Well... the first thing I notice is that it looks like you have something like 2 feet of walkway/clearance between the dishwasher and the square-ish island. That obviously doesn't work...

Thank you. You are both right for sure about the space around the D/W. Likely will move it to the island. We are working with an architect already but I am trying to give him our notes on how we'd like things changed. His original sketch not seen here.

With that in mind...where should the pantry go?

Your inspiration photo is of a VERY large kitchen. Yours is not.

Keith, you misunderstand me. Two feet of clearance is not workable, dishwasher or not. As in, it may not pass code. What are the measured distances between the various components of your kitchen?

I do not have the exact measurements but I do agree it needs more space. We don't have the depth of that inspirational photo but I do believe we have the width.

Which dimension do you mean as the width? Between the refrigerator wall and the dishwasher wall?

Width I mean as left to right on my floor plan sketch. I was referring to the kitchen space as a whole.

Others may chime in with more detailed feedback, but by my calculations you don't have much room for that square-ish island with the sink. The interior dimension between the refrigerator wall and dishwasher wall is likely 15' 8" (you show only an exterior dimension of 16' 8" and i assume two exterior walls of 6" thickness each). Cabinet/counter depth is 24" (not even counting an overhang) and walkways should be 4' for two people to operate comfortably. If you add that up, you have two counters (48" or 4') and two walkways (8') which is 12' total. If you have only 15'8" available, you have only 3'8" left for that squarish island.

Your inspiration picture looks like it has an 8'-9' island.

You are right. Thank you very much.

I don't see your space morphing into anything similar to the inspiration picture. As it appears now in your drawing, that second island is not really in the kitchen, and it seems odd being out there in the middle of things.

So, pretty much can't do two islands. Thank you all for the feedback. Back to the drawing board for the kitchen.

If that inspiration kitchen was your dream, you have the wrong house. Are you building? Is the entire floor plan set in stone?

Forget the corner pantry. Change/reverse the opening to the living room to where you had the desk. ( a potentially useless and too small space btw) Forget the desk too.

Make a nice long peninsula. Your entire wish list exceeds the capabilities of the kitchen........and the house itself, Start from something more like this and call in a kitchen designer asap. Ice, water fire.......and clearances. Sorry. Even the window locations are problematic in relation to wall space and layout. Sorry about that water view.

Thank you, Jan. I think we were so focused on getting the rest of the house right that we sort of took the kitchen for granted. Now, we are trying to make the best of it. Nearly all of the floor plan is set other than this. That is a very interesting idea of wrapping the countertop around and changing the entrance.

Here is one direction you could go in. You still have a water view from the island. You could make island a little longer wider or both. Put the dishwasher there or even have a second dishwasher. The big thing missing is desk/cabinets. And the kitchen/living room door.

I was thinking along the same lines as A, but kept the connection to the LR, and the range on the exterior wall.

Amazing sketches. Thank you so much. Can’t wait to show my wife. I should have asked you all days ago!

From your floor plan, it appears that the kitchen space equals or exceeds any other space on that level. Is that what you really want? Is that where you and your family will spend the majority of time when you are in the house? Do you really want to spend all of the money it will take to make a kitchen such as shown above?

Frank Lloyd Wright had a design philosophy in his residential designs where "service" or "servant" spaces were deliberately kept small, efficient and cost conscious, while "public" or "shared" spaces for the entire family were maximized. HGTV has turned all of that on it's head, and now everyone must have gi-normous double island kitchens, tricked out with every imaginable feature.

Such interesting times in which we live...

PS: Am I the only one that sees how the "open cross walk above" subdivides the family room space into "low" and "high" space and makes any furnishing plan awkward? Am I sitting in the "high" space, or am I sitting in the "low" space...?

For sure rotate island parallel to dining table. Please do one level island. Close entry to living room. I was wondering if you have office on the first floor? If not I would design it as multi use space with glass french doors from entrance side and no other entry. Don't extend wall to dining room, it is already quite small. Closing living room entry would allow you more proportional kitchen to your room dimensions.

Mama goose has a good plan with some tweeks, if you are willing to change the entry into the living room. Otherwise, you can't have everything. Good kitchen design is about compromise. Function, Function, Function. Crowding everything in will end up ruining the function and drive you nuts in the long run and you will regret the money you spent on a reno that ultimately does not make your life better. I think your dishwasher should be in the island as all that counter space will be where everything lands for cleaning. Not enough space by sink under the window. Then you also don't need to extend the dining room wall, which I feel throws the dining space off balance. Let us know what you finally decide.

