Can you clarify a few things? What is going in the Northwest corner? A dining space or entrance/entry to the kitchen.

Is the primary (and only?) entrance to the kitchen opposite the island you have drawn?

Also, the range looks awfully small for the size of kitchen you have and there is not much space around it. You can do a lot more with your layout. Any budgetary restrictions?

Consider turning the island to run parallel to the range with 4 feet clearance between them. That way the pan drawers are in a convenient place for one movement from range to island.

@Malcolm Good questions.

Q: What is going in the Northwest corner?

A: Planning to build a small pantry/appliance closet there, size would be 3'x4'.

Q: Is the primary (and only?) entrance to the kitchen opposite the island you have drawn?

A: No. There is an outside entrance from the kitchen to the patio; that would be on the left-hand side wall, between where I plan to build the pantry and the cabinetry on the left-hand wall. That entrance is already there and due to budgetary considerations, can't be moved. As far as interior entrances: the bottom wall is actually a solid wall, except for an existing opening, near cabinet #12 (the tall pantry), I'm also asking for a second opening on the bottom wall towards the left, by cabinet #17. So on the bottom wall, what I would be hoping to see (using rough measurements), starting from left to right: 25" wide wall that parallels and creates a corner for the bottom left cabinets; an opening of 36"-39"; retaining the next section of the wall (approximately 7'); another opening of about 39", followed by the wall that creates the corner for the back right cabinetry. (That back right corner already exists, and contains the main HVAC vent/stack for the entire house).

Q: The range looks awfully small for the size of kitchen you have and there is not much space around it.

A: It's a standard-width 30" range, which I purchased late last year.; I'm fine with the size of it. I definitely agree, I am concerned about the lack of space around it, particularly immediately to the right, between the range and the refrigerator. My original plan was for a 24" base cabinet to the right, to provide both ample landing space between the stove and refrigerator. The plan above is what the cabinetry company is instead suggesting - and I've already sent an email that having a 12" landing space between the stove and the refrigerator doesn't suit our needs. I'm going to guess that he was more concerned about symmetry around the refrigerator. My suggested plan called for the stove, with a 24" four-drawer base to the right of the stove, then the refrigerator, then a tall pantry and 2" filler to the wall. The cabinet person responded by suggesting shrinking the width of the 24" base to 12", shrinking the width of the original pantry, and adding the second pantry to the left of the refrigerator.

Q: You can do a lot more with your layout.

A: And that's part of the reason I'm here - to get suggestions.

Q: Any budgetary restrictions?

A: Yes, unfortunately. The budget is rather tight. I'll be using a HELOC of $50K to do this renovation. On the positive side, I don't need to budget for major appliances; my stove, dishwasher, refrigerator and microwave are all pretty new (5 years of less), and I plan to reuse them in the new kitchen. Even the faucet and food disposer are both pretty new and can be reused. I've already purchased/paid for the planned sink and range-hood. so they aren't part of that $50k.

Here are some questions that you might also be thinking:

Q: So, what does have to be in that $50k budget?

A: Demolition of existing kitchen. Removal of a 7' non-loadbearing wall (which divides the current kitchen from the dining room and isn't shown above), soffits, creating the second opening in the long wall on the bottom, removal of the existing kitchen flooring (10'x13'), installing hardwood flooring in the existing kitchen space to match the rest of the flooring in the house, shortening the existing kitchen water piping for the sink to be moved (but still on the same wall), repairing walls as needed, building the 3'x4' pantry closet, new electrical wiring/outlets/switches for the new cabinetry/appliance locations, purchase and installation of new cabinets & countertop and backsplash tile. If necessary, if the walls are prepped (spackled/sanded smooth), I can do the wall painting myself. The flooring work is estimated at $2,940. The countertop is estimated at $6,000. I'm figuring on about $22,000 for the cabinetry, but that is subject to change until the layout is finalized. That leaves about $19k for demo, plumbing, electrical, and installation.

Q: Who will be using the kitchen?

