I think I should elaborate a little more on my kitchen issues. Does anyone see a good way to have a pantry in this space? Also, north is up in this drawing and I live in Alaska. I'm worried I don't have enough windows on the south wall. Pretty much everything in the main room can be moved. The north windows and stairs exist currently. I guess I'm just generally not sure about the space usage and traffic flow... Thanks!

Stacy, If you're going back to the drawing board, try a layout (among other variations) that follows how your food as it flows through the kitchen. (Sorry to be boringly posting my familiar theme, again!) Where does it come in the kitchen? Where is it stored -pantry, fridge cupboards? Then imagine a path that extends from the storage to prep > Have prep sink nearby or on the direct pathway to prep area (to wash those veggies or add water to the frozen peas or wash your own hands after handling the food). Many people find trash is most important here rather than at dish-scraping point near DW. HAving two trashes is OK, as well Cooking point (with at least one oven right under the hood to capture smoke and smell from roasted or broiled meat) > Handy storage near stove area for those items that are dished into directly from stove. Could be individual plates, or platters, depending on your style of everyday service (no need for all dishes here, just whatever pieces the food is usually put in or on before it goes to the table). It's better to have to walk into the the pantry to fetch a rarely-used pot/pan, than to have to walk to get the dishes you plunk the food on at every meal. > Path to food eating area > Path back to main clean-up point (with DW, trash if desired, obviously sink, etc.) This should be away from pathway between food storage and cooking/prep. It's good if there's dish storage nearby for easy of emptying DW. But don't store serving pieces (plates or platters) here if it means you have to walk away from cooking to retrieve them. Instead take those steps to their storage place at the (calmer, less critical???) point when you're just putting things away. When the food is done, the service dishes should be immediately at hand. For the accessory zone of a separate baking area, do a version of this same planning. Figure where to put your eating area after you've worked out your cooking flow plan. After all, it's a kitchen not a dining room, right? Think food flow, first, then populate an efficient plan with all the goodies you see in kitchen-porn pictures. If you start with all the goodies then you'll end up designing around them and that subordinates the work flow to the stuff arrrangement, if you see what I mean. You will still have pretty, but pretty based on efficiency, not a list of wanna-haves. Less angst, too, because less chance you have to give up on something your heart is really ,set on, or worse pivot the whole function of the kitchen around a feature that drives the design without making it easier, or more pleasant, to get your family fed a thousand times every year. Also no kitchen design is ever completely perfect, from the efficicency point of view, but don't give up until you've wrung every morsel of ease-of-use out of whatever spatial constraints you have. I think some of the biggest gains come in repeatedly tweaking the plan even after you've got the basic outline of the zones. The little changes you work out now while you can still make small alterations will lessen the regrets later. Even after you've got the bones, try things like walking through your most-common meal preps: draw the paths you'd take on your proposed plan. Think about where the other people will fetch up. Make cardboard boxes the size of your drawer interiors and stow your stuff (or try to!). Forget storing "likes with likes", store stuff according to where you use it first, feel free to break up sets. It doesn't usually cost any more to work the kinks out at this stage, so you can be as lavish with your thought and consideration as the most expensive custom kitchen ever created. Have fun, L.

OK, that's two votes for too skinny of a wall, I'm going to work on changing the balance of the pass thru - I'll layout having two pantry cabinets with the pass thru in the middle and see how that feels. Marcolo, I think its a challenge for every kitchen - where does your dishware and glassware go? I plan on keeping the glasses closest to the fridge in the upper cabinet. Grab a glass and get some OJ type of operation. And the dishwasher is somewhat close to it as well for off loading glasses. As far as the dishes, I plan to keep them in the lower drawers in the island. I'm pretty sure most of my prep will be closer to the range which will be plenty of room for someone to grab a dish while I'm prepping. And close enough to the range for times when I want to grab a dish to plate a seared entree or whatnot. I'm also the only cook/baker, and I do all the prep, which makes it easier for me. So there isn't many others in the kitchen with me other than tasting and keeping me company aside from an occasional dinner party when friends help out. One day that might change when I have kids that love to cook and bake. Good luck with your planning! What stage are you at?

The dining table is on the left side of the drawing. The main floor is open concept and you can see the kitchen from the front door (the door is located across from the range). Since it seems that the general feeling is the two cabinets beside the hood vent are awkward we were playing with the idea of having them be glass door cabinets. I did some mock ups of the kitchen without cabinets and the traditional part of me just has a hard time wrapping my head around that sort of 'look'. We decided to go with spice pullouts beside the range to compensate. I was thinking that maybe that would kinda have somewhat of the same effect as open shelving....sorta....or am I totally off the mark. Oh and there are three pull outs in the pantry and the rest are fixed shelving. I took a look at the spice drawer idea and now I want more drawers!!! I thought I wouldn't have a use for top drawers but now I'm hooked. Thankfully I have 5. On another note....are posts beside the fridge visually that important? They are 4 inches wide for each and take up a total of 8 inches of space. We have a regular (not built in) fridge. Not sure if I want to sacrifice the space and the money to get them. And of course....thanks for your input:) Can't wait for the day I get to post reveal pics:)