The genesis of the remodel isn't to open up the kitchen visually. I like it half clothed so that any mess isn't immediately apparent from the living areas - so that's not a factor.

I recognize that one large flat counter is visually more open but I am not sure whether it is functionally the ideal arrangement for water or other normal kitchen debris - for example water would go to the back of the counter or other kitchen debris and would not be stopped by a "wall" - i.e. the elevated portion and therefore I wouldn't be able to reach any crumbs or veggie parings etc. that have moved to the area beyond the sink and would have to stretch to get at them or walk completely around to the other side every time I wanted to wipe the counter down.

While I appreciate visual stuff, I lean more towards functionality and limiting my need to be on top of wiping and cleaning as much as possible.

I am not sure that people (at least in my building with relatively small kitchens) actually think about kitchen functionality.

Thanks Hal - to clarify - it's not an island - it's just an extension of the kitchen counter and there is a portion with no upper cabinets.

The main reason to keep it open would be for more light in the kitchen. Only you know if that's important to you.

I’m the odd man here on Houzz who prefers the bilevel “bar”....dated or not it’s what I like. I truly think it’s a personal preference.

I would like the bilevel to screen the typical bits and pieces always around sinks except when people take pictures of it.

Is there a reason you can't build an actual wall behind the sink to fully enclose the kitchen? I think I'm in the minority as well but I tend to prefer a fully separate kitchen. I don't want to be looking at dirty dishes when I'm in the living room. Extending the wall to the end of the peninsula would give you space for several additional upper cabinets as well.

Thanks for all the responses. What I am getting is that there really isn't a right or wrong in terms of either design or functionality.

biondanonima - Structurally I could build a wall since everything is going. However, when I stand at the sink - which I do a lot of when prepping, I would lose being able to look at my view. I wouldn't be gaining anything functionally or aesthetically with a full wall.

Palimpsest: Yes I was thinking about all the bits of debris that gather. Right now when I am in the living area facing my kitchen, I really can't see what is accumulated there. Of course if someone is hanging over the counter or whatever, the kitchen mess is visible but that's true of any kitchen when people are physically or proximate to it.

Anglophilia My kitchen doesn't get a lot of natural light as it's at the back of the unit so no much light reaches it. I'm not sure the higher ledge would let more actual light in although obviously visually the one level counter seems more open. I am having A LOT of artificial light put into the kitchen so sunlight reaching the kitchen isn't a factor since there isn't much of it back there - the rest of my apartment is very sunlit because of the wall of windows. I also tend to be in the kitchen in the early morning or after dark so sunlight is almost moot for my vampirish life style :-)

dtrivino - I agree the design magazines seem to favor the single level counter but I don't really approach my design choices in terms of dated :-) I have no plans to resell and if I did, I would be going in a completely different bland beige or cream or gray Shaker cabinet kitchen look anyway :-). I don't know if I would have ever wanted avocado or yellow kitchen appliances since they are aesthetically displeasing to me and never cared for them even when they were on trend. On the other hand, dated or not dated, if I lived in a house or apartment that would not look freakish done in that style, I would do hot pink or turquoise appliances with boomerang design counters - and those are certainly dated :-) I have lived in homes with "dated" bathrooms from the 1920's and I would love to wave a magic wand and transport them my current living space :-)

I'm also thinking the higher ledge (which I would never use for seating) also would enable me to have useful things on it - For example, I now have some antique canisters on the current ledge with teabags of various kinds and I also have a revolving spice rack for the spices I use most frequently for prepping. I also have some decorative bowls and such at one end which hold various odds and ends. I am thinking that without the ledge, it would all be on the flat counter as opposed to being up and out of the way so that cleaning off the counter would be more difficult as there would inevitably be more objects on it to move around.

It sounds like having a raised "bar" area is the best choice for you, given the lighting of your unit and your desires and plans for the space. Even if you won't be using it as a "bar." I will admit that I am biased, because we are designing a new build, and are insisting on a raised bar area. While people will occasionally sit there, no meals will be eaten at our raised area.

Like you, while it will be an open layout, I want some separation between the kitchen area and the rest of the space, and feel that the raised bar will hide some of the usual kitchen detritus.

We, also, have already heard, from the architect and interior designer, that's not what's being done these days. But the whole point of our building a custom house is to make it the way we want, and if we feel a raised bar in what in our house is an island, then that's what we're doing. And it will only look dated, IMHO, if you use dated materials and design and so on.

