Must politely disagree with davidr. I had recessed lighting in my large basement rec/family room in my previous home and it did a wonderful job keeping the room well lit. I think your plan looks pretty good, but it would be enhanced to also have lamps on side tables that would give you lower light when someone is just sitting and reading, or when you have a fire going and want softer, lower light. You can achieve this with wall sconces, too, but lamps give you more flexiblity and I prefer to leave the walls for art. The one thought I had on your layout is that it is not so good for people sitting and talking to each other as you are all awfully far away from each other! Perhaps moving the TV to the wall opposite the windows and the sofa to the TV spot and then bring the sofas inward off the walls a bit to create a cozier feel. The chairs could then also be moved around to face the TV if needed.

"Our goal is to have a more efficient kitchen that is well organized and looks nice." I don't know how much it would cost to move plumbing lines. In my experience moving the electric for the fridge costs under $100. You should call around and check out the cost of these small changes. You are spending a lot of money to make your kitchen more efficient but if the layout doesn't work for you it doesn't matter how pretty the cabinets are. Before you decide it is too pricey to move some plumbing, find out. If it is about the cost of a base cabinet with drawers, is that too pricey? Yes, you will need an electrician, but he'll probably be there for your lighting anyway. You will probably need a plumber for a few hours. By the way, I never suggested moving the range so the gas lines remain untouched. Why are you going with custom cabs? This is what is perplexing me, because your space doesn't seem to need it and your budget isn't such that you are going all out. Is it because you are able to get beautiful quality cabs locally made at at good price? That would make sense. But still, I feel a need to say it again... You are spending too much money - no matter what it is - to end up with an inferior layout. And I strongly think you have an inferior layout right now. Your work area is too cramped and you have a dance hall in the middle of your kitchen. That is a lot of wasted potential. You are correct - I suggested changing your U-shaped kitchen to an L-shape with an island. Why do you need anything on that empty wall? If you must have cabs on that wall, install some shallow (12") pantry cabs, it'll only make your walkways 6" narrower and give you loads of storage. How much easy access do you need to the pantry? Most kitchens have the pantry out of the main work area because you simply don't need to go to it as often as say, the sink. Spend some time looking at kitchen layouts (either books and mags or the FKB) and notice where the pantries are. I don't like the trash where it is because you have it right in the middle of your prep area. When you are cooking pretty much every meal you are going to be standing right in front of the trash and have to move every time someone needs to throw something away. That is going to get annoying very fast. Move the trash out of your prep zone and into the clean-up zone (to the right of the sink). It is hard for some people to imagine a space being configured in any manner different than it already is. Is that the case here - is your kitchen already in this general layout? I realize this post is pretty blunt. I do not wish to come across as harsh, and apologize if I have. I am just trying hard to get you to look at this project with fresh eyes. I would also encourage you to look at your budget as a whole, which enables you to make compromises. (For instance, maybe install a cab with shelves as opposed to drawers in order to call in a plumber to move the...

