I'm not into tearing up perfectly good kitchens, so all of these ideas about accommodating a 30" range with alternative cooking assists sound fine to me. Let me play devil's advocate. What about the oven? I have a friend with a 36" ordinary household range, which she loves. Nowhere near the power of a BlueStar, but the size serves her well. The oven capacity makes it possible for her to cook whole meals for a dozen or more people, including heating appetizers and breads while the mains are cooking, and starting pies as the first sides come out. Are you gaining any storage if you have to devote it to extra hotplates and warming devices? OTOH, will one 36" range be enough for your 5-6 dozen people meals? Will you need the extra devices anyway? And why are you getting a BlueStar? Because you're happy with the way you're cooking now? Yes, you're managing. I managed to cook and bake with an underpowered cooktop and an oven with no temperature control. I managed to cook and bake with two gas rings and a wonder pot. But how do you want to cook? Will having a larger range just plain make your life easier? Will it help cut down on the logistical planning of what your kitchen can do, rather than what you want to do? Or will you feel restricted with anything short of a hotel sized kitchen? Yes, cutting down the cabinets to accommodate a larger range and hood is a big mess, and once you start cutting up existing cabinets/counters you open yourself to potential problems. But is it worth giving up your desire for a larger range because of lack of will to go for it? A lot of people talk about putting in their interim best and never actually get the kitchens they really want. It's not worth ransoming your future for, but if you have the disposable income, is it worth forgoing a vacation trip for? I knew I had to redo my kitchen when the house was bought, but put it off for a few years to grow the money, and then a few more because of other life stuff. Looking back, though I'm thrilled with my new kitchen, I realize that I gave up an awful lot of stuff settling for the old one and being practical. I really did have the money before (just not so much liquidity, which could have been fixed), but didn't have the will to be less practical. Can't get back the lost opportunities and meals not cooked. Sigh.

There are a lot of pluses about your latest plan but I'm sorry to see you lose the symmetry of the range and hood centered on the FR fireplace chimney. Generally, I'll choose function over symmetry but this was such a nice feature of your kitchen that I thought I'd see if there was a way to keep it along with the other items on your wish list. I also am not keen about pushing the range into the corner of the peninsula since that will make it harder for more than one person to work at the range at the same time. Additionally, I think you'd find the shallow pantry space behind the fridge difficult to use IRL (looks to be 2' or 3' total with shelving taking up close to half the width, that's tight!). I also don't like the pinch point (looks to be about 3') between the hallway table and the pantry wall corner. I also think you'll be happier with keeping the full hallway width at the bottom of the stairs, not just for daily life but for when you move furniture in and out (trust me, I have pinch points I didn't realize I'd have when we built our home and it's made furniture moving a PITA). So here's what I came up with: It's an amalgam of my C, C-1 and D plans with a twist. ;-) I kept the general L shape of your kitchen with the range centered on chimney, clean-up sink under the south wall windows, prep sink on island across from range and deck door on the south wall. I also kept the fridge on the wall facing the range, near the DR. The big change I made is swapping the walk-in pantry for a row of 15" deep cabinets on either side of a window seat on the north wall. The cabs may cost more than framing, sheetrocking and adding shelves to a walk in pantry but this gives you a window seat without the cost of a bump-out so it may be an even money swap - or perhaps even cheaper. The 15" cab depth is great for storing small appliances and all manner of items, plus it gives you a combined total of 105 cu ft of storage (wow!). You can also go with 12" deep cabs for a total of 84 cu ft of storage, roughly the same as what you'd planned for in your very first plan. That gains you a bit more aisle at the kitchen and FR entries. Landing space for pantry items is across the aisle, in some places, farther than preferred but I opted to retain adequate aisles over that convenience. The cabinet on the side of the fridge, facing the north wall, can be your Command Central: the place for household paperwork, school schedules, etc. If you give up a few inches of aisle between the side of the fridge and the exterior kitchen door, you could add serving platter storage on the side of the fridge like this (but part of the fridge cab): [[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/miriam-manzo-traditional-kitchen-toronto-phvw-vp~119816) [Traditional Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2107) by Woodbridge Interior Designers & Decorators miriam manzo That would be a nice view from the DR. There are a couple drawbacks with this plan. One, the closest fridge landing space is on the island - awkward if someone is sitting there. You could also use the counter next to the sink (to the right looking at this plan) but at more than 5' away, that's farther than recommended (I estimated that the distance allotted for the deck door, from corner to counter is 48". I based my calculations on that figure. If it's more or less, the distance between fridge and counter corner will adjust accordingly). Shift the fridge 6" closer to the deck door and you'd reduce the distance from 5' 8" to a little less than 5' 4". Still farther than recommended but somewhat better. The other drawback is that the two diners seated at the corner are a bit cozier than recommended. You could address this by reducing an aisle to lengthen the island. For instance, you could reduce the range aisle. A long-time GWer and lay-out guru rhome410 - she has a family of 10, as her name implies - purposely planned for a 36" aisle between her range top and her island. She wanted to discourage traffic from going past the range - she has wider aisles elsewhere - and she wanted a short distance between prep sink and range top for an easy pivot while prepping. Even though the aisle is narrower than recommended for a one- or two- cook kitchen, it works well for her. She's posted pics of 2 or 3 people working in this space - with a dog at their feet - to show that it works for them. Since you have a range, not a range top, I don't think I would go less than 39" so that you can accommodate an open oven door. I'm not recommending you do this, just suggesting it. You'll need to do some mock-ups to see what works for you. You could also steal an inch or two or three from the fridge aisle. Just keep in mind that the aisle width I show is counter to counter, not counter to fridge door or handle. Those take up a few inches, which is not including in the aisle width. That's one reason why I made this aisle more generous than 4' so that there's room for the fridge doors and room to walk behind seated diners. Or you could live with a tight corner for the times you seat 5 at the counter. Anyhoo, I thought I'd throw this out there for you to consider. It's good to have options. ;-) One more thing: we haven't talked about MW placement. If you can swing it, I'd opt for a MW drawer on the sink run or in the island, closest to the fridge. Here is a link that might be useful: Friday is Pizza, Monday is Soup, rhome410's blog