I'm a fan of the first drawing. It doesn't look at all like the standard raised bar counter since the cabinets have finished ends and it is not a 4" wide wall with a 10" counter slapped on top. Is the front cabinet a proper cabinet or are you wrapping the wall with panels? I'd like a cabinet with glass doors and use the space to display dishes or other things.

aziline - Having that space which is currently theoretically for stools changed into a display cabinet is currently still something I am thinking of doing. If you notice there is a wall and my thought was to extend the cabinet so that it is flush with the wall. I currently have my grandmother's low china cabinet there overstuffed with my old Fiesta collection :-)

There is a pin in it because my designer thinks that it would close off the entry space. The hall is to the immediate left of it so she says that visually instead of being a more expansive type of opening, it would feel closed off. That's not something I need to decide on immediately since it could be added on to the cabinet order pretty easily as I am using a local place because I have such "odd" sizes that I need to maximize my small space.\

This is my current kitchen ghetto. I should post a picture of my sad "antique" of a Caloric state of the 1975 double oven stove. Ironically, it's an incredibly functional stove and I didn't realize it until I started looking for replacements. It's pre-microwave but it has a wonderful side opening small oven broiler on top.

This is a picture I had clipped many years ago when the remodel was still in gestational form :-) I thought why couldn't I just put something like that under what is now the bar counter area.

And thanks everybody for your thoughts as it's wonderful to be able to get a variety of opinions and reasonings on something like this as it really does help one come to a decision.

And for laughs or nightmares, a picture of my current stove - not in green praise the Lord but from a time long ago when avocado green and/or harvest gold reigned supreme in kitchenland.

My fantasy Aga stove :-)

I love your clipped picture. If the low china cabinet you have now doesn't make the space feel cramped I'd go for it. It looks like you have room to recess the cabinet behind the wall and it still be a good depth. You'd have at least twice the room you have now in it and you'd pick up floor space since it wouldn't be as deep.

Looks like you are getting a well deserved upgrade with or without the fantasy stove :)

Maybe you could make the raised part a little lower since it doesn’t need to actually be bar height? So it opens the area up a little more but still conceals the sink. And then do the glass cabinet as long as you have good stuff to put in it, it will give visitors something to ask about.

Helen, you sound like my type of homeowner! This is exactly how we live! We design our home to our unique tastes, not to please designers or magazines or future homeowners. Enjoy whatever you pick, I’m sure it will be phenomenal!!

Since no one really sits there the rendering of a raised bar with storage will give it useful function.

I suggest a closed cabinet to the right of stove.

Maybe open shelves on back side of raised bar.

If you don't want to close it off entirely, I would keep the raised portion and install a cabinet or shelves underneath the counter. I actually don't care for the one height counter in your neighbor's unit - it looks odd to me to have the sink peeking out from around the corner with a broad expanse of counter behind it.

I am turning the entire back of the dining area into storage by effectively extending the kitchen but it will have more of a furniture look with glass doors on the upper middle cabinets with glass shelves and lighting.

blondanonima - I do think you are right that somehow a flat counter seems forced into a kitchen area that wasn't meant to have one level expanse. I've only seen one unit in which it seemed as though the one level unit was meant to be in that space and that person took down all the soffits - and since those soffits contain HVAC ducts, that is a bridge too far for me :-). I am incorporating the soffits into the design of the kitchen which now has a standard hideous dropped ceiling with fluorescent lights above with a coved ceiling. The soffits will be reworked with lighting both up to accent the ceiling and ambient for good lighting. I will also have under counter lighting.

dtrivino - I am pretty sure of my eclectic taste :-) and much as I would love a pink refrigerator from Big Chill, it's just one of many design elements I love but have to forego such as recycled glass concrete counters - again amazing but would like ridiculous.

aziline The stove (along with other elements of my current kitchen hovel was difficult to replace as each element taken out would have required something else to be done - the stove would have required new cabinetry and the people who installed my old wood floor had installed the wood in front of part of it. There was so much dysfunction that I had to wait until it could be gutted because fixing or replacing one element was too difficult. I did replace the DW because those are all standard 24" openings. The stove served me very well in terms of function as I really honed my cooking and baking skills over the years and there really isn't anything that I didn't make - about the only thing it couldn't do was really high heat wok cooking but I don't think any non-professional stove without at least a wok burner has that capability.

I'm attaching pictures of the proposed design of the new kitchen. As you can see the "stove/oven" wall will be one wall of cabinets. Because it extends into the dining area, I want it to have somewhat more of a look of furniture which is why I think I will go with inset doors with very discreet hinges. Cabinets will be frameless so that my drawers can maximize interior space. Those upper cabinets with inset doors would not be a big issue in terms of storage as I currently have framed boxes and just fit plates or whatever behind the frames somewhat so that the interior interior space is used.

And the design of that thing over the sink is NOT the design I would opt for. It's just there as a place keeper. If you look at the picture of the short china cabinet, I have the same type of visual demarcation using an old stained glass window I rescued years ago.

