The travel distances in the kitchen are excessive and inefficient. You have created too many work counters too far apart for one person. I find your comment intriguing. You are clear in conveying the gist of your opinion but you've completely left out any reference to WHY you hold this opinion. Why are the travel distances in an 8x12 open space excessive and inefficient? Is there a kitchen designer's study which suggesst kitchen designers limit the point to point travel to less than 12'? Is that what you're basing your opinion on? As for the inefficiency, here too I'm lost. Efficiency is a concept related to productivity, at least when it refers to human labor. Most of the labor in a kitchen involves either work at the sink, fridge or stove. This kitchen design minimizes travel between these fixtures. To the right of the stove is 5'6" of counter space before the sink interupts the work space. Within easy reach of the fridge are two counters upon which I can place items removed from the fridge. In terms of labor productivity I think that the kitchen works efficiently. What are you seeing that I'm missing? On the side of the kitchen opposite the work triangle is the dishwasher and plenty of uninteruptted counterspace. This counterspace has a grain mill at the end, it allows for baking to take place without intruding on the work triangle, it allows for me to place 60 canning jars without worrying about crowding, it allows me to place any gadgets that I decide I simply must have. Now perhaps you're concluding that the space is being inefficiently used because it's not being used as centrally or as frequently as the space within the work triangle and if so, yes, I'll cop to that, it's not, but if this is the line of your criticism, then it should be the case that every kitchen that incorporates space outside of a work triangle is using space inefficiently. Rather than me guessing WHY you reach your conclusion it would help me to have you TELL me WHY. What would help me even more is a suggestion from you on what I should do differently. That would be golden. A statement that the layout is inefficient and excessive doesn't help me much at all. A better configuration is a double loaded work area with support elements either side like a pantry or pastry station that you would not use as often as the central area and appliances. What is a "double loaded work area" and how would 1 person use this work area efficiently? Other than the bar sink I have located in the area outside of the triangle, what else, specifically would you suggest be included to make my time in the kitchen proceed more efficiently? If you think the basic design, a G-Kitchen, is beyond salvage, what would you suggest replace that layout? The kitchen is overly generous with space, the stair is an overly grand staircase but the entrance is into a cramped back hall with far too many doors. The elements of the house seem oddly out of scale with each other. In another thread I wrote that I couldn't offer an informed critique of someone else's plan until I knew what was guiding their choices. In this thread, in my original post, I wrote the following: The requirements were: - Big kitchen, disproportionately so compared to the remainder of the rooms. So I find it odd that, after you chimed in and agreed with me in the other thread that you needed to know more about the other person's goals before you could offer feedback, that here, knowing that I want a large kitchen, your feedback to me is "The kitchen is overly generous with space." The entrace isn't into a "cramped back hall", it's into a "cramped vestibule." Most vestibules are cramped, it's kind of the nature of the beast, isn't it? I agree that there are too many doors. I've since remedied that by removing two doors, so now the vestibule has an entry door, a closet door and two glass doors leading into the home. I moved the powder room to the back of the home and created more landing space around the bottom of the stairs and I removed the closet door on the right side of the house, across from the stairs and I use that volume of enclosed wall for a built-in accessable from the living room. See below: The space at the center of the staircase is to be used by a curving masonry bench which forms part of the fireplace and which will retain some of the heat from the fireplace. I've experienced such benches in my travels in Europe and I really enjoyed curling up on them and reading, or napping, after coming inside from a cold day of skiing. The gentle radiative heat seeping into my bones was luxurious. I admit that the inclusion of this space now is a design compromise but it's one that I'm happy to make for it gives me a space that I will use, it creates more radiative mass into which heat can be stored and it's out of the ordinary. It wasn't a "must have" but as a space filler it hits the mark on a number of fronts, far better than how I see people fill up space in their homes with chairs of tables that will never be used. The space at the foot of the stairs is available for a table, art, a build-in of some sort. The space midway up the stairs allows for a shelf for a plant next to a window. The staircase is overly grand. I've been struggling with how to incorporate it without wasting a lot of space. It's been quite a struggle. If I did away with the curve and went to a simple straight staircase I could slice a 6'x 15' section off of the plans and make an even smaller home, thereby making the kitchen disprortionately larger in a smaller home. Look, my garage is 24x24, space for my truck, motorcycle,sports car plus room to spare at the front. I'll have a metal/wood workshop in a separate barn. I have a large kitchen. These are all spaces that are useful to me. My dining room is small because I don't have large family gatherings and when I have guests it is only every a handful of people, a lady friend over for dinner, a buddy over for beer and to watch a game, one or two couples over for an evening - there are no grand dinner parties where I have 20 people crammed into my house. The living room is primarily for my own use but has space for 6 people sitting around conversing - I don't need space for more people and I don't need space, like a family of six would, for 6 people doing their own things in the LR - when I have six people in that room, I can assure you that one won't be watching TV, while another is reading, while another is doing needlepoint, and while two others are playing Monopoly. In the basement will be the utility and laundry rooms. I'll have an endless pool down there, a sauna or possibly a steamroom, I haven't decided yet, as well as a workout room of some size, and open space for whatever may strike my fancy in the future. Upstairs will have two master suites and an office if I can squeeze it in and if not, no matter, I can do office work anywhere in the house because I don't have kids or a spouse to distract me, so I don't need to cocoon myself away to find a quiet space to work. The elements of the house seem oddly out of scale with each other. There is some truth to this. Large kitchen, large garage (considering many 2 car garages are 20x20 or thereabouts), large staircase, fair sized mastersuite, small dining room, small living room. I'm not sure what I should be doing about this though. Should I scale back all the large rooms where I want space or should I scale up the the LR/DR where I don't want space and should I make my mastersuite larger or smaller and should I do away with the secondary mastersuite which might be used by one of my parents at some point in the future if they move in? Any suggestions? Criticism is useful, to a degree, but what really helps people in the design phase are actual, concrete, suggestions and alternatives. As I noted in the thread title, fresh eyes and fresh ideas would help me a lot.