Someone mentioned above about "common" kitchens having ranges, not wall ovens. And lots of common folks "age in place". My own mom lived and cooked with a 30" cheapo electric range until she was 93 and finally had to leave her house and come live with us. My own kitchen is bigger than Mom's was, but still doesn't have enough counter space that I'd want to sacrifice any for wall ovens. I probably have as much space, maybe a little more than the OP. I intend to keep bending and lifting as long as I'm able, whether loading/unloading the oven or DW, wiping up after the dog, or laying out sewing patterns, as long as I am able. It is rather unrealistic to expect to have everything you want to do at eye level for one's entire life.

Pretzels. I was all set to start them yesterday. I'd read through a recipe which sounded interesting, but had been a little uneasy about it. I think I've used one of her recipes before. It took actually starting the mise en place that I figured it out! It was supposed to be "sourdough" and used a goodly measure of starter, but it was really sourdough flavor, or maybe just a use up discard recipe. I also called for 2 tsp. yeast (a packet is 2 1/4 tsp.)! So then I found a different well written recipe, but it called for active starter, so I had to do a quick feed and wait for it to bubble. The recipe is actually similar in many ways to the bread recipe in the top post. It calls for shaping the pretzels while the dough is cold. I did my best, but there was a point beyond which they wouldn't stretch. I have lots of experience making long ropes of bread dough, but the chill, and the tightness of the gluten just wouldn't go beyond a certain length without bouncing back. So these aren't likely to stack on a dowel. :) I loved the idea, from both, of decorating with seeds. I also have some pretzel salt, so will use a little. Right now they're "warming up" before the soda bath and bake. Something very interesting happened to the starter. I had done the previous feeding with the AC+. For the point where it was divided off my Whole Wheat starter, years ago, I've feed the white starter mostly with KA AP (except when I was out). One, I say 1, feeding with AC+ and it was a totally different texture. This is cold from the fridge, but still with height from the last feeding. No spongelkie holes! No wonder I couldn't find them in the risen dough that was going to be Vienna bread, which is what sent me off in my own bake off the dough adventure. Not only was there a lack of lace in the loft, it was thick and putty like, and tore rather than separated. There's something strange and magical about that flour! I'll be back after the boiling. :)