This is floor plan WITHOUT the cabinet replacing the bar space

Slightly off topic but the design now has the French Door Refrigerator abutting a wall which frames the entrance from the foyer of the apartment to the kitchen. I am concerned about it opening adequately. It requires 10" of clearance to open 125º and 3" to open 90º which would enable all drawers to be pulled out. I am thinking of having the wall cut down so that there is no obstruction at all for the refrigerator door as there would be a much wider opening and no wall. Structurally this is fine as my interior walls are non-load bearing and are just there to create enclosed areas.

Again, that decorative thing is NOT the design at all but just put in as a place marker to indicate something will go there that is not a wall but still somewhat blocks the kitchen visually.

Even if you do an elevated wall behind the sink, I'd forgo the one to the left of the DW.

cluelessincolorado - That's a good thought as it retains the functionality of the backsplash to contain detritus while not completing visually closing it off.

Definitely get the wall cut back so you can open the fridge freely. I have this situation in my rental apartment (where I lived for years) and it is very annoying not to be able to open the doors fully and remove the drawers for cleaning.

OMG- that is the exact stove that was in this house when we bought it!!!!! We told the owners to take it with them - they were thrilled as they LOVED that hideous thing (you would not believe some of the decor in this house when we bought it).

Haven't seen that thing in nearly 34 years. Can live another 34 without seeing it again (I'm 74).

Anglophilia - Mine is white so blends in to some degree :-). As I wrote, doing little fixes never made sense until I was ready to gut because every little change would spiral into another change and it made no sense to take it to a certain level when the whole kitchen was a terrible layout and hideous. There were just no half way measures I could reasonably take because it truly would have been throwing good money after bad.

And that horrible little stove produced some delicious stuff so I always roll my eyes when people claim they "need" stainless appliances in order to cook - generally on House Hunters. Or when they need granite and ask whether a counter is granite LOL

And yes, it is of an era - there were yellow formica counters when I moved in - those HAD to go and shag carpeting throughout INCLUDING the BATHROOMS. From an era when people carpeted bathrooms and had shaggy carpeted toilet seat covers to match.

The reason I would want it level, besides looks, is that I despise cleaning between the sink and the wall. It’s always been so hard to get it really clean since there isn’t much space between faucet and wall. Granted, I’ve always had over mount sinks which makes it more of an issue than under mount, but you still have the seam between the wall and counter and caulk always gets dirty with all the food and water there. We are building a new house with the sink in the island so everything will be exposed. I’m hoping it’s motivation to keep the dishes done.

It sounds like you prefer keeping it two levels. If it were me I would forgo the back splash and keep the counter all one height. Grout behind a sink is always a pain to keep clean and white IMO. I'd much rather just wipe a counter than a backsplash.

I vote for the very first image you’ve shown, raised counter behind sink, without the raised side over the dishwasher. That way, you’ll have potentially more cabinet display space for the Fiesta ware! Its in that lovely antique cabinet now but yes it’s a bit stuffed. I don’t think anyone’s asked yet the important question of where you plan to display it. But wherever it’s going, try for glass cabinets with lighting. I love to turn on my “Fiesta lights” on a cloudy day to brighten things up

OneRidgeOff - Beautiful collection of Fiestaware - you've got some really great pieces in there. The down side of old Fiestaware is that it chips like crazy - unlike the new released stuff which is quite sturdy. It's ironic that I am hesitant to use my old Fiesta collection because of its fragility. The Limoges china I inherited from my grandmother which I never use for other reasons is far stronger so I have two sets of china which I never use :-)

And although I am having glass fronted lit cabinets in the area behind the dining area, it would be adequate for only a fraction of the c*rap - ahem collectibles I have stashed away. In packing up every bit of stuff for the remodel, I can't believe all of the stuff I stuffed into the innards of closets and cabinets which haven't seen the light of day in years.

So I am going to readdress having a display cabinet built into what would normally house stools. It's a relatively easy thing to add on and I can address the depth of the actual cabinet as well in terms of whether it goes to the wall or is somewhat recessed.

And yes, I don't think I would want the ledge extended to the side of the DW but I will discuss with the designer to see whether there is some rationale for it or whether it was just added for the preliminary design - again something that is easily modified at this stage.

kim k and mommyniki - I understand what you are saying about the swiping of the area behind the sink. I guess it's a trade off because without some sort of "wall" the water and crud would probably extend further than my arms could reach which would mean I would have to walk around the peninsula every time I wiped down the counter.

What I am internalizing is that so many of my choices are a trade off between form and function and also how each individual functions within a specific area. As I visualize my degree of laziness, I would rather wipe behind a sink counter than walk around a counter. On the other hand, you couldn't pay me to have a faucet with any degree of ornamentation because all I can think of is having to clean out all the little nooks :-)