A: 3 humans. I'm the primary cook, but I have a 15-year-old who also cooks. Also five cats will want a bit of floor space for food/water bowls. My boyfriend doesn't really cook, but he uses the refrigerator/freezer, microwave and toaster extensively. His ideal kitchen would only have a sink, refrigerator/freezer, microwave, toaster, coffee pot and a place for paper plates; he hasn't figured out how to use the stove or the dishwasher. (and obviously doesn't see a need for them).

Q: Expected "traffic paths" in the kitchen?

A: People waking up, coming from bedrooms (lots of work from home or remote schooling going on) are most likely going to enter the kitchen from the bottom right opening. People hanging out in the living room would most likely enter from the planned opening in the bottom left. People hanging out in the planned dining area (in the room on the opposite side of the remaining bottom wall) would likely enter through either opening, depending on their destination - heading to refrigerator, stove or sink, probably enter through bottom right opening; heading to a seat at the island, or the "butler's pantry" cabinetry on left side, or to the patio or to the pantry closet - would most likely enter through the bottom left side.

JR - My plan was to have the end cabinet of the island face the stove, so I'm not sure that there's a need to turn the island, and then the other cabinets would face the back wall (where the dishwasher, sink etc are).

@biondanonima (Zone 7a Hudson Valley) When looking at the layout, the vertical wall on the left, and the back wall on top, are the exterior walls. One of the reasons we have the sink on the back wall is to minimize both cost and work to relocate the sink. It is currently on the back wall already, so all the plumbing lines are already in place).

Also, if we move the sink anywhere else besides the back wall, that entails ripping up the ceiling in the room below while trying to protect a 70-gallon aquarium that would be directly below that same ceiling.

I do like the idea of having the sink and the range a little further apart, but am hopeful that the distance in this layout will be enough. Currently, the range and sink are so close that it's a danger when someone wants to be at the sink and someone also wants to be at the range/oven. If I measure the countertop-edge distance from the current sink center to the current oven/range center, the distance is only 36". In the proposed layout, that distance is increased by approximately 19" to 55".

If the back wall is an exterior wall then that is even more reason to put the range there. How do you plan to vent it where it is shown now? Have you spoken to your contractor about the potential cost of moving the sink?

Also, what purpose do the three cabinets in the lower left corner serve? Right now they look like they will crowd your seating area and are only there so your cabinet salesperson can sell more cabinets.

It's hard to suggest a design for the island without knowing exactly where other things are going. You might consider starting over with a new thread asking for help with an overall layout. A fully-measured floorplan showing doors, windows, connecting rooms, etc. will get you the best advice.

@biondanonima (Zone 7a Hudson Valley) Good questions, thanks!

1 - to vent the stove, it would be going through a vent pipe to the roof (the kitchen is on the top floor).

2 - Contractor said that moving the sink to the approximate location of the range would increase the cost quite a bit. Not only would it require demolishing the ceiling in the room below, one of the main HVAC ducts coming right off the furnace would also be affected as well as the vertical connections off of it.

3 - The 3 or 4 cabinets on the bottom left are intended to serve several purposes. The upper cabinets will replace the functionality of a standalone china cabinet. The base cabinets will provide a place for trash/recycling as well as a storage area for the fire pit & barbecue/grill equipment/utensils etc.

4. The countertop for those same cabinets will provide a staging area (if/when needed) between the kitchen and the new dining area, where I can put things such as slow cookers, serving dishes, etc., when eating inside; it's also the closest point to the outdoor grill area for staging for backyard bbqs. In effect, it sort of serves the purpose that a butler's pantry might have - a transitional food prep and staging area, between the main food prep/cooking area and the two areas where people would generally eat.

