Initial reaction: Your house will have a lovely open feel to it and it certainly sounds like a huge improvement over what you have now! I like the long cooking area and island that you're essentially using to create a galley working area. Here are my concerns about your layout (and these are based on the way *I* cook and like things laid out, but my thoughts might help you clarify what you like/want/need for yourself):

1. Are you sure you want the fridge where it is? Anyone who wants something to drink while you're cooking is going to have to get into your work area. Plus it's as far as it can be from your pantry. That's annoying when a) you're putting away groceries and b) putting together your mise. It's much more efficient to have the fridge and pantry right next to each other IMO, though I don't see an easy way to do it without moving your cooktop from the center the long wall. Maybe switch the positions of the wall ovens and pantry, although that is not optimal.

2. Have you figured out where all your stuff is going? You have lots of storage space built into your work area, but do you want your dishes there too? You could consider building a bank of base cabinets between the supports that separate the kitchen and family room. It will serve to categorize the spaces visually as well as give you a place to put things you don't want in your work area.

3. If you put cabinets there, it gives you more options for your island. You can put your microwave under the counter of your island where you have one of the 24" drawers now. You could put your DW on the left where you want it and then put the trash on the other side; that way someone who needs access to the trash while you're working doesn't intrude so far into your work area.

4. Do you really need such a large desk area? Consider making part of it a serving area for drinks, ice, etc., and putting in a bar sink there.

You have some details to hammer out but it looks like you're off to a great start!

Hmmm - great things to think about!

Okay - first thing that comes to mind - I've never had a microwave installed under the counter. Does that work well? I know my daughter would love it...but is it inconvenient for an adult, or do people just get used to reaching down rather than up to put stuff in? What about setting the cook time, etc - wouldn't you have to bend over to push the buttons, etc?

Our contractor did actually suggest the base cabinets between the support beams - you obviously saw that same potential! Unfortunately, DH really wants to keep that space open and "unencumbered." I also wouldn't want it to start feeling crowded to anyone sitting at the island if there are cabinets behind them. I'd have to measure the aisle size if we were to put cabinets there.

DH and I spend a fair amount of time at the computer for work purposes, so having a desk there, with a nice view out the windows, seemed like a good idea. But...we are still considering making that a countertop - probably a coffee bar/beverage center like you suggested.

Do you think I could swap the frig and wall ovens? Or would the frig be too "bulky" as the first thing you see? Our contractor will build a wall to cover the side, but it obviously will stick out farther than the rest of the counters.

I've toyed with swapping the trash and dishwasher (but I do want more than 15" on the right side of the sink, so maybe I'd add some sort of 9" cabinet there as well?) - but won't the dishwasher on the left of the sink interfere with access to the cooktop? I know people have discussed the cooktop/DW alignment before, but I couldn't see a clear consensus - or it is really only when there is an oven across from a DW?

Thank you so much - you've given me more to think about!

Oh - and your comments about the openness made me feel a bit better - I do have fears that the significant amount of glass and light may be too much...though who doesn't love sunshine??? :-)

Fancy drawings definitely not needed, so no reason to apologize!

• Overall (Q5)...Yes, it does look very open. I do have two questions, though...(1) Where do you live and (2) What exposure will most of the windows have (N/S/E/W)? If you live in a warm part of the country and have mostly S or W windows, then seriously consider some type of "thermal" window coverings. Sun streaming into the windows can quickly heat up a room.

  We live in the mid-Atlantic region and I do find that while our western facing windows do bring in tons of natural light, they also bring in a lot of heat in the summer.

Refrigerator and/or Oven Cabinet...I have to respectfully disagree w/others about the refrigerator...right now, it's on the periphery of the kitchen and on the "living" side of the house, so snackers will not interfere with someone working in the kitchen. Kitchen workers will be at the island or on either side of the cooktop while the snackers will be outside of the island & cooktop area. If you switch the refrigerator w/the ovens, everyone from the DR, Great Room, and left side of the FR will go b/w the island and cooktop wall to get to the refrigerator...right through the entire Kitchen workspace.

As far as putting groceries away is concerned, I find that I take the grocery bags to the place the food belongs...so bags w/refrigerator/frozen stuff are taken directly to the refrigerator, everything else is placed near the pantry. So, having them separated has never been an issue for us. (Yes, I ask the grocery clerks to bag the refrigerated/frozen stuff separately...I've never had an issue with this.) YMMV.
Faucet Placement (Q1)...I don't know. Perhaps it would work to have two faucets, but I think the sink frontage will be more of an issue. If you want your cooktop centered on the back wall you really don't have room for a Prep Sink + sufficient workspace on the sink side of the cooktop. You'd probably only have approx 24" b/w the sink & cooktop. However, if you're willing to move your cooktop, you could do it.
DW (Q2)...Keep it where it is. You're absolutely correct about the DW/cooktop conflict. If you moved it, you would also create Prep Zone/Cleanup Zone and Cooking Zone/Cleanup Zone conflicts. You will get used to its location, whatever side it's on.
Prep & Cleanup Zones (Q3)...Yes, your primary Prep Zone will probably end up being to the left of the sink b/c there's no other water source in the kitchen plus it will be close to the cooktop. You'll probably have 28" or so for your Cleanup Zone to the right of the sink (24" + 2" or so wall + 1.5" counter overhang). However, you will probably find yourself also using the left side on occasion, which means you will be pushing dishes out of the way. It's a compromise, are you OK with it? The only other viable option that I can think of right now is to move the cooktop to one end & put in a Prep Sink on the cooktop side.
Dish Storage...I think you...

