I just realized I forgot a critical piece of information on the drawing - the diatance from the counter to the island is 40 inches. I know 42 is the recommended minimum and would love to hear from anyone who went a little narrower.

Will you miss having a family room? Having two living spaces can really improve your quality of life especially if you have a family. Not to mention is good for resale. Your plan as you have drawn it leaves an awkward “half room” space at the end, a dead giveaway of an ill considered reno. There may be room for some seating there to make it look more intentional.

Thanks for your thoughts! I agree that space looks large on paper, but it's actually not that big. It's open now (our dining table is currently in front of the fireplace and doesn't extend into that area) and I like it. It has a nice open feel, and I think putting furniture there would make walking through that space feel cramped. But I had considered the possibility of some kind of built in floating desk type think in front of that window. I think it would be a nice homework area in the future. Do you think that would make it look more intentional?

We don't currently use any of the kitchen/dining space as a family room, so I don't think we'd miss it. The other layout I'm considering would keep the kitchen in its current location (but without the peninsula and extended into the adjacent area above it in the photo), with a banquette in the upper left corner of the photo. In that plan, there would be a sitting area in front of the fireplace. That plan is nice too but has some downsides (for one, the windows would need to be reworked), and I don't think we'd ever use that sitting area. Our living room is large and we just don't need another sitting area. We also have a walk out basement with a family room, so if we need more space as our family grows we'll probably just start using that family room more. We're planning on this being our forever home, so we're not too worried about resale.

Your proposed layout really limits your dining room space. No room to expand a table to ever sit more than 6 people. And moving from dining to living room requires going through the kitchen or the foyer. I think your other idea of keeping the current kitchen location, but expanding up towards the family/dining space, is better. You get a more flexible dining space. The path from dining to living room is more natural.

I've thought about the limits on the dining space. 99% of the time seating six would be plenty (we only have one child with no plans for more). But in the event we host a large holiday gathering or something, we could extend the table to accommodate two more seats on either side (the bench could be built so that the sides flip up and add a couple feet on either side). I know bench seating against a wall isn't ideal, but it's a compromise I'm willing to make considering how infrequently it would be used.

Currently we walk through the foyer to get to the living room from the kitchen and from the kitchen to the part of the house where the bedrooms and bathrooms are. It's not a problem now, so I don't totally see why it would be an issue to walk through the foyer to get from the dining to living room. Does it just seem weirder to if it's the dining room instead of the kitchen? It would be possible to put in a doorway from the living room to the dining room, which actually might be kind of nice now that I think of it.

One issue with the currently kitchen placement is that it's on the north side of the house and we have a porch in front of those windows, so it gets very little natural light. This plan would give the kitchen a view of one of the floor to ceiling windows on the south side of the house, which would be so great for the natural light and also looks out on our really lovely 2 acre back yard. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so that's worth quite a bit to me.

Walking through the foyer regularly isn't a big deal for everyday living. For entertaining, it's more awkward. Maybe I say that because I live in a "shoes off" area where every foyer is a giant pile of shoes. It sounds like you have good reasons, and the benefit of experience, for the changes you're planning. I do think that making a doorway from the living room to new dining room would be nice. I would make it as wide as possible. The dining room will feel more comfortable, and it will get more light from the living room windows. And you'll get a better flow between all three spaces.

Your actual kitchen layout is fantastic. Great work-space arrangement.

That's a really good point. We also have a "shoes off" house, and our foyer is also a pile of shoes half the time - I spend way to much time picking them up. I think a doorway from the dining to living room would be really nice to have. I'd have to rework that wall of built ins I was planning for the dining room, because I'd like to have some amount of storage there, but I don't really need the whole wall. Thanks so much for this observation/suggestion!

I’d skip all of the dining room built-ins for now and have a table in the middle of that space.

I'm just interjecting with cabinet/counter math. A typical cabinet is 24" deep. Usually, but not always that is the depth of the cabinet without doors. A typical counter top is 25.5" deep when the cabinet is up against a wall. This includes 3/4" for the door and 3/4" for a small overhang so that fluid or crumbs dropping from the counter tend to fall on the floor instead of the wood cabinets.

When cabinets are assembled into an island, a couple of things change. The island may be 1.5" LONGER than the cabinets if decorative cover panels are used. This is normally a choice, but the outside side walls of most cabinets either aren't finished at all or they have a melamine or non-matching wood - so most people use the side panels.

The backs of regular cabinets usually don't have any finish. Some cabinet companies sell "island cabinets" where a finished back is integrated into the cabinet build, but most don't. That's because most people don't like the look of having many sizes of cabinets backs as their finished island. So, normally a special single veneered piece is added across all of the cabinet backs. The back pieces can be fancier than that, but that's the minimum. The side panels and back are either mitered together or have moldings applied.

