I think your whole layout can be better. Your fridge is too far from the sink and crosses your cooking zone. Your stove is too close to your sink because most prep is done between sink and cooktop. Corner sinks waste lots of usable counter space. You have a nice run of counter space to the left of the sink but that will never be used. (see above comments)

Can you post your room dimension on a grid showing windows, doors etc? Also can plumbing be moved?

Here are some great threads I highly recommend reading first.

Personally, I love the more simple look of less uppers especially if the kitchen is open to the rest of the house and takes advantage of your view. Given you have a nice pantry, you could certainly get away with less storage. I would do it...and I did in our vacation home!

cpartist Thanks so much. This is a new build for spring so we do have time to reconsider where everything goes. Our plans aren't even quite finalized yet. Does this help?

cpartist we had heard some good and bad about the corner sink too. I thought I definitely would never consider it if it was in a corner without windows. I'm very open to advice and appreciate your thought!

Agree with cpartist's list of what could be improved (starting with the corner sink).

Also noticed that the base cabinets are all drawn with doors not drawers. I think you will be happiest with mostly drawers but they do cost a little more than doors. Are the doors at your request or did the designer do it to come in at a low cost?

Thanks for the plans. Can you explain the loft and the "extent of FL above" comment by the kitchen island? How high will the kitchen ceiling be and will it be uniformly flat?

Thanks Stan Z. the "extent of floor above" just indicated our (half) upper floor. The ceiling will be flat in the kitchen. 9ft ceilings. We didn't discuss drawers instead of doors but I totally agree with you. This was just the starting point of our design what the designer threw out right off the bat. Does everyone think it could be improved with moving the sink and centring it on the back exterior wall, then figuring out corner options from there?

I'm guessing this was done by the architect or the cabinet guy not a kitchen designer? WIth the holiday it might take a little longer than normal but several of the folks who are really good at kitchen design will be along and give you a practical and attractive design. Let's just say I think there will be quite a few recommended changes. This is a large kitchen. Do you usually have multiple cooks in your kitchen? Do you have kids or grandkids in the kitchen? Is it a working farmhouse (e.g. you'll be canning fruits and vegetables)?

Stan Z - I'm so thankful for your help. The initial layout was done by the draftsperson who did our house just as a suggestion, then our "design consultant" at the cabinet place did the 3D drawing. So a little of both. I have 2 young kids. I hope to have more time for canning and stuff like that in the future. There is an orchard on the property. My husband likes to help sometimes but it's mostly myself in the kitchen. I will eagerly await any further advice. I see the island as a place we will congregate and probably eat quite a bit. I'm thinking moving the sink to the exterior wall and leaving that wall mostly windows, then having a couple of uppers on either side of the stove.. THANK YOU!

You do have the dinette close by. Is there also a formal dining room? If you can post the whole plan that will help folks understand how the kitchen relates to the rest of the house.

Yes we do have a dinette, no formal dining room it's all open concept. Here is the main floor plan. That door beside the kitchen walks out to covered deck.

Maybe this screen shot is better. The only thing cut off is the garage.

"I have 2 young kids...but it's mostly myself in the kitchen..."

That's now, not the near future. In the near future you will have three of you trying to work in the Kitchen - assuming you plan to teach them two crucial life skills: How to Cook and How to Cleanup! [This applies to both girls and boys!]

Plan for a Kitchen that can accommodate more than one person working in it at the same time - and that means 48" aisles all around the island - especially b/w the island and refrigerator wall (and refrigerator) since this is going to be a very busy aisle!

These links may help, they're the Kitchen Forum's FAQs and Kitchen Design threads:

Kitchen Design Best Practices/Guidelines threads - These threads explain best practices/good design guidelines for items such as work zones, aisles, island/peninsula seating, etc. These threads will help you understand questions/comments you will receive.

Layout Help - FAQ for asking for layout help. It has a sample measured layout as well as a description of the other information we need.

.