buehl - thank you SO much!!!! You are amazing! What software are you using? Are you a professional KD??? I've been wanting to do something like that, but just don't know how. Don't suppose you have software for elevations/walk through, do you? Wanna do my whole house? ;-)

A few responses -

Frig location - I agree with the frig placement, and liked that it was on the periphery - and that it wouldn't "bump out" until the end of the run. I feel good about that placement now after your comments. I'm not too concerned about the pantry location - in my current kitchen, I have to walk about as far (or farther, into my basement) to get to stored goods.

Prep sink - I'm quite concerned about where I'm going to put all my counter stuff as it is. I don't want (and can't really have) items like the coffee maker, KA mixer, coffee roaster (not grinder...roaster - big hunk of equipment, but worth it!), and toaster on the island, so all of that has to go on the two 4' sections of countertop on either side of the cooktop. The KA could get put away between uses, in theory...but I hate lugging it out and putting it away. I'll put away the blender, which currently resides on my counter, because I don't think I'll have room for everything in my new kitchen. I currently have a lot of counter space. So...a prep sink will really cut me down on my options. That's why I was wondering about a double-bowl with two separate faucets - even if just for the convenience of allowing two people to get water/drain stuff at the same time.

Range/oven/MW - I'm on a pretty tight budget (self-imposed) for appliances, as the entire project involves ripping off half of our current house and rebuilding it. Very pricey, as you can imagine. I'm cutting corners where I can - which means reusing a few of my current appliances (frig, DW) and painting them black. I found a Jenn-Aire double wall oven for $300 on craigslist - it's in great shape - even has convection on one of the ovens. So I'm already set on the double wall oven. These are 27", but our contractor's going to put them in a 30" cabinet so we can have the option to go bigger in the future. I'll be buying a new cooktop, but nothing fancy. Our current range is electric, and we want to have a gas (propane) cooktop - but I definitely won't need a full range as the double oven will more than suffice. MW drawer - not really in the budget...I'd like to stay under $200 for that. Would a countertop/built-in MW work in an undercabinet placement, or where else might I consider putting it?

Island - I love, love, love the island you've created with the leg room - I was trying to figure out how to do that on the corners - completely forgot that the island base doesn't have to be flush on the back side!!! Thank you, thank you!!!

Oh - location - midwest. Very cold in the winter (20 below), warm in the summer (80s). We're going to put in triple-panes in as many windows as we can to help cut down...

[warning: this is a stream of consciousness piece I don't have time to rework. Be patient here.]

Do you anticipate entering the house from the garage most of the time? Your drawing seems to imply that the route to kitchen from front door is to go through the dining room and great room.

I grew up in a house that had a route like that. The front door was only for guests; it was rare for us to use it. Dad had shortened up a houseplan that should have had 4 more feet side to side and an internal shortcut from front to back door. Entering from the back door in the kitchen, we walked the entire perimeter of the first floor in order to go upstairs.

You have a "living" room, a "great" room, a "dining" area/room and a "family" room, all adjacent to one another. Do you really have a clear idea of the different activities that will take place in each of these spaces? Will the living room become a formal parlor that is essentially unused?

Your kitchen has surprisingly little counterspace and as you said, only one sink, yet there is such a big first floor. Imagine your daughter as a grownup. Where will two women work and enjoy the parallel activities of two cooks? Throw DH into the kitchen also...where will you all be? Believe me, the dynamic between two women in a kitchen is different than that of a mom and a middle schooler.

I'd push that island seating out toward the "family" room area--this is assuming that people looking out to the left in the diagram will have a clear view from some good seats there. But it's also important to note that people sitting at the island are there for kitchen reasons, not scenic ones--you have two more rooms which are closer to the windows--bird feeder watching? contemplation? etc. If I have misunderstood and the view is at the top of the picture or the top left, I'd turn the kitchen 90 degrees and put the backs of the island toward the great room. That gives more space back to the family room for a proper viewing area out there and the cook gets to look through both adjacent rooms at the views.

Consider carts or a second small island as places for all the kitchen paraphernalia that sits on countertops. Better still, given the amount of space you have, there have been some intriguing two parallel island designs on the GW and in mags, etc.

