Here's an update: I decided to do away with the gothic mullions design on the area next to the fridge. We need a counter there to set things down on (microwave drawer underneath) and I also decided to make this white like the rest of the cabinets. The main concern is that large area further "down" that wall where I want some sort of built-in hutch or something. I like the wall of flush built ins in the wood mode southampton advertisement, but in order to do that we'd need to narrow that section of the kitchen. We cannot push into that wall because there is something on the other side that we cannot move. Should we make that section of the kitchen narrower so we can have a wall of built-in display and storage there? I want something gorgeous, historic-looking, and functional, but cannot figure out what that is and what to do. The whole kitchen's cabinets will go up to the dentil molding near the ceiling. The rest of the house is also a Georgian design so this needs to make sense with that. Please help, I'm super frustrated.

There is no room for stools, unfortunately, with the 42'' aisle. If I put stools in, you wouldn't be able to use that aisle. Once the thing is in, if it looks like they CAN be fitted in, we can reconsider. The thing is, though, that to put it two stools would require 48 inches of counterspace, correct? So with the overall length of 108 inches and 24 of them already committed to end 12'' cabinets, it's 108 (total) -48 (2 stools) -24 (end cabs) =36. This means the storage on the back of the island will be cut to basically 2 18'' drawer stacks, instead of big drawers now. Big loss. I think trash will go under the sink - would be 18'' wide. I thought I would put my cutting boards into the 12'' ft cabinet. They are all so big. You can visit with the cook!! There's an 8-ft wide booth open for your visiting pleasure!!! :) You guys are all so wonderful. This post was edited by nadya1972 on Wed, Jul 2, 14 at 15:34

Granite-girl, No, the estimate was for cabinets, labor & sink. It seems high to me too but this is the first estimate so I don't know if what I'm wanting to do is going to cost this much. I've got other companies I'm working w/ so I'll be able to compare. I'm wondering if the 2 pantries and all the paneling w/ molding detail around the island is making it go up in price. I had an appt. yesterday AM and noticed the initial quote on the desk before some changes we made was around $17K. So after 2 hr appt. the changes I made increased the price $6K!! YIKES... The only changes were the glaze finish which is a 15% upgrade, the additional pantry which includes tearing out a coat closet & fixing wall w/ door, wood veneer w/ molding detail on island, corbels, wider crown molding, a mullion door at bar & decorative detail on spice pull outs next to oven. Does these changes seem like a $6K increase? I like the design except for bar area. I really would like to make the wet bar a desk for laptop, phone etc... I'd like to have a place for a chair and 3 drawers on right side. Not sure if there's enough room between wet bar & island. It's 40" between the two. Does that seem tight if someone was sitting in a chair to pass behind? I've chosen granite for countertops. The quote for granite is $3630 for 77 sq. ft of Level I granite. Additional $540 for Level II w/ standard edge.

Mama_Goose: thanks for the reference pictures, with that style hood I like how it looks with the cabinets spaced away from the hood, it makes it feel more open. Buehl: We have a few more cabinets available than what I've shown in the drawings. In total we have: 4 - 30" base cabinets with doors and a drawer 1 - 30" base cabinet with drawers 1 - 36" sink cabinet (in my layouts, I turned a 30" base cabinet into the sink to enlarge the walk ways 1 - 18" base cabinet with drawers 2 - 24" pantries that are full height 1 - 24" base cabinet with just doors 1 - 40" upper cabinet 1 - 46.5" upper cabinet 1 - 20" upper cabinet 1 - 20" upper cabinet that is short because it goes under a load carrying beam. I also have a 60" base and 60" upper cabinet set that have different dimensions; the base cabinets are 1.5" shorter than the others and the uppers are 3" taller than the others. I have no idea why anyone would do this. The pink walls are load bearing walls. The load bearing wall between the kitchen and dining room would be easy enough to open up, but the one in the living room - kitchen area is not so easy. Benjesbride: I like your layout, but unfortunately we need 4 bedrooms and the office. My husband works from home most days so it's important the office is a separate room (although it doesn't need to be as big as it is now). We've played around with putting the kitchen in the office; but then we'd need to build walls in the current dining room to make that a separate office and I'm afraid that would make the house feel closed off. Zsmith : I'm not a fan of seeing the kitchen when you walk in either, but have kind of resolved myself to it unless we're willing move some load bearing walls. If it weren't for the cathedral ceilings in the living room, the kitchen would work well in the corner where the cherry built-ins are, then put the living room in the kitchen. But that would leave half the living room with cathedral ceilngs and half with 8' ceilings and that would just be weird. (Right?) The dining room is the only space we have for eating (it is not a formal space); we used to let the kids eat breakfast on the floor on the weekends but that ended when we got a dog. I agree that I'd like to create a separation for the entryway. I want to be careful that I don't specialize the dining room for just a dining room in case we change our minds in the future. I was thinking about doing something like this for the separation (someday):