The finished island will be at least 1.5" longer than the measurement of the cabinets. The island will also be at least 3/4" deeper than the finished cabinet, but is often 1.5" deeper. For the sake of simplicity, if a wall countertop is 1.5" wider than the actual cabinet depth, an island counter has an overhang on all sides, so it will be 3" wider than the cabinets on all sides + a little more if your island back is fancy.

Aisles are measured and compared from counter edge to counter edge. So that 40" aisle that you believe you have between the wall and the island is actually 37".

But frankly, I'd be more worried about the people in the stools as they, and their stools, will be too close to that fireplace. People trying to squish behind the seated ones have an actual chance of getting burned by it too.

This is the place where I go "Sh--" in disgust, get a new piece of paper and try something else.

Thanks to everyone for all of the comments! I really appreciate it. I'm attaching an updated version of this drawing with some changes that people suggested as well as some others that occurred to me. I'm also attaching the other layout I'm considering. I don't like it as much, but I'm very open to hearing what others have to say about their view of pros/cons of the two options

Someone asked about what was between the fridge and range. It's a steam oven and would be installed under the counter. I'm still unsure if I'll actually get one of these. I bake all our bread and would love to have one, but they're expensive.

Regarding the microwave, we'll just get a cheap countertop version and it will go in the pantry of the updated plan.

Regarding the width of the island, the 40 inches would be counter to counter. The cabinets will be custom, so we would just have them made to whatever dimensions would achieve that spacing.

The fireplace is a two sided wood burning style where the two openings are offset. So the actual fireplace opening isn't directly in front of those counter seats. It's shaded in the updated drawing. I also don't see us using that side of the fireplace much (at all?). The one in the living room is great and will get used (the flue is currently broken so neither is usable at the moment). However, if it seemed that there would be a safety hazard with this arrangement, we could definitely go down to one stool on that end. I really just want somewhere for my daughter to sit and hang out with me while I cook. I always hung out with my mom in the kitchen after school while she made dinner, and those are great memories for me.

updated plan:

second option:

(Squares are 6 inches)

I like the first option better, the one based on moving the kitchen. Several reasons why. It's a better layout with a wonderful amount of work space. (Great job designing that!) It gives the better windows and light to the kitchen, and most of us spend more daylight time in the kitchen than in the dining room. It puts the garage opening into the kitchen, which is more convenient for grocery unloading. And it puts the kitchen back further from the front door entrance If the kitchen opens directly into the foyer, you are going to get unwanted levels of kitchen traffic. Plus kitchens and foyers are the two most chaotic spots in the house. It's nice to be able to put a more composed living or dining room between those two spaces.

Hi, I think you might be drawing the island wrong. I'm not saying this stuff to prove you wrong, it's to help you make sure you can actually do what your planning and aren't surprised later. People have ended up unexpectedly with aisles that are too narrow before - even those who have used a designer.

Base cabinets are supposedly about 24" deep. The reality runs anywhere between about an inch shorter to an inch deeper. You won't know for sure until you pick your cabinet maker. Because you don't know, use 25.5" for the depth with countertop simply because most are that size.

Island base cabinets will be about 25" deep because you need to add a back. The current standards for counter height seating overhang are about 15" deep, but let's go with 12". The island will also have an overhang on the aisle side of 1.5" - making the island about 38.5" deep.

Your drawing says your kitchen will be slightly less than 11 feet wide at that point. If you have 25.5" for the outer wall cabinets and counter, have a 40" wide aisle and a 38.5" island the aisle on the fireplace side will be less than 28".

There are assorted places you could cheat stuff - 10" overhang instead of 12", making the island base cabinets 18" deep instead of 24" (but watch that sink size) to get that aisle into the lower 30s.

bmorepanic, I really appreciate you taking the time to type all that out. I definitely want to sort out any potential issues during the design phase and not in the middle of construction. It's possible that I'm mistaken, but my understanding is that custom cabinets can be made to basically any size. So in our case, if we want our island to be 29 inches wide, and we want the space on the lower left hand side to have a 12 inch overhang for the stools, the base cabinets for that section would be made 15.5 inches deep (15.5 + 1.5 inch counter overhang in the front + 12 inch counter overhand in the back = 29 inches).

Hi all! Our kitchen designer finally got back to me with her thoughts on my layout, and she was pretty negative about it. She told me there needed to be 42 to 48 inches of clearance on all sides of the island. The NKBA guidelines say 36 inches is sufficient for a non-working kitchen aisle, but the kitchen designer insisted this would create a bottleneck. I don't think it will be a problem (actually the hallway that goes to all the bedrooms in our house is only 36.5 inches and has never seemed narrow to me), but I'd love to hear from anyone with kitchen aisles a bit on the tight side. My proposed layout also has a 40 inch working aisle. This could be extended to 42 inches (by shrinking the island width to 27 inches) if necessary, but I think 40 will be fine. I'm the only cook in the house, and there is a secondary prep space outside of the main aisle if someone else needed space to work. I tried out the spacing using a table, and it felt fine to me, but again, I'd love to hear from people who have working aisles less than 42 inches.