Layout Help:

How do I ask for Layout Help and what information should I include?

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2767033/how-do-i-ask-for-layout-help-and-what-information-should-i-include

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Kitchen Design Best Practices/Guidelines threads:

Kitchen work zones, what are they?

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3638270/faq-kitchen-work-zones-what-are-they

Aisle widths, walkways, seating overhangs, work and landing space, and others

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3638304/faq-aisle-widths-walkways-seating-overhangs-work-landing-space-etc

How do I plan for storage? Types of Storage? What to Store Where?

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3638376/faq-how-do-i-plan-for-storage

Ice. Water. Stone. Fire (Looking for layout help? Memorize this first)

• http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2699918/looking-for-layout-help-memorize-this-first

buehl Again, thanks so much. Looks like I have some reading to do. After skimming over 'what to include when I ask for help' - do you think it would be good for me to delete my questions and start over with all pertinent information about the space and what we strive for, use it for, etc? Or should I just keep going here. I don't want to bog things down by posting again... but it's maybe easier to answer if all info is in one place.

buehl PS. 100% agree. I have a 4 yr old boy who already helps a ton and 18 month girl and plan to teach them both to cook and clean! Very important.

My mom had a corner sink with windows.....same setup as yours....was fine for a single person, and overall she liked it, but terrible when we gathered as a family and there was more than one.

One thing this time of year reminds us of is where you store your seasonal items. We did a cookie decorating thing yesterday with the two grandkids, ages 4 and 8 and used many seasonal things: cookie cutters, cookie tins, and frosting bags and tips. I keep all those things on the top shelves of the uppers. I have the mixer, rolling pin, and pie plates in a dedicated lower cabinet (I got a mixer lift and there's room underneath for pie stuff. It's the cabinet on the visible end of the island.) Where will you put those things, as well as the turkey roaster and platter? And then there are large containers for summer lemonade and iced tea. If you don't own those things yet, chances are you will eventually. Something to think about.

My kitchen is similar to your proposed kitchen, minus the things to the right of the refrigerator. This is the best view of the whole even though this was before we finished. The island ended up being just under 4 x 5'.

The important layout points here are

*the working space between the sink and stove, absolutely necessary for real life everyday cooking

*the landing space to the right of the stove, also used for groceries headed to the refrigerator and dishes headed to/from the dining room

*the open, unimpeded walkway between the fridge and the sink

*adequate space between the island and the fridge wall which is also the pass through to the dining room (I don't love the location of the fridge, but that's how it was built with no other good options.)

Thinking of how this works out for multiple people, let's look at yesterday. We had one child decorating on each of the long sides of the island, away from the stove and three helping adults. There was room for adults to stand and walk behind the children on their step stools and to use the oven. There was room to open and use the fridge, although we didn't, and there was space to use the sink - which we did! (Yes, we have little sprinkle balls rolling all over the house. It's as bad as Easter basket grass!) A large counter like this also tends to be used for many art/school/scout projects. It's great for painting on big pieces of paper for this same little girl.

Also, consider making any uppers you do install go all the way to the ceiling. Shorter cabinets are dust collectors which you always feel guilty about for not dusting often enough, and they encourage stuffing odds and ends up there "just until I put them somewhere else." Right.

If this is a new build and you prefer a sink by the window can you move/add/expand the window? Although I think prepping in front of a window is perhaps even nicer...

suzanne_sl thank you for your thoughtful post. It's great to see a similar layout and all of the considerations you made to make it that way. I think we might have the same issue with the fridge, no other reasonable place to put it.

lharpie Yes we can move/ add anything at this point. After being really discouraged from the corner sink (and I think I now agree) I just have to figure out how the corner will work. I think I'd like to make most of that wall windows and move the sink to the middle of it.

It looks like you're going to have a beautiful home and a nice large kitchen.

My refrigerator is on the opposite side of my island from the sink, and I will say it's not the best scenario walking around the island to get to it. But like you, I didn't have anywhere else to put it. I prep strictly between my sink and stove, so I usually get everything out at once when I begin to prep so I'm not making frequent trips to the frig. It works OK.