5 - Island length: Part of what I'm trying to do is figure out the most appropriate length for the island, both in terms of maximizing seating and storage, while not overly crowding the traffic lane that would be from the patio area to the dining and living room areas. The length of the kitchen is 20'4" or 244". Subtract 25" each for the cabinets on either side of the room (50") and then subtract at least 42" each for traffic/clearance in front of those same cabinets (84"). That's a total of 134", meaning that potentially, the island could be as long as 110" (or 9' 2"). However, I'm not thinking it necessarily should be that long; I'm just saying that logistically, at the absolute most, in theory, it could be that long. I think I will actually want at least a 48" clearance between the island and the stove, not 42", so that reduces the maximum island length by 6" to 104". And I can see having the same 48" clearance between the quasi-butler's pantry, further reducing the maximum length of the island by another 6", down to 98". (Basically 8' 2", including countertop overhang). I'm thinking that even if there is a seat on the end of the island, that it would most likely not be used if we are serving food in the dining area or outside on the patio; and it would most likely be used by family and very close friends for impromptu gatherings at the island, so I'm not overly worried about the seat being occupied if there's 48" of space between the edge of the island and the cabinetry on the back left.

6 - Island width - Similar exercise as for figuring the length, to figure the potential width of the island. From top to bottom, the kitchen is 13' deep (156"). Figure 25" for the cabinetry on the back (top) wall, and at least 48" from the countertop on the cabinetry to the island countertop, that's 73" used up. So 156" - 73" = 83". Then figure at least 36" from the bottom wall to the island countertop as the minimum space for people on high stools. 83" - 36" = 47" as the possible maximum width of the island (or meaning a max width of 45" for cabinetry). I know I want the island to be at least 38" wide (for a 36" pot/pan cabinet to be facing the stove, and allowing 1" for overhang on either side). The question here is whether I should go wider than 36" for the cabinets - If I allow a max width of 45" for cabinetry, minus the 36" for the pot/pan, that leaves potentially 9" that I can either increase the pot/pan base storage width, or possibly put either a 6" or 9" base for tall trays/bakeware). Whether I should do that is another question. If I leave the base cabinet width at 36" (meaning a 38" wide island), then the space between the bottom wall and the island would be 45" - and that means the island would visually appear to be pretty much in the center of the room, with a fairly equal amount of space bordering both of the longer sides as well as the right-hand side (and possibly the left-hand side as well).

I can try to get additional sketches up sometime tomorrow to show the adjacent rooms/spaces.

If the sink must remain where it is then I would consider moving the fridge up to the top wall, to the left of the sink, and then centering the range on the right wall. Would depend on traffic patterns from the rest of the house, of course. Looking forward to seeing adjoining spaces 😀

Get a couple of other estimates for moving the plumbing. We had an issue with a shower drain and our contractor quoted us $5,000 to move it to allow external venting of our range hood. I got two other estimates -- all under $1,000. We had one of the other two do the work of moving the drain.

Contractors will sometimes grossly inflate the costs for things they don't want to do. They figure that way you'll say no or, if you say yes, they make a lot of extra money on the job.

The other two quotes may be just as high, but then you'll know.

Does your contractor say they can match the rest of the floors in the house, especially with a wall coming out? It is very difficult to do this if the floors will need patching and the patching connects to the current flooring.

@lwfromny The contractor says they can get a pretty close match on the floors - typical oak hardwood, 2.25" strip. He actually wouldn't be doing it himself, but is strongly recommending a colleague whose specialty is hardwood flooring and owns a business specifically for that. I've gotten a couple of estimates just for that aspect, and while no one will guarantee an exact match, a couple believe they can get extremely close.

@biondanonima (Zone 7a Hudson Valley) Try not to laugh at my idea of a sketch for the adjoining spaces..... :) I'm no artist, and I know this isn't quite to scale.

This shows the layout as I am currently envisioning it.

From the front door, you have the choice of a half-flight of stairs going up to the floor sketched here, or down a half flight of stairs. So, we go up.

Going straight from the stairs, the idea is to enter the kitchen. (currently, that's the dining room). I want to be able to bring my groceries in pretty directly to the kitchen and storage areas. Right now, there's not enough storage in the existing kitchen. We end up bringing everything up, then sorting through and putting what we can in the kitchen, and then carrying the rest of the stuff downstairs to the utility/laundry room. As we continue to get older, that process becomes increasingly annoying.

In the sketch, I coded a dark green for where the current plan is calling for the island and the proposed cabinetry. Aqua is where the sink would be; coming down to the right, dark red denotes the stove, and silver the refrigerator. The fuschia is meant to denote the pantry closet.