Here's a radical new idea: put the pantry and kitchen closet between the living room and the kitchen, a set of two hall-like spaces entered from the middle of the kitchen where you have the range currently and perhaps also with an access facing the door to garage. Move that kitchen wall six feet or so toward the family room, pushing the kitchen back toward the family room. The pillars there can be part of the semi-wall defining each side of kitchen. This puts people much closer to the fireplace when they are in the kitchen and makes the "family room" concept of kitchen and leisure activities more logical. Also, this puts the kitchen closer to...

"Better still, given the amount of space you have, there have been some intriguing two parallel island designs on the GW and in mags, etc."

Oh yes--Momto4kids' wonderful kitchen springs to mind. Should be on the FKB.

Florantha - the flow of our house is difficult to understand when you're standing in it, let alone trying to interpret the drawings I've created. Let me try to clarify. The living room is the only thing on that "level" of the house. When you come in the front door (which we almost never do - we use the garage entrance, one half-flight down) - you are standing in the "entryway" but the only thing there is the living room. Straight ahead is a set of stairs that currently goes up a half-flight to the bedrooms and kitchen (now - will be moved down), and a set of stairs that goes down a half-flight to the current family room (soon to be kitchen, etc.). Most people who visit our house will access our kitchen by walking in the front door and straight down the stairs into the kitchen. There will be an option to walk through the living room to another set of stairs that will take one down to the great room (and then around the corner to the kitchen).

We can't move the kitchen wall at all - the basement wall is on the other side (though the true basement is a half-flight down...I'm so sorry...4-level splits were a huge thing in the 70s up here in the midwest...you've probably not had the "pleasure" of seeing one, fortunately!).

Not in the drawing - but the "focal point" of the great room will be a 12'x12' window complex centered on that south wall. When you walk in from the garage (or come down the stairs from the front door and turn into the kitchen), it's the first thing you'll see. The orientation of the island was to maximize the visibility of the family room from the kitchen. The tv is above the fireplace...and I'd like to watch tv while doing dishes (sometimes...other times, it'll probably annoy me, depending on who is in control of the tv...).

The proposed floorplan may indeed be too open. But upstairs, there will be 4 bedrooms, one of which may be an office/library. The old kitchen will get converted to a sitting area as well. The lower level will be an in-your-face everyone-in-everyone's business kind of place - but hopefully we'll have enough space to get away from each other upstairs.

The question of two women in the kitchen. Hmmm - have to think on that one. Two parallel islands? Gonna think about that too. Interesting idea. I don't know if I have enough space for it, though. Back to investigate the plans more. Thanks!!!

Another thought on the MW - would it work to put it in one side of the pantry? As in making the pantry two 24" tall cabinets (ceiling is 8'), but one of the cabinets would be broken into a top cabinet, a microwave cabinet, and a lower cabinet. The pantry is about 42" from the edge of the island (diagonally, really), and about 9' from the opposite wall (the 18' line of cabinets/frig/ovens). To heat something stored in the frig would require walking about 25' - but on the other hand, once the item is ready, to sit down and eat it would be only a few feet away. Hmmm. Or...maybe I could have the contractor extend my "desk" counter a bit and have the microwave built in to the side of the desk (the side that faces the frig). Below it, I could store cookbooks. Definitely more conveniently located to the frig and eating areas - but would it look funny to have that sticking out past the support beams? Plus, the desk will probably be a different height (30"?), and I'm guessing that's too low to put a microwave, so it would require a higher unit sitting next to the desk. Unless he encloses the desk with a one-foot "frame" on all three of the outer sides. The side into the great room could be shallow cabinets, for storing whatever, or shelves for displaying. The side into the family room could be shelves. I know a microwave won't fit into a one-foot space, but it could extend the extra 8 or so inches under the desk - I'd still have a good 24" to fit my legs. Thoughts on that?

bump

Thank you for the bump! :-)

Things have changed ever so slightly - we're going to do away with the desk (we'll put it somewhere else in the "great room," not quite sure where yet) and make that smaller counter area into a coffee station. Now I'm debating how to handle the sinks. I figure the coffee station should have a small bar sink/prep sink (cept it won't be a true prep sink, obviously). And the back of that counter will only extend to 42", so the coffee maker will stick up beyond the counter - is that okay?

So, back to the layout question - if I have the layout more-or-less as shows in buehl's layout #1 diagram, but with the addition of a coffee/beverage station (and small sink there), will the rest of the layout work? I'm also thinking that the microwave could maybe go under the counter in the coffee station? It's at least a 4-foot counter, so I was thinking that the left half of the lower cabinet could have the microwave; the sink can go in the right corner? I wouldn't get much storage in that area that way, though...maybe a bit below the microwave? Can I use the space below a bar sink at all? Or is that space more-or-less inconvenienced by the plumbing?

Thanks again!