Is the disherwasher in Mama goose's (amazing) sketch in the island? I see she didn't delete my D/W on the top wall but I also see a Dishes on the island.

I think she is envisioning where all the dirty dishes will land or drawers for dishes on back of island.

I would move the microwave to the corner that says appliance, or have it in the island facing the stove. One more thing, there appears to be a random upper cabinet near the window on the right. That throws the symmetry off for me. All those gorgeous windows means you actually don't have a lot of storage, but drawers all along the range wall could really solve that problem. We use the bottom half of our pantry with roll out shelves for food, and the top have has shelves for small appliances, like the slow cookers, panini press, etc. That works really will. You can also add dividers for shallow baking sheets and the like in there. Some people keep those above the fridge, but I use mine daily and that location would be too high for me.

Yes, bgs990 is correct. I should have explained that idea in more detail. The dish storage is in the wide drawer on the island, and if you'll notice, since the aisle is only 43", the DW door and dish storage drawer bypass each other, allowing the drawer full extension. The plan, again, so you don't need to scroll up:

Gardenweb discussions--dishes in drawers.

... there appears to be a random upper cabinet near the window on the right. That throws the symmetry off for me.

I added that cabinet to achieve symmetry. It makes the reveal around the windows the same on both sides of the room. It could easily be open shelves instead.

The MW drawer on the island could be rotated to open toward the cooktop. The OP needs to asses his cooking style to decide which would be more convenient. Is the MW used mostly to reheat items from the fridge/freezer, or in cooking functions, ie melting butter, steaming vegetables, etc. I was envisioning a stand mixer slide-out in the appliance garage, but the MW could be incorporated there, except most MWs open right to left, and that might be awkward. (Why can't the manufacturers make MWs with optional door swing, as some fridges have?)

This seems not only extremely functional but also a great look. The only thing I have questions I have are on the section I circled in green.

- Is that enough space to squeeze by to the dining area?

- Is that an inside window behind the linens?

- Was it protruding from left dining wall for symmetry or just so everything would fit?

- Might it make sense to remove the windows on each side of the stove? I really like the look but if everything can't fit...I'm not sure.

Oh no, please leave the windows on the cooktop wall! I love that look, and they provide so much light. With the tall pantry, drawers on the cooktop wall, and two sets of base cabinets in the island, you should have plenty of storage, even without upper cabinets. You just need to research storing items in drawers, which is a new idea for most folks, but common in gardenweb inspired kitchens.

GW discussions--all drawer bases.

If you want to read some helpful planning threads, I'd recommend these:

New to Kitchens? Read me first.

My beloved appliance garage--GW member huango

I used one of huango's pics in the collage, above.

Yes, that's a glass panel between the kitchen and DR, to match the window over the sink (I watched a Fixer Upper rerun yesterday), but it's not necessary. Because I extended the kitchen on the bottom wall (LR wall), I was looking for a way to extend that wall, too. The flatware and linens could be kept in either of the drawers beside the dish storage drawer in the island--I just thought that run looked as if it was missing something. I estimated that there is ap 36" between the end of the panel and the table corner, which is sufficient.

The best way I've found to decide if everything will fit, is to draw the kitchen plan on a grid, where each square = 6". If you can download a grid and draw in the cabinets and appliances, you can get a better feel for the scale. I use the basic Windows Paint program to draw all the little boxes, but if you don't feel able to do that, I will be happy to help. I'm trying to stave off senility by working on kitchen layout puzzles. :)

Thank you so very much! I will let you know how it goes.

Forgot the mention, with no uppers beside the cooktop, you might want to consider a hood that is 6" wider than the cooktop. This looks to be the start of an amazing kitchen, so I'd go for a killer hood as a focal point. A wider hood will help contain the plume of steam and grease, which is usually partially contained by adjacent cabinets. (And always turn on the hood before the steam and grease start to rise, to get the air moving.)

Has your architect/designer mentioned the Make-up Air necessity with such a powerful cooktop and hood? (CFM > 400)

GW discussions--make-up air.

Images--range between windows.