I used a red line to mark the working traffic path - along the L-shape of the refrigerator, stove, sink and prep area.

The blue lines show the most likely traffic paths from the future dining area, depending on the need or destination of the person - to the patio (where the grill is, and where my boyfriend smokes umpteen-zillion times a day), or to the right, if someone is going for food/water.

The yellow path shows how people would go from the living room to the patio. It's pretty close to today's reality, except that there is a solid wall there now, so every time my boyfriend wants to smoke during a tv show, etc., he has to go from the living room, cross the future dining area and go to the opening by the closet, and then cut through the dining room and into the kitchen to go outside. Ditto if we are making food on the grill but eating & watching TV in the living room.

We had also considered taking down the majority of the wall that makes the bottom border of the kitchen, but we want to have some separation from the kitchen area to the rest of the house. Sound carries really easily - and unfortunately, we all seem to run on different schedules in our house. (Boyfriend wakes up around 3 am and is in bed usually by 7 pm; conversely, I'm usually up with my teen until 10 pm or later and we have scout meetings over in the evenings. )

The floorplan is very helpful! I am not a big fan of kitchens being open to the whole house so I would also opt to keep the wall. Have you considered swapping the dining and living areas? I know your drawing isn't to scale but it looks like you have more room in the dining area, plus easier access to all of the rest of the house from that spot.

Anyway, seeing the traffic patterns from the entrance I do understand why you have the fridge where it is, but imo trying to put both range and fridge on the short wall is really going to make things feel crowded. If you can't move the sink (and if I were you I would do as @Buehl suggested and get a couple of estimates on that particular job), you might consider lengthening the cabinet run on the long wall and moving the range to the left of the sink (as long as you have at least 3' of space between range and sink). That way you would have the long side of the island facing the range and a nice ice-water-stone-fire workflow, plus plenty of space around the fridge for unloading. I would eliminate that pantry closet in favor of a pantry cabinet near the fridge in this case (making grocery unloading even easier).

Here's a very rough sketch of what I meant by my previous comments. I can't tell exactly where your windows are from the drawings and I think I de-centered the sink in order to move the DW, but obviously this would require lots of tweaking in any case.

@biondanonima (Zone 7a Hudson Valley)

Swapping the dining/living areas creates other concerns. For one, I'd like to keep the dining area adjacent to the kitchen area. Moving the living area (with the TV) to the dining area (with the 10' bay window) creates issues with the TV visibility that are just annoying.

We did have multiple estimates with moving the sink. it really needs to stay on the back wall. And I do prefer having the sink area by a window, and then the dishwasher next to the sink.

That leaves not much space between the two windows. There's 51" of base space then to the left of the dishwasher and 61" between the two windows. Dropping a 30" stove there, with a 36" range hood and trying to center the stove and range hood between the two windows, would mean having only a 15" landing space to the left of the range, and only 6" of space between the range and the dishwasher.

The pantry closet would be better able to store larger items that typically won't fit in a cabinet, such as warehouse-club sized cases of foods, appliances that are less frequently used, as well as cleaning supplies (mop, broom, steam cleaner, etc).

I get that having the range and refrigerator on the same wall might seem tight, but it's actually an improvement over the current situation. Right now, the range and the refrigerator are on the same wall that is only 10' long. We have only a 15" base cabinet between the existing stove and refrigerator currently - just barely enough for the toaster, which my boyfriend insists needs to be there.

And in the existing situation, from the sink to the stove it's just dangerous. They are layed out similar to the proposed layout, but in the current situation, they are much closer. The right edge of the sink is barely 25" from the wall to the right, whereas in the proposed layout, it would be about 47" from the wall. And the stove is currently 36" from the wall to it's left, and in the proposed layout, it would be 51" from the wall.

If I draw a line from the right-most corner of the sink to the left-most corner of the stove, right now that distance is only about 15" in the existing layout. In the proposed layout, that distance becomes about 45".

How large is the second window (and is it counter height)? Also, how do you plan to orient the door to the pantry closet?