I think putting the sink on the outside back wall will work better with the dishwasher to the left of it, so you'll have uninterrupted space between sink and stove. Give yourself a minimum of 48" from the sink to the corner of a lazy Susan, or whatever you choose for that corner. I chose to have a dead corner so that I could have more drawer space on each side, but you have more room than I do.

It would be nice to have a microwave station over on the frig. wall so users aren't coming thru the work zone.

Regarding your walk-in pantry, I would ask for a pocket door instead of a hinged door. Then you can use the pantry wall on the left for tiny storage bins, hooks, etc., instead of an unusable wall that the doors opens into.

Dana, is this a completely custom house or from a builder's choices?

Think about what you normally might put into the upper cabinets. Plates and bowls can go into a wide, deep drawers with peg inserts. Spices can go in a spice drawer. A lot of the stuff on the upper shelves is often items you don't use often since you need a stool to reach up there so that can go in a corner of a pantry or drawer. That leaves glasses (everyday use, special occasion glasses if you have those, wine/beer glasses, crystal). That's what you want to figure out before taking all the uppers near the cleanup sink/dishwasher away.

cpartist it is a completely custom home.

designsaavy really great suggestions, thanks. Especially pocket doors on pantry. Otherwise the door would really take up lots of room in there.

Stan Z Also, thanks. We figure we'll be ok with using drawers for every day things right around the dishwasher. For occasional glasses we will have the set of glass uppers on the other side, so I figure that's a good compromise.

I did away with all uppers except one on each side of the sink window and one on each side of the stove with a microwave bridge between . They are glass front . I have all lower drawers except one cabinet near the stove for tall pans , baking sheets and platters . I have 2 pantries on each end of the kitchen one near the living areas for snacks and frequently used items the bigger one for food and miscellaneous storage . If at some point I decide I want or need shelves they can be added . I have a large shelving unit on one of the far walls that I put my biggest pots and my colorful enamel cast iron cookware . I don't miss the uppers at all . I have the ones that go to the ceiling with crown mold . I definitely would not have a corner sink . I had my island built for me and my needs . It's a heavy duty steel frame with large industrial casters so I can move it anywhere I need it . It has the same quartzite slab top as the countertops . Your house being a working farm house you might want to consider something similar . Also instead of pocket doors barn doors can be an option . And be sure to have ventilation built into your pantries . I decided to use a glass door instead of the louvered door like I have on the smaller pantry and failed to add ventilation . I am having to address that now by trimming the bottom of the door and putting in a transom type vent above the door . I have a stand alone piece of furniture, hutch type, at the other far end that houses all of my glass ware , and lots of dishes and pitchers and all sorts of things . I purged and donated what I didn't need or use enough to make room for .

You can do some of the same things in your kitchen . Tall slender glass door uppers on each side of the hood , great for seasoning and oils etc . Moving the sink will help . There's great talent here to help you design it just hang in there .

Excuse the mess this was still during construction . Here's my rolling island .

Dana- These folks here are geniuses at kitchen design! They certainly helped a ton with our kitchen design. You're in the right place.

We have a similar sized kitchen, and have NO uppers. We have 32 drawers, and more storage than we need. We have a second sink for prep, one of my favorite features, especially if more than one person will be working in the kitchen. Our kitchen has a very open feel, with lots of natural light. The improvement over our old houses with cramped, dark kitchens is amazing.

Another neat trick we incorporated was to recess the fridge into the wall, giving us a counter depth feel at a standard depth price. I also incorporated the toe kick into the lower drawers, giving us an extra-deep drawer on each stack. Frameless type cabinets squeezed every available inch of storage.

cpartist I'm trying to message you from the houzz app on my phone and so far haven't been able to enter something in the "to" field. Here's my email danatanner.wills@gmail.com or are you able to message me to start a dialogue? Thanks!

