Here you go! I moved all the layouts for your kitchen to their own album: http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x108/Buehl/Other%20Peoples%20Kitchens/odiegirl13/

You should read through this thread from the Lighting forum: LED recessed cans guide for kitchen The short version of the thread is that LED is a great option for kitchens now, and that Cree CR4 (4") and CR6 (6") are the best LED recessed lights for the price. Home Depot sells a version (EcoSmart) for ~$35-40, with the can will be about ~$50 total. To get a very rough ballpark estimate of how much light (lumens) you need, take the square footage and multiply by 35. You could go higher but that could serve as a baseline for all lighting. I ended up 50% over that baseline amount but am happy I did that, and have dimmers if necessary (I also don't have all the lights on at once). The issue you will have with LED recessed lights is the cans. If your electrician is wiring them tomorrow, then you might not be able to get cans at the store -- I had to buy mine online. Cans and recessed lamps are not always interchangeable -- you have to test them first. The thread lists some cans that are compatible with Cree CR4/6. You could just go to Home Depot and get a different LED light like Juno -- but I found the Cree light to be much brighter. I bought 4" recessed lights and it was great -- however if there was less light output (e.g. from another brand) I would have rather gone to 6" to keep the lumen output high. On the UCLs, one word of advice is to buy them early. I bought TechLighting UniLume which took three weeks to arrive. This thread may help: led ucl continuation

Yes, they are upper cabinets. I thought the corner cabinet alone might look odd, so I was mulling it over and just gave you two options. I think the first one would probably look better. If you swap the prep sink for a back door, it doesn't kill the plan, but it creates two points of inefficiency: 1) When you are taking things out of the fridge, you will be carrying armfuls of things directly from the fridge to the counter between the sink and stove so you can wash and chop them. This is a longer walk than ideal. Or you will just turn around and drop them on the more convenient counter opposite the fridge, then pick the items all up again and carry them to the sink to wash and chop. This two-part process would be just one if the prep sink were adjacent to the most convenient to the fridge landing zone. As it happens, I built this inefficiency into my kitchen as well. It has always been my habit to gather all my ingredients from the fridge in one trip before I start cooking, so it is a very minor inconvenience to me if the fridge is farther away than ideal. In fact, I prefer it because snack-seekers who stand in front of the fridge weighing options for eons are then not in my way when I'm cooking. However, if you the type of cook who grabs stuff from the fridge repeatedly while you cook, you may find this inefficiency to be hugely annoying. 2) When you have two cooks, you will be sharing a sink. So you will have to wait at times or be disrupted/moved by another cook. And the cook working at the counter between the stove and back door will carrying dripping stuff from the sink back to their station. Just think about how you cook and see if these compromises are things you can live with. We all have some non-ideal things in our kitchens -- it's just the point of gardenweb that you get to choose which ones you end up with, rather than discovering them the hard way after install and finding that they are things you just can't live with. One thing you might do to ameliorate the second problem is move the main sink a foot or two farther from the corner. It will make your banquette smaller, but it will also mean that someone can be working away on the counter between the stove and main sink, and they won't be crowded by or need to move out if the way of a second cook who walks up to use the main sink.

Peninsula - I love it! It's so much more spacious than having an island in the middle to block workflow. When I started my remodel, like others, I was influenced by the fad of having an island in the middle of the kitchen with seating. Thankfully, the folks here on the Kitchens Forum convinced me that my 11' deep Kitchen could not support it. It took some time and a lot of very unusual layouts b/f I saw the light, but in the end I did. Now, I can't imagine what I was thinking! (Answer: I was influenced by the magazine pictures of pretty islands - not realizing the vast majority of those Kitchens were very dysfunctional! I still see them today all over the place - and they're all kitchens that were designed by "pros"! Seriously? *sigh*) I think a "U" with a wide base and fairly short legs + row of cabs/counters parallel to the "U" is actually the most functional layout. The wide base gives you plenty of workspace & floor space with no obstacles The short legs help prevent the "U" from being an obstacle to good traffic flow through the Kitchen and you are never trapped b/c the legs are too short to trap you The "U" allows you to create a protected area for the Cooking Zone - the legs direct people away from and around the Cooking Zone. Allows for a nice separation of the Cleanup Zone from the Prep & Cooking Zones The row of cabs/counters across from and parallel to the base of the "U" gives you a great place to put the items such as the refrigerator on the perimeter for non-cooks to use w/o getting in the way of cooks...and still have the refrigerator easily accessible for the cooks. In my case, I have an "open" "U" - there's only one wall - along the back of the "U". This means both ends are open and I was able to capitalize on that by: Putting the prep sink in one corner of the "U" - thus utilizing the corner space more efficiently than most corner solutions - far, far better than a blind corner or voiding a corner and even better than a corner susan. Why? Because I combined two of the worst types of storage - corners and sink cabinets - into one and then provided me with deep storage (the deep corner sink base) for long items such as cutting boards - they're stored on their long ends and extend back into the depths of the corner sink base. You only need to reach the fronts of the items to retrieve them, so it doesn't matter where their ends are. (Similar to how tray storage works above ovens in a tall oven cabinet) A cabinet turned 90 degrees in the other corner so the storage is the most efficient. We made it our "Pet Center" and store all our pet-related items there - dog food (in a 6-gallon Popcorn Factory can), dog treats (in a 2.5-gallon Popcorn Factory can), meds, extra collars, leashes, wipes, tools, etc. (Just remember that if you do this, your cabinet should be at least 27" wide to provide the filler space necessary inside the kitchen to allow drawers/doors to open fully and not run into the doors/drawers or knobs/pulls on the other side of the corner. We have 2 seats on one leg, but most people prefer the table - which is just outside the kitchen - table-height seating is much more comfortable! We're in the design phase of our retirement home and I can tell you my kitchen will not have an island if I have anything to say about it (and I will)! I've worked (or tried to) in too many of my friends' & families' island-kitchens to want to subject myself to them! (Big obstacle in the middle, maneuvering around it, barrier islands, etc.) IF you have the space for decent aisles (minimum 48"), room to prevent the island from becoming a barrier, and decent seating overhang (at least 15" clear) - then go for it! But it's not for me anymore! Edited to add: Here's my design w/the measurements: Note: We ended up reducing our kitchen's depth by around 6" (to accommodate plumbing & waste pipe from 2nd floor), so now it's 10'6" deep. +++++++++++++++++ Regarding cabinets over peninsulas - unless you're desperate for cabinet space, don't do it! They're especially bad if you're tall!