I tweaked a few things based on some suggestions I got here, so I'm posting my new drawing. I also drew up another layout option similar to this one, but in the space of the existing kitchen, so I'm posting that one as well. I'd love to hear any suggestions anyone might have about either of these. And thanks in advance! It's so helpful to get outside ideas/opinions for stuff like this. It's such a huge investment - I want to get it right!

I think the flow of garage to kitchen is a little more functional than coming through the dining room (if you usually come in through the garage). You could build in a nice mudroom where you have the floating desk (if you usually come in through the garage). That corner with the stools and the hearth feels visually tight even though I realize it says flush with floor. What are you hoping to get from a 29" inch that you're thinking you couldn't get from the 24" one? If you're going to do 24" depth drawers, you're only working with 5" on the other side. If you went 24" you could get the larger aisles all around. I would consider moving the dw to the other side of the sink. Do you know where you want your dishes to go? Do you have an idea what you want to use that counterspace and cabinets/drawers to the left of the cleanup sink for? You could do a cabinet to the countertop (https://thehoneycombhome.com/countertop-cabinets-in-the-kitchen/) to get a little bit of separation from the dining room, and store dishes and silverware conveniently!

A 36" aisle seems fine to me. Where I think it feels tight though is where the aisle ends and the bar seating begins. Someone sitting on the right-hand stool really pinches that corner path. If you were willing to go down to one stool, it would work better.

Your second layout, in your existing kitchen space, just feels off balance. You have a prep sink and a clean-up sink. But the clean-up sink is the smaller one, and the one in the middle of the prep work triangle. The larger sink at the bottom of the kitchen doesn't serve a logical purpose. I think windows are driving that design more than work-flow is.

sarahsaccount24 and mcarroll16, thank you both for the input!

sarahsaccount24, I guess I was worried that the island would look really narrow and out of proportion at only 24 inches wide. Maybe it would be fine though. I had considered putting the dishwasher on the other side of the sink but thought just a few upper cabinets there (for storing the dishes) would look weird. I do like your idea of one of those cabinets that comes down to the counter, but I also want to use that counter for our espresso maker (it's messy and needs to be next to a sink). I was thinking I'd store the dishes in the upper cabinets to the left of the range. Regarding the door to the garage, we don't park in the garage so we use the front door more. But if we ever do start parking in the garage (unlikely, as that's where I store my gardening stuff, which is obviously way more important that the car :) ), I thought it would be convenient to come in next to the fridge and pantry for grocery unloading.

mcarroll16, you're definitely right about the windows driving the design in the second drawing. I've considered shrinking the window at the top of the plan to move the range up and make the counter above it smaller. I do a lot of baking, so that counter would be useful as my baking area (it's also right next to the pantry, so that's nice), but it doesn't need to be that big. I've also thought about scooting the range over so it's closer to the top window to gain a few inches on the other side.

Regarding the sink issue, the main prep area in the second drawing would be on the island, so that would be the prep sink. I know it has the dishwasher next to it, but we really only use the dishwasher for actual dishes (plates, bowls, cups, silverware) - I tend to hand wash everything else. So I would put all my dishes from preparing meals in the cleanup sink (the one in front of the window) to be washed after meal prep was done, and then we would just put our dishes in the dishwasher after the meal. That's how I currently cook, so I guess I was just planning to continue that pattern, but I know others would advocate for putting more things in the dishwasher. If I gained a few more inches between the window sink and range, I could fit the dishwasher in there, but then my dishes would probably go in the island, and I'd really like to keep that area available for food prep tools. Also, having the dishes stored below that top window (which I would do with the d/w as currently drawn) would keep them close to the fridge.

Ah, that makes sense. I still like the garage-entry kitchen better. I like that there is no dishwasher obstructing the main prep space. You have a one-person kitchen now, but that might change as your daughter grows. If you have two sinks, it's really nice to have an arrangement where both work areas can be used at the same time. Plus, as you said earlier, this arrangement gives you better light in the kitchen.

I agree with sarahsaccount24 on moving the dishwasher. Your dishwasher placement blocks your corner. When it's open, you won't be able to reach into the uppers to put your clean dishes away. You're going to have to stack everything on the counter first, then put things away when the DW is empty. You would actually have a better work flow standing at the sink to empty, and just rotating over to load things into those uppers left of the range. And again, the possible 2-person workflow issue--the corner dishwasher blocks the lower cabinet, where you probably have equipment. Really annoying if one person is cleaning and anther is cooking.