You could put the fridge on the top wall, and pull the base cabinets
out flush with the fridge box. That would allow you to use a less
expensive standard depth fridge, rather than counter depth, and a
standard depth also has more storage capacity. I recessed my fridge a
few inches into the wall, and pulled the cabinets out three inches, and
it works very well. Dishes could be kept in drawers in the island in the
following plan, since there are no uppers on the sink wall. the
disadvantage to this plan is that the fridge is visible from the entry
hall.

The fridge could stay in the location you have it drawn, and
you could have uppers between the door and the windows over the sink. I
rotated the island so that those seated have a view through the
enlarged windows.

I don't know how it would affect the
upstairs, but it seems that there is wasted space in the laundry/garage
entry. I moved the garage in, eliminated the walk-in pantry, flipped the
bathroom, and put tall pantries in the kitchen. There are coat hooks to
the right of the entry, and the blue area could be a closet or lockers
and a bench.

GW discussions--deeper counters

GW discussions--storing dishes in drawers

Mamagoose's layout is a million times better than the one you started with.

I emailed you.

mama goose_gw zn6OH thanks so much for your thoughtful input. We are considering your changes. I think me considering how much room I need and maybe the walk in pantry is not necessary.

I like mamagoose's plan except for the refrigerator location. I would not want to use the refrigerator to divide the kitchen and the dining room especially if I was interested in an open look or taking away space on an exterior wall where a window that would otherwise bring more light or a view into the kitchen. I would leave the fridge near the doorway to the mudroom as on the original plan. I realize this is not optimal from a functionality perspective because the prep work zone between fridge and main sink crosses the cooking zone but there are often competing functionality/aesthetic trade offs in a kitchen. There will be other opinions about this so it becomes a personal decision as to how much this impacts you. U shaped kitchens with an island are not popular on this board because the island becomes a barrier to efficient workflow, but if the fridge opens up into the base of the U as in your original plan the impact of the island on the workflow is a lot less than if you were taking many steps around the island.

Also, have you considered a double oven (either two ovens if you bake a lot or serve large groups, or a single convection oven with a separate convection microwave above)? Personally I do not like bending down to reach into the oven so wall ovens are very convenient.

Your kitchen is very similar, size-wise and window lay-out to mine.
Here's my "before" lay-out and my remodel plan. We also limited the
number of uppers in our kitchen.

We
considered keeping the corner sink but when we realized how much it
would reduce the amount of counter between sink and cook top, we moved
it around the corner. So glad we did.

The proposed range position
in your plan and in mamagoose's may mean an extra bend or two in the
vent ducting, which you wouldn't have to deal with if you moved it to an
exterior wall. Extra ducting can translate to increased costs and vent noise.

Whether you will regret having fewer uppers will
depend on your storage needs. Have you done a kitchen tally yet? If not,
do this asap. Group items together by use, measure how much room they
require (drawer width & height) and the logical place to store them.
I did this and discovered that I did not need uppers on my cook top
wall.

If you can limit the number of uppers, you can apply that cost savings to upgrading from doors to drawers in your base cabs.

Here's the link to my finished kitchen thread, 50 Shades of Gray, TKO version with pics inside drawers for you.

HTH!

PS
A KD suggested giving up our walk-in pantry. Over my dead body! =) I
would have needed at least 84" of pantry cabs to give me as much storage
as my walk-in pantry provided, wall space I do not have. However, you
might be able to make that swap. Calculate how much storage your walk-in
pantry would provide and determine how many pantry cabs you'll need to
give you the same amount of storage.

I agree with Stan about not having the frig. dividing the kitchen and dining area. It will block your view out your windows as well. (I could have done that in my plan, but nixed it for the same reason). Having the frig. on the wall you intended will keep the traffic that flows there out of your cooking zone and it's really not that far.....consider it exercise. :-)

lisa_a Thanks very much. Your kitchen IS really similar to ours. It's great to see what others have done. I think I agree about the fridge but really have thought about it and played with the idea. Ultimately, I think it was our goal to have things very open concept feeling, with a nice flow from kitchen to dining area to living room. I also didn't like it right beside the doors to the deck. There really is no perfect spot for it but I think it was definitely worth exploring.

