, but only if there's plenty of storage elsewhere and you gain overall functionality. . What do you wish you'd thought of earlier that you didn't realize until you'd used the new kitchen for a while? Location of my trash pullout. I wish I had put it in the Prep Zone, not in the Cleanup Zone -- this is my biggest regret in my Kitchen. 6" filler pullouts flanking my cooktop. Originally, they were supposed to be 9" cabinets for cutting boards, pizza stones, and other heavy items I did not want to store above the counter. However, with the measurement debacle, I lost about a foot of space on my Prep Zone/Cooking Zone wall. It cost me 6" of aisle width b/w my peninsula seating and DR table and 6" of cabinet space -- 3" of which were taken from each 9" cabinet. My KD wanted to just make them filler, but I resisted (I had also lost space in my Pantry & on my Cleanup Zone wall, lost my Message Center, and had to close up my FR entrance by 2' to fix issues caused by the many, many measuring mistakes by my KD. Oh, and I lost almost 10" b/w the end of my peninsula and refrigerator.) The 6" filler pullouts were my way of reducing my loss of so much cabinet space. They're OK for the items I put on the top shelves, but I'm not a fan of having to lean down to access the bottom shelves. Also, since the shelves are not adjustable, I was unable to fit oils in them. [BTW...I insisted my KD's company pay for them and pay for the Message Center niche in one of my Pantry walls to make up for all the planned and mutually-approved functionality I lost due to my KD's mistakes.] Would I do them again? Probably not unless I was going to be stuck with filler. If I could do it over, I would combine the two 6" filler pullouts, take 6" off my 30"W MW drawer cabinet, and put in an 18" trash pullout next to my prep sink. Oh well -- live and learn! . What else do you advise for someone who hasn't done it yet? Everything in the Storage FAQ! :-) If you're really unsure, order all drawers as it's amazing what you can do with drawers! Storage FAQ: How do I plan for storage? Types of Storage? What to Store Where? ++++ Editorial edits...I really miss the "Preview" functionality we had before Houzz took over!

I think that your pantry looks just fine. It is a working space in your house, not a photo shoot. It looks pretty well organized. I suggest that when your friends and family come over you realize that you are probably already the envy of many by virtue of just having a pantry like that.. Having things organized where it is easy to use them is what is important. You might consider some different storage for what appears to be your cooking spices and small baking supplies. Firstly, you might consider editing those spice jars for the ones that you really do use and get rid of the seldom used ones or ones that are too old. While I would not advise containers for all of the categories of things in there, those small items that belong to set of uses makes sense to be easy to reach for and they might do better in some type of pull out container. Put them low enough that you can pull the container forward and look down into it for what you need. You don't want to be in a situation where you have to actually take the container down to access it. That is too awkward. That is too much like something stored in a shoe box on the top shelf of the closet. Or, at least put the turntable down at eye level and store the small jars on that. With your turntable on a high shelf, any jar of dried spices that is used so infrequently that is stored in such a hard to get to place is probably not one that gets used often and is likely to be a good candidate to eliminate. Most of them don't really hold value for too very long and how often are you going to use "Moroccan Spice" or "Cajun Pork Rub", really? Most times those esoteric things like that are likely to lose both their color and their essence in short time. Dried herbs like sage and rosemary do not keep well, for instance. I agree that wire shelves are problematic, but not too bad. I would not go to all the trouble to change them out. And, I would not advise that containers are the answer, either. If you put things in a container, you have to slide or lift the whole container from the shelf and balance it or set it down somewhere while you retrieve what ever you want and then replace the container. If you store a great variety of packages, bags, and boxes there are going to be so many awkward shapes and sizes that there is unlikely to be enough conformity to fit many of them in containers and you are still most likely to have an assortment of varied things mingling around on the shelves. While it sounds like a solution to use containers, the reality is that it may offer only a limited convenience. Doing anything to your pantry looks to be optional. It looks pretty functional with the exception of those cooking essentials that it seems could be better stored and made more easily assessable. Your pantry looks like the working supplies cabinet of someone who really does cook. I would have it in a heartbeat, wire shelves and all.