Cotehele - Wow... what a gorgeous kitchen! Thanks for posting the eye candy as well as your layout. There sure is a lot of storage space in the shallow cabinets. Right now (depending what we find after we take down the drywall), we are planning a shallow cabinet facing the walkway, not in the kitchen per se. I hope we will be allowed to do that! Lynnski - I can easily see how the short pull outs could be really useful for cans. I have seen something similar to that idea with all the cans laying flat so that you could read the labels. Marcolo - Now you are just scaring me! LOL Especially that last photo! But it does give me pause... if I had two doors covering the base cabinet, maybe having two pull outs side by side, one behind each door, would be a better way to handle it. That way, you didn't have to open both doors to pull out one shelf. Hmmmmm Oh no... I just looked back at that last image and they have toe kick drawers! Might have to think about those little buggers :) Fori - Yes... you are correct. I am definitely on the short side. Livewireoak originally suggested the 30" deep cabinets and 15" uppers... I didn't even think of another option. But sure... add 6" here, add 6" there, is there any reason why not to go to 18" deep uppers? Sounds good to me! Of course, now I might have to use one of Marcolo's contraptions posted above to enjoy all that space! As for the dry cereal... what else is for dinner in a minute or less minutes when you haven't gone shopping! I have already measured the cereal boxes... did you know they are not all the same size? LOL Good idea bout the spice drawer. I should do some planning there! I love the input and all the creative ideas. Thank you!

Buehl-- we're hoping that the spare bedroom upstairs will end up becoming the new playroom, and some stuff will be in their rooms. We'll end up with a small toy chest in the living room and the rest upstairs. So the whole "new space" thats created when we take down the wall will just be kitchen and dining room. After seeing Raenjapan's kitchen I may be swayed back to keeping the kithen to the left side and moving the bench for the banquette along the 94" wall and putting a penninsula between the other two windows. Lyvia-- the two 24" bases you see in the current kitchen are actually an island with a strange overhang. I wouldn't be able to put a fridge there. (I know the drawing is a little confusing, it was drawn mostly to show the layout of the first floor.) I also think I won't really have room for two separate seating areas in the kitchen, even if one is really small. Once I start drawing things in, and factoring in wide enough walkways it gets crowded fast. nini & florantha-- seems like G-shaped kitchens are more popular than I thought!!! That is what I origianlly was thinking for the kitchen (towards the left of the empty floorplan above). I love hearing that you have this same thing and it works for you. Also, we currently have Austrailan Cypress flooring in about 75% of the downstairs and plan to push it right through the new kitchena nd dining space as well. Its really beautiful (here is the internet pic.) LRy-- I think the pendants are from Ikea. if not, they are almost identical. If you go to their website ikea-usa.com I think under other departments they list lighting, and its 3 or 4 pages in. $29.99!! I saw them last weekend in person and fell in love. They are really sharp looking. Mnerg-- there are LOTS of possibilities with this blank space. TOO many! LOL! I am having a terrible time making up my mind. I keep worrying I won't ever get it right! I have also considered a small movable table for the center of the kitchen. I guess if I end up with a large center space I can always buy something like that to hang out in the middle when I need it to. Thanks everyone for all the help!!

This is for a new house, so there's no existing plumbing to consider. I know the pipes could be offset, like they do for wheelchair users, but that doesn't even seem necessary. All our cabinetry will be built by a local shop; our GC usually builds higher-end houses than ours, which I've seen, so I'm confident he has some cabinetmakers who can handle this. So, let me check my figures. If my 14" to the left of the center pipe is correct, we remove 3/4" for plywood carcass on that side, let's say a generous 1" on the left side of the drawers for their sides and clearance. And 2" on the right side for the drawer sides, 3/4" plywood vertical piece , and clearances. Frameless cabinetry, with undermount drawer slides. I've got 9.5" left as the interior drawer width. That is HUGE in that space. (Remember, I have 2 drawers now totally 8" and it's sufficient for my needs.) I think for sure I could have 8" interior dimension. And I'll have a stack of them. The ones below can be used by other people, since I can't reach them. jon: No offense here, but I don't understand why it would be difficult for a competent cabinetmaker to make this simple cabinet. What am I missing here? He doesn't have to make shaped drawers, like Blum's sink wraparound drawer. He just has to measure correctly. And he'll charge me more to measure accurately? Custom cabinet shops are surely used to building things a little different than what I can buy off the shelf. I guess if they want too much money, then DH, who is a relatively new cabinetmaker, can make it himself for a lot less money. He just finished one for another bath. I have furniture for him to build, so I don't want to sidetrack him on this project, but I can. And I can do the design work. This cannot be that hard. Also, the cabinet shop is getting the work for the entire house, with built-ins in kitchen, laundry, mudroom and 3 baths, including medicine cabinets and wall cabinets there. They should be able to make us a reasonable price on this.

Zelmar - I have the Ikea cleaning closet fittings too, but mine have 3 tiers. I never noticed it pulled out until I saw your post and then went to the closet! I use the top one for plastic bags (just keep cramming them in) and the bottom 2 for cleaning stuff. I never thought to pull it out.... I guess you learn something new every day :) I'd just lay out the dishtowels for drying and then toss them in the laundry room or laundry basket on my next trip passing by. If you leave them in the kitchen, you risk forgetting to put them in the next load. I would not want to accumulate linens with bacteria and whatnot on them for any length of time, esp in the kitchen. The container that holds them would need to be cleaned often as it would be bound to collect germs.