No the kitchen does not HAVE to be situated in any particular location and certainly not so that it has a view into the backyard. Think about how you want your kitchen to work and use that to guide your floorplan. Getting groceries into the kitchen is usually a good reason for making the kitchen (or a large pantry) easily accessible from the garage. If you have a formal dining room, you'll probably want it to be reasonably near the kitchen so that you're not carrying dishes over long distances. Do you want a family room or den nearby so that whoever is handling kitchen chores is still close to the "family action"? If so, you may want an "open plan" kitchen or one that is connected by a wide doorway to the family room or great room. If you do lots of backyard barbeques then you might want your kitchen to open to the back yard. Likewise, if you have small children that you expect to be playing in the backyard and you want to keep an eye on them while you cook then you probably should try to locate the kitchen so there is at least a window to the backyard. For me, over the past 20 years we've been living in a house with a very tiny kitchen...too small for more than one person to work in comfortably! But, it has a pass-thru over the sink into what was probably planned to be a breakfast room. About 10 or 12 years ago we turned the breakfast room space into our computer room and DH and I quickly developed the habit of talking over our days via that pass-thru while one of us cooked or did dishes and the other caught up on email or websurfed. I didn't want to lose that "talk time" so, when I was designing our new home, I made sure that the new kitchen and office are connected via the same kind of pass thru. Our pass-thru and having the kitchen and office next to each other is probably not something very many other people would necessarily want but building a custom home is all about getting what works for you and your family!

Oh my goodness yes!!!! Now THAT is a house I could imagine myself living in! Having a door at the front of the house that opens into the master bedroom is still a bit odd (IMHO) but by narrowing the front porch at that end and placing a bit of outdoor furniture in just the right spot, the door into the master bedroom is discretely made far less noticeable and therefore is no longer objectionable to me. And by providing another obvious "front door" opening into the dining area (a public space), the whole front-door problem is pretty well solved. Furthermore, if a future owner wanted a more traditional front entryway, they could easily (and probably for very little cost) close in that corner section of the covered front porch and turn that into a foyer that open out into the living room with a side opening going into the dining area. So, you no longer have to worry overmuch about that issue reducing potential resale value. It looks like Summerfield also solved all the other "issues" that bothered me and others about your original plan as well: the too too long uninterrupted hallway, the long distance from garage entry way to any convenient spot to set groceries down, the lack of a really nice pantry, the view from kitchen into the 2nd bathroom, etc., etc., etc. And yet, when you compare the two designs, the general placement of the rooms and the way the house will flow is still very, very similar to your original idea. I am a tiny bit concerned that the pantry may be a bit too narrow to fit a freezer into one end like that. Remember that you'll want to be able to open the freezer door a bit more than 90 degrees and it looks like the side shelves might be in the way. You might need to make the shelves on one side several inches narrower so you can swing the door freezer door open completely. Or, a chest-style freezer (with a lid that lifts UP) might work well in that spot although to get one in/out of the room, the side shelves would have to be made re-moveable. Overall tho, this is BEAUTIFUL WORK! Summerfield Designs continues to amaze me. She has such a great sense of design. And, best of all, she clearly LISTENS to what the homeowner wants and always seems to find a way to deliver a marvelous design that still allows the homeowner's original ideas to shine thru. Summerfield Designs is obviously a master architect who has somehow managed to avoid developing the over-inflated ego that some architects seem to suffer from. This forum is so lucky to have her participate here. Makes me wish she had been an active member back when I was drawing up my own plans. After living in my new home for 18 months, I'm still very very happy with it but I do wonder what kinds of tweaks she would have suggested that would have made it even better! I am so glad you posted this and I look forward to watching your progress as you build. It's going to be an absolutely lovely home!

We have cork floors in the kitchen, and they are really nice. We have natural colored cork, which goes well with our oak cabinets, the expensive thick kind (We Cork, IIRC), not Lumber Liquidators, which is fine for bedrooms but not acceptable for kitchens, I don't think. Definitely a do it yourself job, although you would have to level the floor somehow since any bump or indentation shows through after use. Less so with the thicker cork, but eventually. Glue down with Dap Weldwood, green can, not red, water soluble, not flammable. Make sure you fit the tiles together tightly, and use several coats of varnish to keep grunge out of the joints. Whatever varnish the manufacturer suggests. Not sure how the natural will go with the cherry cabinets I am hoping to get, but we shall see. Not that hard to put down a second layer of cork if I hate the contrast. Advantages of cork: soft, warm, resilient, water proof, fire-retardant, easy to DIY. Disadvantages: dog toenails scratch it, grunge can get in the joints. DH didn't put enough coats of varnish, for sure. I think only two. Not enough. I'd post a pic but our kitchen is an embarrassment right now. Melamine countertops have cracks, several drawer fronts are loose or even off. As for your kitchen, I like the cabinets, would advise new hardware, maybe bigger but still brass. The color contrast between your cabinets and countertops is unappealing to me. Cool countertops, warm everything else. I would consider a lighter countertop in a warm mid tone, nowhere near white.

Benje - thank you for your design(s) as well! Completely removing that door and moving to the family room is still an idea and if we go that route I do agree that it really has a great flow. It has no double wall oven though so that is our main concern with the design. Also a little concerned with storage space. I never feel like we are going to have enough!! Buehl - Thank you very much for your work on this! Sorry it took so long to get back to you all, we have an 8 month old so timing isn't always great! To answer all of your questions first: We are currently a young family of 3, my wife, myself, and our little 8 month old. We are planning on having one more child down the road a bit. I added a quick sketch of the first floor layout of the house which I have added to this post. Hopefully this will help everyone. If you need more measurements or identifying anything on my less than stellar drawing please just let me know. We don't have our fridge yet but it is going to be counter depth, not built in, most likely. That could change pending a few items but at this point we are going with counter depth and staying away from the ultra high end appliances. We were originally going to go with the subzero / wolf line but found that money better spent elsewhere. We do have a separate pantry area but it is in between the garage door opening and the powder room. It isn't ideal but we had none when we moved it so I made it the make-shift one for now. I think there is a good amount of opening (65") going into the family room so we wouldn't be opposed to closing up that half wall to the ceiling if it allowed for the island we really want. Worst case we could use that angled supp pantry you put in your KD and keep our old pantry the way we have it currently. The DR door could be moved down as far as I know. I am assuming you mean down as in away from the range. Obviously assuming that their wouldn't be any cabinets along that wall. Didn't open up the walls yet but assuming there isn't any duct work or plumbing over there. I don't NEED the 36" cooktop, it would be a nice to have as I prepare a wide variety of meals and always curse at my lack of space on the current 30" one. I could make do with a 30" though. I think the door staying in the kitchen is the best idea though, just making it a single door instead of the slider. We'll put an all glass door so we get a good amount of light in. We have no neighbors behind us so privacy isn't really an issue. Double wall oven is a must - we host most parties, holiday's, etc at our house and making a big meal without 2 ovens has really hurt us! Buehl - we LOVE your design with the large island. You removed the bar which will hurt but we understand if it's at the cost of the larger island we can always move the bar into the dining room. What are the overall dimensions of the island? I can't really make it out from the drawing. We would most likely bring that half wall to the ceiling and door wall to ceiling pantry there. My initial concern would be the storage space but if we get that full pantry over by the 1/2 wall, the spice rack, and the pots/pans under the cooktop I think it works GREAT.