lindanj - the company is "Cottage Home" and they sell tables made from reclaimed English pine, as well as painted farm tables and furniture made out of barn wood. They also have a nice selection of hutches and such. I may end up purchasing a hutch from them also, but I need to see how the table and chairs work in my space first. If you go to the link below and scroll down, you'll see one of their "Winston" trestles on the right side and the table just below that has the breadboard top that I ordered. They don't have a photo yet of the "Chateau" trestle base that I'm having built, but it's based on the RH table. It's nice because I was able to customize it and order an 8' table. I also ordered the 18" extension leaves, but those are extra. My table is made from reclaimed wood and will be rough hewn, but won't have the weathered gray tones like the RH table. That's fine for me because my furnishings lean more towards the brown tones and I have my choice of a light, medium, or dark brown wax finish. The company is in Maine but I was told that my table is being built in California. If you call, they are more than happy to answer any questions that you might have. They're even sending me a sample of the wood in the light brown wax. Here is a link that might be useful: Cottage Home English pine tables

I'm looking at that island with the large plant on it and wondering what you do with that surface. I would use it for prep on one end, although the rangetop takes up the middle half of the space. And I'd put foods ready for the table on the other end of the island. I'd have a rule that NOTHING extraneous can be plunked on that island, that it was only to be used for meal prep and subsequent aftermeal cleanup. Because I'm a sitter not a stander when I do prep, I look for a place to sit. A built-in cutting board that you pull out + a stool would render that island much more useful to me. And the plant can go sit on the floor in the living room. In my life, the prep flow goes this way... 1) bring meat/veg from refrig/freezer or produce from garden or onions and spuds from pantry closet to the prep sink. 2) decide what I'm going to do with them and gather recipe book, prep equipment and pans, casseroles, etc. 3) wash what needs washing and lay it out to air dry--in old kitchen before I had a second sink, I used a separate small basin for this if the sink had items in it or was full of dishwater. Even my big pans got used for veg washing sometimes. 4) chop on pull-out chopping board, send refuse into temp compost container (veg matter) or trash (meat scraps, wrappers) or recycle container (cans, plastic); put chopped material into a holding container or begin throwing it into casserole or cooking pan. If there is no trash bin at hand, you need to have a temp trash container also. Nothing more irritating than having to get up to go a distance to throw away chicken fat or meat wrappings or ____ (fill in blank). 5) boil it / fry it / bake it / send it out for grilling / or assemble it if it's a salad. The range should be close by the chopping area and finished foods should be set out on area designated for transport 6) check over finished foods so they're ready haul to table--garnish, salt, remove covers, find hotpad, locate dressing, get serving spoon, etc. In your kitchen, the flow would go from one end of island to the other along the aisle, with short turns toward the sink side for certain steps. The closer these activities can be conducted the more useful the prep zone is to me. Because you have a second walkpath, no one else will dare walk into your prep zone, right? If they do, you need a rule here to keep them out. You need a different zone for after-meal cleanup, even if it's an overlap with the prep. And one for baking and use of oven. And one for food preservation if you're into that. And so forth. Rethink your zones and you'll rethink your flow. If you can add to your chopping area, you can improve your chopping zone. Could you have a pull-up addition to one end of your island so that you can stand/sit with legs under the working surface? ___ I can't tell what you are showing us in the photo of the blue wall with the white open cabs. It's nice display space but if you need storage, reclaim that space by putting the doors back on and get yourself some cabinet organizers if necessary, such as the one that allows stacks of plates. Decide how you're going to use the counterspace--perhaps turn it into a baking zone, with a pull-out surface for rolling dough? You have plenty of space there for food processor & mixer to sit out, ready to play. Put custom fabric bags over their heads if you think they'll get dusty when not in use. Add canisters of flour &c if you need them. ___ Have you rethought your cabinet contents? Looked into roll-outs and repositioning the interior shelves of your lower cabs? We did this as an experiment before we tore out our old kitchen. One roll-out unit made all the difference on the bottom shelf of a nasty deep cabinet with unused items at back. We put the unit into our redone kitchen later. Why didn't we buy these things years ago, we asked ourselves. About $35-50 at Menards, I think. Same with roll-out units under the sink--duplex ones can relieve the clutter under the sink.

I recommend that you check out what you can do to reveal the brickwork and stonework around your windows and setbacks. I don't know what can be scraped off, but I don't think ornamental shutters will look good on top of them. A fiberglass fabricator could probably embellish the columns in several ways, including providing squared off caps and footings Actually moving them needs to be checked out carefully for structure support, which I presume you know. I still don't favor moving the columns to create a wide opening. In the part of the world where I live (New England) a wide columned portico is almost an iconic logo for a senior living facility, as directional as the MacDonald's arch If it isn't so where you live, don't worry about it. I quite like the idea of creating a balcony, and for that money, I'd make it so I could use it, with double doors leading out to it and safe support underneath. (I think I'd skip the ground level railings and maybe increase the size of the oval window.) But it would be a good investment I think.