I'm just going to talk about a coupla things. This is just talk about issues and trade-offs, not criticism. So this is about a half-thought out plan that I made up just so it wasn't critiquing an existing one. I'm drew in detail both cleanup and baking prep. I am showing two blue lines that illustrate routes used with or without a prep sink. The rest of this is long and highly opinionated. Ok. So, let's start with cleanup. We've mostly all said that a 4 foot deep cleanup area is a bit much for "cleaning the clean up area" so this steps it back into the window a foot - yielding a three foot deep space which might be reachable (depending on god, the universe, your height, sink gismos and everything). The other thing it does is create a nice wide aisle around the open dishwasher - when duffers pass through on their way to Doritos or a beer or whatever, the human dishwasher can ignore them. A pass through area with double sided upper cabinets is entirely possible, but you need to put a ledge or a ledge plus a shallow base cabinet in the dining room side for "sit down" space for people getting dishes from the cabinets. I'm having some trouble understanding your friend's criticism about stuff being on the wrong side. With double sided glass fronted wall cabinets, you need to remember that the entire contents will be plainly visible. I find that leads to very few junky places and more order for me. The cabinets are only about 12-13" deep, so its is difficult to think of what would be piled up in front of your plates or soup bowls. Perhaps they were thinking of base cabinets? Food prep (of any sort) has a flow to it. Stuff from the ref usually goes to the sink, unless its a snack - in which case it either moves towards the dishes or the microwave or both! From the sink, or directly from the ref if you belong to my tribe, it travels to the prep counter area to be joined with water, prep tools, pantry stuff and pots or baking pans which are then put on the range or in the oven or the micro. The process may later need to drain something or slide stuff out to cool or be stired frequently. The messy leftovers go to a disposal or trash or compost. The packaging goes to the trash or recycling. The dirty pots and prep tools go to cleanup. So the arrangement of the appliances is important, and the positioning of water is vitally important. So, the cleanup seems good because you don't need to walk much at all - just for putting pots or prep stuff back. Trash isn't going to be optimally positioned (unless you're a garbage disposal person) caused it would need to be under the sink, probably forcing you to keep the under sink door open. Cooking is a little bit freaky. This is mostly because of the relative locations of the ref and the pantry and the prep area. You have one of those places where some of the spacial relations are difficult. Since all of the dry storage is across the hall, it's nice if the ref is closer to it BUT the ref can't be placed directly on the hall wall. It probably won't be able to open completely, leaving you to wrestle with it when you want to clean it. It's also not perhaps the best idea to bury your only ref inside the prep zone as it is the most frequently accessed appliance - particularly by those other folks who live in your house. Adding cabinets between the wall and the ref push the pass through up towards the sink. In every iteration of a corner plan with the sink in the bay - the sink or the dishwasher have an issue. Either the sink is too close to the corner and can only be used from one direction AND/OR the dishwasher is on the wrong side. If we reversed the sink and dw in the sample plan, the sink is better positioned, but the dw is not as it opens in front of the cabinets you like to use for dishes. Unloading becomes a two-step, first to the counter and then the cabinets after you close the door or drawer. In the ones with a corner and the range where the ref are traded, the dishwasher opens between the range and sink potentially causing serious accidents as its possible to turn from the range and trip over the dishwasher. The ref is shown near the sink. You can reach the peninsula counter to sit things down, which mitigates the distance somewhat, but it still might be crazy-making... Is it more crazy making than having people constantly walking behind you? Since the pass-thru moved up closer to the sink, I could put the range where shown. Its got counter on both sides. It won't prevent others from using the sink, altho others can prevent you from sliding over to dump a colander. Adding a prep sink kills the dark blue triangle that goes into the cleanup zone - always a good thing but really good in this example because that pot full of water and pasta can now pretty much always be drained without getting someone to move first. Other crazy stuff: ---- A person needs at least two feet of counter edge. If they are adults, it might feel slightly squished in. ---- The overhang for counter height seating should be at least 15". This isn't for the depth of the stools - its for knees. ---- The peninsula is tempting to hang a wall cabinet, but if you do, the second stool will be kinda difficult to use because the wall cabinet will be in the seated person's face and the last door is guaranteed to hit them in the head! ---- The ref location is hard to plan. There are two kinds of people in this world. The ones who get everything they are going to use out of the ref at once; and then there's my tribe. My tribe kinda fetches this, that and the other thing outta the ref all during the prep and cooking process. People say they can learn to be the other type, but I don't know. ---- Same thing with the views and prep-or-cooking-or cleanup. To me, windows are the most wasted in front of a cleanup area. Not the light wasted, but the views! When I'm doing cleanup, I'm looking at the dishes, not the view. And with dishwashers, I'm not in front of that window for very long. I think windows are more useful at prep or cooking (both!). ---- Also consider the social aspects of any plan. In this plan, you are oriented to the family room, and primarily the family room windows. You'd have a side view of the bay window - a front view would happen while rinsing veg - maybe. When you're cooking or doing cleanup, you'd be turned away from others. In all of the "real" designs, other things happen in your interactions with people and the views. Be sure you end up with the ones you'd like.

