Seems to make sense to have a range instead of separate cooktop and ovens. In that third option, could you put the fridge where the 36 base and wall cab are by themselves and turn it so the door(s) open towards the range wall? Looks like you even have enough floor space to have a pull out pantry between the fridge and the wall ( have to have something there for door swing clearance anyway). That way if someone wants something from the fridge, they won't be opening it into where you are working. And if you went with a counter depth french door, the doors shouldn't encroach on the doorway much if at all. Then you could slide the range down to the right, get rid of the 12" base and wall cabs and have a nicer sized one to the right of the stove. If you wanted, you might be able to have a very shallow platter display cabinet on the side of the fridge that faces the DW, too. I guess that would depend on the width of the fridge.

lol. Ok, the island was a bad idea. I got carried away and forgot that I'm design-challenged. But if anyone has a counter height table to sell, I'll take 2. bmore, I get the message. I'll take a few pictures of the space and try to post them by the end of the weekend. To answer the questions: The little piece of wall only juts out about 2 1/2" so it's not to scale in my drawing. It's actually one wall that runs the entire length of the living room and the kitchen. It juts out that way to create a small alcove where the large window is. A picture would definitely help :o). The slider door opens from the left side, not the right. Yes, it would be possible to switch out the slider for a French door and window if we decide to include walls and windows in the remodel. No dining room, unfortunately. The fridge swings the way angie drew it in her layout, which I like for the reasons lavender mentioned. It follows the rules so DH will love it. Thanks for your layout, angie. lavender_lass - thanks for the advice. We've been slowly renovating over the last 10 years and last but not least is the kitchen. We're happy here but DH thinks we could use an extra bedroom, which is why we'd consider moving. DH and I will firm up the scale and budget for this remodel now instead in January. It'll be so much easier to choose the direction we want to go in with these layout options. I'll have an update real soon....

Continuing to beat the dead horse. Whack! Whack! I'm sorry about this, if the realities of the house structure means this layout simply isn't possible then just ignore me. It is just that I think there is the possibility of a kitchen that is far more functional than the current plan. If you're going to live with this kitchen for many years, the $600 cost of replacing the refrigerator (appx price for 30'' wide Frigidaire left-hinge top-freezer) or the $2,000 (?) cost of modifying the basement stairs (assuming a basic rough carpentry stair run, not a finacy finished stairwell) seems money well spent, in order to double the useful workspace and get well-defined, separate work zones. The wash zone is to the left of the sink, where a full-size dishwasher lives. Dish storage can be across the aisle, if the lower and upper cabinets are deep enough. Dirty dishes go immediately to the wash zone, without even passing through the rest of the kitchen. The dishwasher door might block traffic, if so you could consider dish drawers which still stick out but are easy to slide in and out. The prep zone is to the right of the sink, something like 80 inches of unbroken counter. Room for a trash pull-out, drawer storage for prep tools and supplies, and then some drawer storage for food staples. If the upper cabinets are used for food too, that lower-right corner functions as a sort of pantry. If the refrigerator sticks out, a sort of blind-corner cabinet arrangement may be needed. The refrigerator is adjacent to the prep zone, so that the prepping cook has everything in reach. Some people like to have the microwave in the prep zone. The cook zone is across the aisle. One person can be cooking and two others washing and prepping, without crowding each other. Plenty of landing space on either side of the range. The lower-left corner could be small appliance storage, home for a microwave or toaster oven, maybe a baking center since the counter can be decently deep. I think the kitchen will also ''feel'' more spacious since you won't have a big refrigerator looming right in the center of it, cutting apart one counter and blocking the sightline.

Hi Marcolo Thank you. It did not occur to me to simply eliminate that box and replace it with storage. I just figured we were stuck with it. And you are right: it is just an empty box sitting there taking up space. And, since it is made of uninsulated 3/4" wood, it probably makes the kitchen cold. So either of your ideas -- the bench or the cabinet -- would make that space more useful, and warm it up at the same time. Fiberglass for the door. I will investigate that material. I had asked one carpenter if the door could be remade in Azek, but he thought it would not be rigid enough. So I started thinking about Azek with a backing of plywood, but then I imagined that double layer would again make the door very heavy and difficult for me to open and close which is why I haven't taken pictures of of the headroom yet. I need DH's help for that project, and he has been tied up with a tennis tournament this week. I think we can do it on Sunday. Hi rmtdoug, Good points, all. Although it would squeeze the sink closer to the cooktop, I will ask the carpenter when he next stops by about shortening that wall from the mudroom to the kitchen, I would very much like to do that if it is not too costly, especially after seeing lisa_a's latest design with an expanded mudroom just off that space. When I saw her good idea I realized we would not have to preserve much of that mudroom/kitchen wall at all to maintain the current size of the mudroom since we could just open up the other wall and, until we get a shed built, store a whole lot of necessary gear close to the back door, including a snow shovel in winter and a rake in summer. Hi lisa_a, What an incredible design idea. I absolutely love it and it solves so many of our problems simultaneously. The pocket door between the bath and the shower is a clever solution. The only sticking point is that the maximum opening on that wall (where you have shown the entry to the new mudroom) is only 28" because there is an old chimney on one side. The chimney is shown on the architectural drawing as a funny shaped rectangle protruding into the "shower" area on the plan. That unused chimney is actually a square that sits outside the kitchen on the mudroom-side of the wall. However, I so love your design that I want to use it anyway. If we ripped through some of the trim on that bathroom we could widen the opening to a suitable sized doorway. I realize I need to upload all the dimensions of the mudroom, the BP and the dining room. My design software has arrived and I have used it to outline the kitchen with some gross dimensions, but I need to get all the dimensions on it because you and Jillius have had to guess the measurements of areas outside the kitchen. I see you drew the stairs opening to the living room. Thank you. Now that you have imagined how that will look, do you think the opening to the kitchen from the living room should be closed up and the sink sited there? I ask this in case we can afford to widen the kitchen opening from the mudroom as rmtdoug suggests since doing that would cut down on the length of the sink/cooktop wall. The distance from the inside wall of the kitchen (the one with the mudroom on the other side) to the furthest wall of the BP (with the dining room on the other side) is 181". The distance from that same kitchen wall to the closest-to-the-BP dining room wall is 185.5". Let me know if those measurements are not what you were looking for.