I have a 102" long peninsula that I planned to hang 3 pendant lights. It's a "U" shaped kitchen with the peninsula as one arm of the open "U", and wall cabinets across the closed part of the "U" How close to the cabinets should I position the first pendant. Obviously I need space to open the door (it's an 18 inch cabinet) and take dishes out without hitting the pendant.

Is there a way for you to post a floor plan? I have a hard time visualizing the spacing of the pendants in the space without the perspective a bird's eye view would give. My pendants are over a 9' x 45" island, a much simpler space than you have, and I had to sit down with paper and pencil and actually put the "circles" of the pendants on the rectangle of island before I could decide what to do. I've also heard several designers say that if you do a scale drawing and it looks right you can be pretty sure that it will be right when you install something.

@colorfast - Yep, a happy dilemma - or at least an important one! Upon reflection, it is sort of interesting that once we decided to take down the wall, I had never even once considered my current U layout. Until I happened upon your thread and some others which might have actually been linked from yours. Maybe that was because it seemed so obvious I had to have an island these days? I'm not sure but accomodating 2 decent-sized walkways is about 90" in any kitchen is a lot of my total space. There are only 2 ways to make the island bigger that I can see, though please chime in if I am missing other options: 1 - Eliminate the L and put the stove or sink on the island, which minimizes bare counter space again but would allow me to extend the island to the right about 30 inches 2 - Keep the L but deepen the island so the seating part extends past the beam (my concern with that is that the island extends out of the kitchen in a way that might seem unbalanced?). I have earlier snapshots of both options, for what it is worth. Galley/island kitchen: L with big island: Overhead: It seems to me that Aliris' comment gets to the 'feel' of an island. There's just something freeing about open space. Given my partner's spontaneous comment, perhaps that appeals as much to adults as kids. I can see my cats playing stalking games with the island as well - hopefully not while we are trying to dump pasta water. As I've said, though, I've never lived with an island or open concept so this is all just my imagination and I'm sure my kitchen is going to feel a whole lot more open with the wall down and backsplash window than it does now and I can be happy with that if that's the way I need to go. Palimpsest's comment resonates with me, though, too. I am probably dating myself but I was raised in a world where children were taught manners, that they were not the center of the universe no matter how cute or clever, to not interrupt when adults were talking and were told to go away (outside) and FIND something to do. I think a lot of that was good for kids (and schools, society and adult relationships), especially given the normal/healthy narcissism of childhood thinking patterns. I've been rather flabbergasted to watch my peers parent so differently than how we were raised, though I'm sure there are exceptions. It's a pretty fascinating cultural process to analyze each generation's parenting and what it produces for society, good and bad. That being said, even in the best of situations, mistakes happen and taking safety considerations into kitchen design seems sensible to factor in. OP RULE: Everyone can weigh in on the parenting issue as long as they vote on my dilemma first. lol

To save money and because I love my granite countertops, we're reusing them. So some things are set in stone (literally). Everything to the left of the sink can't be moved (especially the gas stove). I can rearrange what's under the countertop to the right (so I could switch the dishwasher to be closer to the sink, but when the kitchen was u-shaped, I had put the silverware drawer to the right of the sink and the dishes in the cabinet above it so I could easily put things away - whether from the sink or the dishwasher. I can still move some stuff around because the cabinet maker hasn't come yet to build the missing base cabinet (24") and the new 21" cabinet which I designed to go all the way down to the countertop (like the corner pantry next to the fridge to use as a pantry since we don't have a lot of storage space for food. The countertop on the island is only 14" deep because the bar was already in place when the countertops were installed. I could remove the bar and make the countertop all one height but it would probably leave an ugly seam and the grains would go in different directions. Everyone in the family is tall (except my MIL in her wheelchair) and there isn't that much seating, so the bar stools are/were actually used a lot