Zeebee, having cleanup in the middle of food prep is my own horror, so I understand the problem. However, if you designated your cleanup essentially on the left wall/corner area, that would confine cleanup to the sink and area to its left. Prep would be from the sink on to its right. When I designed the kitchen in my new house, my two big priorities were plenty of work space and cleanup totally separated from it. Well, the kitchen isn't terribly large, but I have all that, prep on a spacious island and generous areas on both sides of the stove. It's great and I love it, but having had it I know I could be perfectly happy and do just as well with much less work space--just as long as it was well designed and I didn't have to push dirty dishes away to get at it. When I look at your current plan, I see an L counter that, properly set up, would work well for me. That 39" to the left of the stove is actually almost exactly the amount of space I work in daily here (the rest mostly just gets a drippy mixing bowl, busy spoon, or some such thing set on it so I have to wipe it down anyway). Regarding kitchen as hallway, I don't see it. What those doors do is create a view for the interior space, same as any large expanse of glass, plus provide the opportunity to open the house to the garden when you choose. I personally would want to be able to draw drapes or shutters, or whatever, when the weather's unappealing or you just want a cozily introverted space, and having learned from my mistakes would choose my window treatments as part of the design profess for my windows/doors. Your garden's going to be lovely. I'm a big gardener, but agree for sure, definitely no "cottage" garden for you. Been there, love it, but it is THE most challenging of all garden styles to keep really good looking all through the flowering season. I've spent years trying to get good enough to pull that trick off and had a lot of fun--but! At least I was in California. These days a temperate climate means 6 months of drear. Over the years, I've really come to love finely designed green gardens full of lovely foliage juxtaposed against handsome hardscape to provide structure and contrast. Occasional flowers throughout the seasons can provide variety but mainly just serve to set the main feature off. A garden like that can be gorgeous in all seasons, with and without floral accents, and when well designed also be the easiest to care for of all. The foliage also softens all the masonry and other construction around and adds privacy. It can also serve as a home for birds. We really enjoy watching the birds from our windows, and my gardens now will always be designed to attract them. In any case, beauty's a function of good design. It truly doesn't have to be heavy maintenance at all. In your case, I think you owe it to yourselves to create a beautiful view for your home so you can enjoy it both at the kitchen/dining level and from above. :)

I don't understand that drawing. Is that a wall with nothing on it at the right side of the kitchen? And what's going on with the island? I don't understand what those little things along the bottom row are (below the DW, sink, etc.). Here are some issues that jump out at me from this layout: - Two tables so close to each other? That seems weird. Why not put seating on the outside of the island instead of that little table at the end? You would get a lot more island seating that way, and also you wouldn't have someone sitting IN the kitchen right in the traffic path between range and fridge. - Sink across floor from range (instead of on same counter run or around the corner). This is a safety issue. It can work in certain configurations where the traffic pattern allows or where there are no kids or pets in the household, but your kitchen is open on both sides (so people can come towards the cook from either direction), which makes it more of a safety issue, and your kitchen has plenty of room to put the sink on the same run as the range. So I'm not seeing the point of putting it on the island. BTW, you can keep the DW on the island--it doesn't have to be next to the sink, just near it. - MW all the way across the kitchen from the fridge. Normally these are close together because the MW is used to heat leftovers, frozen meals etc. that come from the fridge. Putting them far apart creates a lot of unnecessary traffic, and that traffic will cut right through the main work area. - Pantries and hutch on other side of island from range. If you plan on keeping anything in these pantries that you would ever need when cooking, such as canned goods, oatmeal, baking supplies etc., this setup will get annoying fast. Also, why such shallow pantries? - Trash/recycling pullout: in this configuration the cook will do most prep work between the sink and the DW, because people naturally tend to prep between sink and range and that's the stretch of counter that is closest to both. This configuration means no one can access the trash while someone's cooking (or that is, they will have to ask the cook to move). Also, the cook will have to move every time she wants to throw something away. And of course, with the natural prep space being between the sink and the DW, no one can do dishes while the cook is prepping. In other words this configuration scrambles the zones, which creates inefficiency. You have plenty of room to keep the zones separate, and that will be far more efficient. See, the thing is, you might expect prepping to take place on the counter to the right of the range, since it's not far from the sink either, but that would require the cook to pick up all the freshly washed stuff and carry it across the aisle. That's just not what a human being is likely to do, especially because you often also need the trash while prepping and the trash is on the island. So what this configuration does is work against natural human instincts--in other words, natural human instincts would lead a person to use this kitchen in an inefficient way, by doing almost everything on the island, which scrambles the zones and leaves that whole nice long counter run to the right of the range unused. The way to solve this in a kitchen of this shape is to put the sink (or at least A sink, i.e. a prep sink) on the same counter run as the range. So I think your needs might be better served by a U-shaped kitchen (i.e. attach the island to the wall on the right, get rid of any wall that extends beyond the island, and put the pantry/hutch inside the kitchen on the closed end of the U). Making the pantries deeper, with pullouts, would mean you might only need one of them, so that closed end of the U would not need to be super long. A U-shaped kitchen with the closed end facing the garage will mean you can't walk straight into the kitchen from the garage, but if the fridge is on the far end of the kitchen you will be carrying groceries that distance anyway. It is no more effort to carry them on the kitchen side of the island or the outside of the island (or peninsula, since with a U-shaped kitchen the island would become a peninsula).

EAM- I am out of white out...so I apologize in advance, for the messy plan. Anyway, this is my attempt at helping you with your kitchen :) On the top wall, I like the fridge and oven/microwave in that location. But, I would have it just as a straight run of oven/microwave, cabinetry and fridge on the other end. Then, I would have the sink in your necessary location, with the dishwasher on the right (dining side) and trash on the left. Where you have the solid wall, I would continue that down to the end of your current 36" drawers and instead, center the range in that location. Since there's a wall there, it's easy enough to have a hood and backsplash area, but still keep it open to the dining area, on the sink end. Where you have the little corner, I'd have a corner (diagonal) hutch and then a countertop for seating...partly with the solid wall and partly more open. Either a half wall with raised counter or just all level with the sink area. You should have room for at least three stools. Yes, one person is looking at the wall, but that would be a great place to use a laptop or work on homework. The dining area would be against the window wall, with either a single banquette with an expanding table, which would provide plenty of seating...or the corner banquette. So, here's the plan...and again, it only seems to be about 6' between your two zones...that's very easy to work in. That's what I have now and the only problem is the range and sink are on opposite walls. Since yours would be together, with the fridge, oven and microwave on the other side...I hope it would function very well for you :) From Cottage house plans

I like it as well. Nice plant to "elevate" a collection. tj