Do you have a cellar? If so, moving a water line and maybe new electrical service for fridge is a minimal cost. No cellar, though and it wil be a bit more complicated and expensive. I don't think fridge water lines need drains or vent stacks, do they? Those are the expensive parts of plumbing-in a new point of water access - a single cold supply line is usually not a big deal, what with flexible piping like PEX, etc. I wouldn't write it off as totally out of the budget. Keep it as a floating possibility as you work out the work planning issues. Right now, though, does your food come into the kitchen via car and garage door by current fridge location? Your current drawing has your fridge and main pantry area separated by the entire distance across your kitch. I think it's easier (whenever possible) to be able to snag the ground beef and veg from the fridge at the same time you grab the pasta noodles out of the cupboard. (This is in addition to NYCblue devils very good point that having the fridge out of your main traffic area would be an improvement.) So I'd be thinking of seeing if fridge and a big share of your panrty space can get closer to each other. It also makes thinking about where the stove and prep places should be a little easier if you are thinking of only one (main) food-origin point. Also keep in mind that there are hierarchies of storage as well: there's the stuff you need most days, and the stuff you don't. There's storage of stuff that's used in a special, place or activity-directed ways: coffee stuff and a coffee machine come to mind, as do cereals and ceral bowls; or lunch bags and wax paper and snack-sized bags of chips if you use those. If you bake regularly keeping some flours and baking powder, etc. near you mixer may be a good idea. There are a whole range of ideas, but first ........ Just in case you haven't seen if before (apologies to all who have!) I'll add my customary rec. to think of your plan first as an analysis of how your food travels through the room from arrival > storage (dry and cold) > prep space (sometimes, but not always including a water tap there) > cooking > plating (directly to individual plates or to platters) > eating area > return for tableware clean-up and leftover stowage > finally to think about where the sink/DW are relative to where the kitchen stuff is stowed (best arranged either by first use and/or stowage convenience depending on criticality. Once you think of how your food (and to some degree all of your kitchen clabber, as well) moves, you're also thinking about you travel around with it, since it doesn't get there on its own! And now we're talking efficiency, the Holy Grail of a great kitchen design. No kitchen (even one created from scratch in a luxury new build) can get to perfection, but if you think about your work zones and how they can help or hinder you while you're in the kitchen, you'll be pointed in the right direction. At this early stage, I'd post,pone concerns about cost or style for the moment. Don't think, "Oh but I have a budget I can't not think of that." I'm not saying that you should pretend money doesn't matter, because it does even for the most extravagant of kitchens. Just do your thinking in layers. Work flow & process first. Then determine how you can get there with whatever your budget is. It's much easier to do the inevitable cost trade-offs if you can articulate the relative importance of an improvement in work flow efficiency for the various changes you want to make. Don't think style is left out, either; what's in your mind's eye and on your wishlist are still very important things. But, again, once you have a clear view of what it will take to arrange your kitchen effectively, the style decisions are much easier and you don't risk spending $$$ on something that doesn't work out as well as you'd hoped. You're planning to buy new cabs anyway, so it probably won't matter from an economic point of view whether you buy the same ones currently on your plan, or a different assortment designed for optimal efficiency. Think about how you cook and serve and eat now. While a new kitchen may make it more likely and fun to do that differently, there's no guaranntee that your kitchen is the only factor influencing currrent choices. Don't be downcast if you thought you were ready to place the cab order tomorrow and I (and other posters) raise questions that will require some more analysis and thinking about your choices. Some of our suggestions and ideas (some of mine, at least) will be duds for you. But you would do well (as I did once I figured it out back when I was seeking suggestions for my plan) to reject nothing out of hand as impossible. You will learn useful things about your own ideas if only in clarifying in your own mind why a particular idea won't for you. I'll get you started: Begin with the point the food arrives. I would find it more convenient to unload the grocery bags if I have a counter and it is close to a majority of all the food storage, dry and cooled. That way a bag with lemons, ice cream, crackers, snacks and dish soap wouldn't be a marathon just to get it stowed. OTOH, assuming your food comes in through the garage door, just plunking the pantry space close to it has some other consequences: it means that any food-seeker has to intrude in main cooking/prep work zone which is also not a good thing. Since you have a gas stove and a vent hood in place there may be some importance to keeping those items close to their positions for economy's sake. So how about getting that fridge over to the pantry wall and tentatively locating the storage zone on that end of the kitch? (Moving a water line for the fridge is far cheaper than moving a gas line and exhaust vent stack under almost all circs.) Don't think about specific cab arrangement at this point - just circle the area and call it the storage zone. Now there's prep. And this requires more info and thought because it begins to deal with what you cook and how. Some simple stuff first: Do you nuke a fair amount of food dishes directly from the freezer: the MW should be closer to fridge than cooking area in that case. Do you use one of those coffee machines - I think I see one: the coffee stuff and machine should be closer to storage zone (with cups or mugs stored there, too.) I see you use bottled water. For everything, even cooking water for pasta? For coffee? At what point is it used? If just for drinking then plan on moving it to the periphery, with the glasses. If you need it for all potable uses, it has to stay near-er by. If you use it for ice, then you're filling the trays by hand and then a water hook-up for the fridge doesn't matter. Do you bake from scratch regularly-enough to need a specific baking area, perhaps with a lower counter? If not, then pass this notion by. (Assuming here you don't keep Kosher, or have major allergies or food issues, as you would noted those?) Now we're getting closer to the main prep issues: what do you eat for breakfast, who preps it? Do you pack lunches? And what do you cook for dinner, and how often? (Leave special stuff like holidays, parties, canning aside for the moment.) If your fridge has been re-homed in the storage zone, then you've got some serious counterspace to the left of the stove. If your food moves from the storage to the prep on the left side of the stove it's a longish trip, but it can make a pit stop if necessary across the aisle for any needed water or later for mid-prep hand washing. Many people find it more useful to move the trash to the prep area. How about at least moving the trash to the right side and moving the DW to the left side of the sink. This might further lengthen you counter space there. You could store every day dishes to the left of the DW; prep tools and pots and pans to the left of the range; baking and bowls and the stuff you use a lot of in cooking to the right of the range making the DW easy to unload. Your fancier, or less-used dishes can be out of the way along the garage wall cabs. Or you could use part of that area storage of dry food items used in prep a lot but not replenished often, or back stock: spices, oils, flour, onion and potatoes in baskets if that's how you store them. Now, note that I've only used your existing cab foot print plan. There are probably other, most likely even better, suggestions than can be imagined by you and other posters. This is just an idea to get you thinking of food pathways before other things. Another final thing to think about: I see you've got a kitchen table now; after your reno you're thinking of havng eating positions across from the sink at a counter. You have a big dining table, as well. What are your hopes for where you're going to eat? The dining table looks to be out in a kind of open foyer? Do you think it's likely that you will find that space inviting for eating every night, or are you swapping out the cozy face-to-faceness of a kitchen table for the bleakness of lunch counter seating and a hope that the four of you will carry your food to the big table with benches in the foyer? Have you tried eating out there for a month or so, now to find if you like it? HTH L.

What Jamie said. Unless you use the chair to watch TV. Right now, the chair is blocking entry into the room and the couch and chair are both too far away from the TV. So, TV to the left of the fireplace. Sofa facing the fireplace. Chair on the right of the fireplace. Bookcases on the wall opposite the window.