@biondanonima

Depending on how frequently you use the patio door, you may find the arrangement with the closet and cabinets so close to that door uncomfortably tight and awkward. I have cabinets that abut my back door in the same way and it really is not ideal. The pantry closet also looks like there will be a lot of wasted space with shelves that are shallower than normal cabinet shelves.

You have a large space, but it won't feel roomy if the entrances and other traffic flow pinch points are tight, or the overall layout doesn't work.

@biondanonima (Zone 7a Hudson Valley) The points you make are true.

It's one reason that I won't run the cabinets in the lower left-hand corner all the way to the door frame (which several cabinet-sellers wanted me to do). There is approximately 11" from the end of that cabinet run until reaching the outer-edge of the door frame. I left that space open both for the reason you suggested (didn't want a very tight pinch point) and, also, if there should be a need for temporarily putting an extra trash/recycling can there (such as during a party), I'd be able to put one there if needed.

Regarding the pantry space - the shelves on the left side will be narrower than a typical cabinet shelf, in part because I want to be able to quickly and easily find some things (like oversized spice containers that I refill from), etc. The length of shelving on the back will be deeper; I can choose 12", 16", or 20" deep. Since the total space is only planned to be 36" deep, I'm thinking that I'd either go with the 12" or 16" deep, but I'm not certain on that yet.. Part of the real value though for me is the total shelf length, which should be 47" or 48" on the back wall. I have several "small" appliances that I think would best be stored this way - such as slow cookers (one is 26" long, for example). If I were to store that in a base cabinet drawer, I'd need the cabinet to be at least 30" wide just to get the necessary interior width - and it would pretty much take up the entire drawer.

I understand the desire for long shelves in the pantry, but you aren't really gaining anything by putting a 12" (or 16") deep shelf in a 36" deep closet. A 12" (or 16", or 20") deep pantry cabinet (which you could make as wide as you want) would give you the same amount of space with a less intrusive footprint. Just something to think about.

As for the rest of that corner, how wide is the window with the bench underneath, and what purpose does that bench serve? I assume you are planning a bench there because the window is lower than counter height? Have you considered moving the fridge over there? It would make the fridge a little less accessible from the front entrance for grocery unloading purposes, but it would be more accessible from the LR and porch, and the bench could be useful as a landing zone for unloading groceries (into both fridge and pantry). You would also then be able to center the range on the short wall. Like this:

I'll take a little more time (hopefully this evening) to think about this. The fridge would stick out a fair bit though - it is not counter-depth, it is 36" deep and then a couple inches clearance required from the rear of it to the wall, so it would jut out from the rest of the cabinetry. I'd want to make sure that if I put it there, it allows for enough clearance still for the island, seating, etc.

I think another reason I'm hesitant to put the refrigerator there is because I didn't want it to block much light from the window. There are only the two windows in the room. As for the window there, the window is actually kind of high. I didn't want cabinetry there beneath it because then I can't open the window - I've lived here since 2009, and I can count on one, maybe two hands, how often I've taken the trouble to open that window - I have to get a 3' step ladder in order to open/close it, because I can't reach it over the existing sink cabinet.

By putting a bench or low cabinetry/seating there, it creates a spot for me to more easily reach (and if needed, to step up on) in order to open/close the window. By recessing the bench so that it is not the standard 24" deep, it also can create a small alcove to put food/water bowls for our cats (5 cats), without the bowls being underfoot. If the bench offers some storage, even better - then I can store cat food there too.

Oh, I was assuming you were using a counter-depth fridge since that is what your original drawing shows. If you are using a standard depth fridge, that might be even more of a reason to move it to the back wall - IMO it will look awkward and possibly create traffic issues if it is jutting out next to the entrance. You would also be limited to about 80" for your island (225-36-24 is 165, so if you wanted 42" on either end of the island you'd get 81" max for the island, probably a few inches less since as you pointed out you need to give the fridge a bit of back clearance). Looks like this:

With the fridge on the back wall, you'd have to make the aisle between the DR wall and island a little smaller, but you could probably get away with 36" there since it's unlikely to be a main traffic path. Like this: