First of all, I am so sorry you have had these ongoing problems. I believe you may have several factors all interacting to cause the situation. Here is some background info for your general knowledge. Your home's system was likely designed for the a sample home in your subdivision. With a particular floor plan, number of windows, room sizes, and facing a certain direction (north, east, etc.) Then as options are added like a vaulted ceilings (which increase the cubic feet of air that must be conditioned, possibly changes positions of ductwork, and may also mean that the attic insulation changed from the sample home) it may be that the heating and cooling system was not re-calculated for these changes. Even if you have more windows facing east or west vs. north and south can make a difference in the cooling load of a home. Skylights, insulation, what type of glass all make a difference. This is a pretty common problem. So what I am saying, is that unless you have another home in your subdivision by the same builder, with the same floor plan and options AND facing the same direction, then you may not have any examples to compare to your home. IF you can find such a house, I suggest finding out if they have had problems like yours, and what they have done to solve them. So, how to fix your house. I recommend calling 1 or 2 heating and cooling distributors in your area, and asking them to recommend a dealer to use to do a load calculation and ductwork analysis on your home. Or call 3-5 residential heating and cooling dealers in your town and ask the same thing. Say that you are not in a big hurry, and that you want to work with the person there that has the best experience and expertise. I suspect that you may find that your ductwork is too small in size. I also suspect you may find that the size of your system is too small as well. If this is the case, there are different options on how to best fix this problem. But I cannot stress this enough--in our ductwork training we learn that "you cannot power your way out of too-small ductwork" Think of air like a liquid. If you need to move more air, you need to address the ductwork capacity. If it is too restrictive, it can't fit any more air in it to move through it. Also, is your too-warm space next to the garage or basement that is not being conditioned? This may also be a factor when comparing your home to others in your neighborhood. I wish I had better news, but I think you have a pretty complex situation, and need to find someone who will help you.

I don't know how this would look, but what if you removed the soffit and the cabs on the sink wall? Switch the sink wall cabinet to the range wall--you have 23" between corner and window. That might provide more balance to that wall--there's something about it that looks off to me. I think it's all the height and bulk in the middle of the wall and the unevenly-spaced windows. Or could the stove and window be shifted down and that wall be made more symmetrical without the soffit? I'm not sure about keeping the single cabinet over the DW, but I think two shelves for mugs and coffee supplies could work. Then that corner becomes a coffee corner. How tall will the crown be on your cabinets? When I add 36" base cabs + 18" between counter and bottom of upper cabs + 48" upper cabinets, I get 102", the height of your ceilings. I think those 48" uppers aren't allowing for crown. I am concerned that all your wall cabinets will look very tall and skinny and not really hold much. I can't believe how many times I edited this post! I must need a nap! This post was edited by may_flowers on Tue, Feb 11, 14 at 20:35

You're welcome. Can you put a lower counter below the one window on the left wall? If it's the right height for a baking counter, say 33", that would make a nice baking center for you. If that's possible, here's another idea. Move the DO to the lower end of the left wall with a pantry cab between it and the wall. Then add a lower counter below the window, spanning the distance between DO cabs and cabs on upper side of the left wall. Then turn the island perpendicular to its present position and shift it over to give you enough aisle space between perimeter cabs and island. Rhome has only 36" between prep area and cooktop and it works for her but most prefer 42". This eliminates the butt to butt problem of sink, DW and cooktop. On the backside of the island, go with a raised curved counter with seating facing the baking center. This eliminates the in-a-row seating that makes conversation harder and also provids a buffer between seaters and cooktop activity (a pop-up downdraft helps with that, too). These changes mean that fridge traffic no longer crosses the work zones so you can eliminate the undercabinet fridge. You can increase to a 36" fridge if you need more room. Oh, one thing just popped out at me. You wrote that you're doing standard depth fridge but your plan shows a fridge with CD dimensions. A standard depth fridge will stick out several inches more than you show. You could take the money you would have spent on a fridge and undercab fridge and get a CD fridge instead and gain more aisle space. I'm talking stand alone, not built-in. If the window doesn't allow for a 33" or 34" counter, you could still put one in front of it, just do a "floating" counter. A GWer did such a thing for her sink in an old house. Wish I could remember who it was.... It was clever and allowed her to put counter where one wouldn't think counter could go. Until I remember who it is, here's my recollection of how it works. She has cabinets up to the window sill, then open space in front of the window between lower cabs and counter. You could leave this clear or put baskets there for storage. The unfitted look would be appropriate for your old home's age. Heck, if this look works for you, you can go with standard height counters and have a really nice long counter run, perfect for baking prep.

Looks great, however how about moving the trash right next to the sink. Much easier to scrape - rinse - load dishwasher. Also, if you can switch to a few more drawer stacks you will probably like them much more. I like the idea of cherry and white. Try to put in lots of different zones of lighting all on dimmers. I too don't like dark but really wanted my dark cherry kitchen, we put in 8 cans, 3 pendants, one above sink, and undercabinet lighting (in hutch too) all of them are on dimmers and it really helps to set the mood we want throughout the day and seasonally.