I am short 5’ 3” and I much prefer the regular oven doors. There are safety issues to consider. I like having a place to rest a pan if I need to while changing things around. At home I like a door between a pan that might slosh and my legs and feet. I’ve cleaned a few spills on the door. Also it is protective if I might drop a pan. Also a barrier is good if one of the kids/dog/cat come flying into the kitchen while I have the door open. Aside from that ergonomics can vary. With my oven, which is waist high, I would not be standing any closer if I had the French doors. There has to be enough space to pull the pans out. I always stand in front of my oven now to access whatever is in it. Standing to the side is much more difficult and necessary with range ovens I have had in the past. Standing in front of my wall oven, my arms reach well into the oven or you can pull the rack out, so there would not be an ergonomic advantage for me for French doors or side opening ovens. It might even make it more difficult to get to the countertops on the sides with the doors in the way. My aunt had a range with a side opening oven at eye level on top, but it still had a resting place below it, the burners. I actually have a commercial oven I use from time to time that has French doors. I mostly do baking there but it is actually on a table with a landing space in front. I think you have to try each oven, consider how you use it and what else is or will be around it in the kitchen.

sornbarry - After speaking with our local SZ repair guy, he suggested that we spring for the new unit, as apparently it's not the parts on the old SZs but the box itself that begins to deteriorate around the 25+ year mark. Not to mention that the cabinets for our older model would be completely different from the cabinets used to create the integrated look and there'd be no way to retrofit the unit once it died. <Sigh> Not that we were looking to spend the extra cash, but I am a strong believer in doing things right the first time (especially seeing as we have no plans to move anytime soon). You're right about the Superba, and I've only recently discovered its convection properties, which I love. The Superba also got us out of quite the jam last Christmas when the Dacor straight up stopped working partway through cooking our prime rib roast, and it was the Superba that picked up the slack. Most of the negative reviews I've read about the Superba have to do with self-cleaning mode, which I don't like using in ovens anyways. Needless to say, I think we're okay having it stick around a while longer - it's certainly a lot easier to change out than a Sub Zero! Thanks again for all of your thoughts and comments. I really appreciate being able to bounce ideas off of someone who has been in such a remarkably similar situation as my own!

Your response has made my day as it was really helpful. I don’t think I ever truly used all of the double oven space at once. It is actually helpful to hear that you downsized and still find both ovens very useful. I think the smaller size of the steam oven threw me off a bit, as it is not what I am used to. In reality however, it will probably be just fine. It gets overwhelming reading all of the reviews and comments on here, as everyone has such diverse opinions and so many negative opinions are voiced 😫. Thank you so much for your feedback!