I also have the u shaped island layout. I like the fridge out of the view area and path to slider since it's such a heavy looking appliance. I considered adding a prep sink to island to solve that issue but decided against it for a host of reasons. I'm going to continue dumping all fridge contents onto island then walk around to prep.

my island is turned 90 degrees with seating along fridge wall. I like the orientation of your island better. Consider adding a prep sink

lisa_a's and mama's plans both have the same efficient layout - fridge to sink to stove. It doesn't matter that one goes "clockwise" and the other "counterclockwise", just as long as that order is maintained.

I think Mama's plan works nicely and if you have a nice cabinet and a counter depth fridge, it won't feel like it's blocking the dining area.

Until I read stan's and lisa's posts after mine, I hadn't realized
that I'd set up the plan almost exactly as my kitchen is laid out. My
range and sink/DW are switched, and except for the DR, the adjacent
rooms are different, but the traffic patterns are the same--compact work
triangle on the L, with storage along the other wall, and an island
separating them. As I mentioned before, the bases are pulled out to
match the fridge box, but also the cabinets on the storage wall are a
little shallower than standard (vintage cabinets originally only 16"
deep). It works very well, and I like having the fridge near the DR. My fridge is partly visible from the front door, and I
have a door to a mudroom where your door to the deck is located. In
my kitchen there is an opening to a flex room where you have the mudroom
entry--also very similar to lisa's kitchen.

Because,
in the mudroom, the electrical panel is on the other side of my fridge
wall, I couldn't have the large window I drew in your plan--I don't have
an actual window in the kitchen--just borrowed light from the
surrounding rooms. With the large window in your plan, you would have
plenty of light and a nice view. The appliance placement in either L
plan is personal preference--in one, the range and hood are a focal
point from the great room, in the other, it's the fridge. Either is
fine, IMO--it's a kitchen, and the appliances have to go somewhere.

In
the original plan, if you keep the fridge on the bottom wall, and the
range on the short wall, it makes sense to keep the island in the
original orientation, but you will have less than 40" for each aisle,
and even with a CD fridge, the door and handle will protrude into the
traffic aisle. Plus, it appears that there is seating on two sides, and
there isn't enough space in the aisle to have seating on the short side.
There is step-back space in the long aisle in front of the fridge, but
there would be a pinch-point at the fridge and island corners, which
could be alleviated if you moved the island toward the DR a few inches.
You would still have a narrower than recommended aisle in front of the
DW (if the sink and DW are moved to the top wall--I wouldn't want
this plan at all, if the sink isn't moved out of the corner). I
have narrow aisles, and they work OK, but I remodeled a kitchen in an
older home, and couldn't change the size. I agree with buehl--in a new
build, I wouldn't recommend narrow aisles.

NKBA recs, illustrated

OK, I'm going to go ahead and say this, since it is a new house not a remodel and options should be presented before tradeoffs on function, appearance, and cost are made.

Here's my suggestion: Bump the exterior wall of the kitchen back 2-3 additional feet. That will give you enough space for an 8 foot island that you can easily sit 4 at plus it will give plenty of counterspace alongside the range which you don't have right now. I realize adding square footage is probably the last thing you want to hear -- but this is one where I think it would make a huge difference in the kitchen layout. Much better use of space here than the long passageways in the laundry/mud room area.

That sounds great, Dana. I had been looking at your great room thinking how it would be nice to have a fireplace on the far left wall instead of in the corner which, IMO, makes the furniture placement more difficult.

So glad it's all going to come together beautifully.

I think you will be much happier with the extra aisle space, too, and if you move the clean-up sink to the top wall, and add a prep sink to the island in the original drawing, the layout will be more efficient.