ETA, Keith, I've been thinking about your concerns mentioned above. I think it would look OK if you omit the small cabinet to the right of the DW, and use a shorter stub wall. If you want symmetry, you could add a stub wall to the opposite DR corner, m/l to match the stub wall in the LR. The kitchen and family room walls are not in the same plane, so you might need to bump out the stub wall on the right side of the DR. But--there's a slider on that side, so I don't know it adding a short stub wall would affect the traffic to/from the slider. Just something to consider.

Thank you so much for the detailed post. Since doing the dishes is typically my job, this is very helpful information, haha!

I like mamag's layout! FWIW if you are wondering where to put the flatware now that the cabinet next to the DW is gone, if you use a DW with a basket for utensils it's easy to carry the basket around to put clean utensils away. My flatware is stored near my kitchen table, across the room from the DW. Works for me because I just pull out the basket when unloading the DW.

I do hope you pursue this layout -- I think your kitchen would look so pretty with windows flanking the cooktop / hood. And think how nice that will look from your family room! If you're worried about losing upper storage on that wall, you could close off the wall between the LR and kitchen and extend that cabinet run. Your LR becomes a nice quiet away place, and you can then arrange the chairs to face the window, which will be nicer than facing the wall IMO.

I'm glad you and your wife are open to the input you got here.

Love the updated layout even more, mama_goose! The added symmetry on each side of the dining area is awesome. I was all-in already but this is great. Do you think the microwave could be stacked with the ovens? My wife had sent me this picture the other day.

Oh yeah, our architect did mention the Make-Up air but anything beyond that would have been over our heads. He is conscious of it but we will have to bring it up next time we meet. Thanks for the heads up on that.

A few other examples of the table/island combos, perpendicular to the cooktop/range wall:

I googled 'table island combo', and chose the pics with that layout.

There are a lot of examples of MW/wall oven combos, too, but I've read that if one appliance fails, then both need to be replaced. There is a current thread about MW location (Where is your MW?), and someone mentioned a separate MW with a trim kit, stacked above an oven--IIRC.

You might cross-post that question to the Appliance forum, which is also a great place to research MUA.

Just regarding the photo above you said your wife sent you. I'd not choose that kind of hood. It's going to be much harder to find someone to construct and install it than a metal hood. I also don't like corbels near a cooking surface; they will get splattered and make the space feel less open. And that look can veer toward fussy if you aren't careful and confident with its design. Also, a metal hood is easier to wipe clean. If you want a hood with wow factor, check out Modern-Aire hoods. They are pricey, but not more than what is in your photo. Another popular hood manufacturer is VAH.

Modern-Aire hoods photo gallery

"microwave stacked with ovens?"

Those triple stacks are always awkward. At least one item in the stack, and possibly two, are too low or too high. You don't want you or your wife to be reaching up to pull out hot sloshing dishes from a MW on top of a stack of ovens.

Agree with friedajune. I love my drawer MW for functionality (ease of access) and looks (not on the counter.)

You could incorporate a MW into the pantry cabinet beside the fridge, with a cutting board in the drawer below for landing space. A bonus is that the landing space could also be used for items from the fridge.

Mama and Keith, I would get rid of the cabinet in the upper right side. Symmetry is overrated.

Mama's layout is excellent. Here's another idea because I'm a fan of L shaped layouts versus U shaped. I've had both and I dislike having two corner cabinets.

The other thing that bothered me in Mama's is I'd prefer the prep sink across from my cooktop. This creates a T shaped island.

The arrows on both sides of the island point to the direction the drawers would open up. I think you'd actually have room to extend the island towards the dining room a bit since you only need a 36" path between the end of the island and the corner wall.

I would do like I did in my kitchen and make the corner a drawer unit instead of a lazy susan. And of course below the cooktop and on either side all drawers. I LOVE my drawers.

The red line would be upper cabinets that die into the wall. I did that in my kitchen and it's great to even have them as glass cabinets for glasses and some pretties.

Also because I have induction and not gas, I could get away with the hood being the same size as the cooktop. Is it ideal and if I had more room, would I have instead done the wider hood? Absolutely, but for me, I prefer my spices in cabinets on either side of the hood, so it frees up space in the drawers for cooking utensils.

Some T shaped islands

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I like Mama Goose's, but I prefer cpartist L shaped layout. One bonus is that the cleanup sink is not on display. Also you would be prepping facing company and the family room.