Fori,

I am excited to see your kitchen evolve.. I took several elements from your old kitchen in my galley plan and am glad to see that you are going with a galley again. Some questions..

If the kitchen is 9ft wide, then with standard base cabs you end up with 5 ft aisle but if you do deeper base cabs, then it is more like 4ft.. I think this is fine but you have a deadend on one side of a galley. So something to think about.

Is the refrigerator closer to corner near the dining room? I can't see the text in the image you posted. If the dining room opening can be narrowed and you can lengthen the cooktop counter run, I would do that and gain some more counter space.. it looks a bit chokey now.

You seem to have 2 eating spaces very close to each other. What is your thought on the breakfast area.. Are you planning a banquette or an island? Instead of doing cabinets on the dining room wall, you can potentially also do it in the breakfast area.

I was reviewing my response and a thought occured to me.. If you have more natural light in the breakfast area, why not do the kitchen there. It is wider and be more spacious perhaps and include a casual eating area in an island or peninsula.

Fori- The kitchen work area seems a little tight...and it looks like a lot of traffic goes right through your work space.

Have you thought about incorporating the breakfast room into the kitchen work area? Maybe your sink under the big breakfast room window and change out the other window to two smaller ones? Maybe put the range/cooktop in between the smaller windows? That would leave the 'back' wall for fridge, ovens, pantry, etc.

I like the idea of putting a wall back, between the kitchen and living room, but I don't think you'll like how small the kitchen is going to feel, once that wall is back. My kitchen is 13' x 10' and I wish I had a lot more prep space...and my pantry is outside of the kitchen. Just a few ideas :)

Thanks for the feedback!

Wall or not, this is the biggest kitchen I've ever had! :)

The area around the cooktop does look squishy. The fridge is the white block on the cooktop run--I could slide it over. Right now I have the 12" deep cabinets in the "dining room" continuing into the kitchen to be alongside the fridge but there's no reason not to just put a panel there. And I don't need cabs in there at all. (Currently it's set up as the end of the room near the kitchen is family room and the dining table is at the far end. Small house, so it's all close enough.)
The kitchen eating area window is table height, so I'd have to replace it to stick the kitchen there. Currently the cabinets on the sink side wrap around into the nook--12" deep upper and lower. I've kept it there. Cuz it's cute. And useful. There is a table in there and the refrigerator. I want the fridge out of there but could put cabinets there. This photo (most of these are from before we actually moved in and covered things with junk:) ) is taken from where the fridge sits. Oven in a doorway: no problem. Fridge in doorway? Problem!

That corner is where the fridge is, doors facing the table (our table is bigger than that one):

Now, if you remember my old kitchen, this one is 6" narrower in the galley section, about 3 feet longer in the breakfast section, and has the 28" bumpout which the last one lacked. The windows are bigger. That kitchen was completely closed off and we liked it! I don't mind leaving this one a bit more open if we can spare the wall space, but we don't expect to find it dark. Of course we won't be doing white this time...

Anyway, yeah, more prep by cooktop. I'll fix that. There's plenty on the sink wall, too. And the table. Last kitchen, we put a baking counter under the window (with giant drawers, of course) since it was too tight for a table. I don't mind working off the table if I need to. The spouse misses the functionality of the last kitchen and if I can approximate it, it would be good. Last kitchen:

As long as I can fit in almost that much space, spouse will be satisfied. I don't mind shrinking the cooktop.

I can lengthen the cooktop run by putting the door to FR/DR closer to the end. I wouldn't (probably) want cabs wrapping down the new wall but that's probably a goofy idea anyway. Actually it would be better to treat the other room differently for cabinets should I decide to do built-ins. Ooohhh. Another pocket door! I like those a lot.

But what I want to avoid is the fridge opening into the eating area. I'd rather have an oven opening into the eating area.

We'd probably only have room to do deep cabs on one side, if at all. Lalitha, what do you mean by a dead end? You're making me think my sketches are as terrible as I know they are! There are pocket doors on the ends, rarely used but really really appreciated when they are.

I've thought about putting the cooktop in front of the window. It's high enough I think I could do it, even if I had to make it a non-operable window (it could probably be replaced anyway--it's impossible for short peeps to open). Folding chair to match that folding table because step stools are for grannies!:) :

There is a lot of traffic through the work space. If I yell at the traffic, it stops for a while. It's really not a problem. (I do close the door into the kitchen when I'm getting into the oven on busy traffic days. And if I forget, the smoke alarm in the foyer reminds me.)

I have toyed with the idea of making the breakfast area poke into the DR/FR so I could just throw a leaf or three on when needed and use it for THE table instead of A table. But we do use both. Dining table is in a corner where it can be turned when we need full size once or twice a year--we can expand it to seat 8 without moving it at all. In spite of how it is in this photo, it is normally protected from the sun by art projects, puzzles, etc. So while it's rarely used for eating, it's used a lot. We don't REALLY have two eating areas. We have a kitchen table for eating and another table for playing that doubles as a dining table for company.
{{gwi:1954828}}

I am off to redo measurements, learn to use the silly drawing program, and think about refrigerators. Thanks!