2nd picture/view.

also another thought do you think that there are enough cabs to maybe consider getting rid of the upper cabinets to the left of the window in lieu of some shelves for bowls/dishes ? on the other side of that wall run will be doors leading to deck with a 6 person kitchen table in the area in front of the doors...

Gussie, it's not really possible to make suggestions, particularly regarding the island and stools, without dimensions.

sorry i'm not sure if this helps - although there aren't dimensions on the island here. i want to say maybe 70 inches. You can ignore that anyway b/c I don't think there is enough space and I think the only way would be to possibly push wall back more. Not sure what I will do...

Need layout of the whole floor.
- what does the kitchen open into?

Can you rotate your island to be parallel with your sink?
That way:
- I would switch the fridge w/ the ovens: I don't like people in my cooking area: people go to the fridge OFTEN, but not ovens.
--> then you can make the fridge standard depth (which is cheaper than counter depth) by bringing the side cabinets out as deep as the fridge.
--> you can put the MW next to the fridge
- you can make the island longer and add the prep sink/fit 4 stools

good luck,
amanda

Here is a bit of a floor plan although changed a little, but will give an idea of the flow and overall size maybe.

If that's a prep sink on your island, you're in pretty good shape.

Here is the view with the island turned around. i think the island may want to be deeper in this scenerio. where sould you do the prep sink though - as it would likely seem like it would be right near the regular sink?

or i messed with it more and made it more square. thoughts?

or i messed with it more and made it more square. thoughts?

{{gwi:2141521}}

I think the original one has the island to close to the ovens. That would annoy me.

The 2nd last one with the island moved over looks good for the ovens, but is it too tight in your workspace there too?

I am only responding to the question about open shelving. I had open shelving in my kitchen-before-last. It was pretty, and provided a more open feel than upper cabinets would have. However there was a fine line between charming jumble of dishes and unappealing clutter. Then there is the pulling a cereal bowl from the shelf and finding a hair that was distinctly German Shepherd. Our beloved Gretl. The doghair thing was pretty frequent for the dishes on the shelves. I loved my beautiful Gretl. But open shelves in the kitchen? Never again.

If you want a big island, do a range, not wall ovens, and just 12''deep cabinets on the wall where you have the ovens. You don't have nearly the room in this kitchen that you think you do, despite it being half again as big as the family room. Something is disproportionate here to the overall size of the house. And it's not the family room.

holly - why wouldn't the space that you are in the majority of your time be proportionately larger than any other room. I'm confused by your comment. thanks.

People think that they spend most of their time in the kitchen cooking. Yet more time is actually spent prepping. By far.

The same goes for the amount of time spent in a kitchen vs a family room space. A kitchen is a workroom. A production space for meals. You do NOT spend 8 hours every day in the kitchen, even if you grind your own grain and bake your own bread. Hopefully, you spend more time in a family area than a food production space.

Even with the development of the open concept space, the rooms still retain their specific functional designators. And when designing an open concept, the space for food production within that zone should never be larger than the family gathering spot. Ideally, it should be adjacent to the family area, with adequate separation for the eating area.

Your kitchen is too large proportionately to the family room space and impinges on the eating space. In addition, there are too many designated eating locations. Pick two of the three. And strengthen the connection between the dining room and kitchen if that is one of the areas selected. As it is, it would make a great library. But it won't really be used enough to justify the square footage devoted to it

Do a stopwatch exercise for the next week. Time the minutes/hours spent in each function that you want here. How much time is spent preparing food? Actually eating it? Doing other family activities? To paraphrase Magnaverde, proportion the space for how you really use it, not how your fantasy life uses it.

I like the more square island with the prep sink closer to the cooktop and refrigerator. Clean up in one aisle, cooking, refrigerator and prep in other aisle. It's a good combination. I like the relationship.

Sigh...I like the kitchen iterations fine. It's the zig-zagging from the stairs past a bunch of hip bangers and through the tunnel to the laundry room that's unsettling to me. Have you pictured doing this route with a big basket of laundry on your hip, with other people in the path?

How wide is the back tunnel, er, hallway from the garage to the mudroom area? It appears to be narrow, and it reminds me a lot of the hallway from the garage to the house that my parents had at one time. There were only 3 of us living there, but it still wasn't fun to use. Human nature is to kick off and drop the extras as soon as we come in the door. This plan is fighting that nature.

This is a project is a huge undertaking. I'd like to see it work incredibly well for your family. I'm afraid it's not quite there yet.

Is this a new construction, an addition, or just a kitchen renovation?
If it is a new construction, that is a strange floorplan... I agree there are too many large eating areas and the dining room seems disconnected from the kitchen (are there two dining rooms?).
Also is the dining room open to the foyer? And do you have to walk through the dining room to get to the coat closet? My coat closet is in the center of my house and I hate it... but it is closer to my entrance than the one in this layout.
The powder room is a hike from the living area (and your guests may need a map)... IMO the powder room should be where the coat closet is.
Personally I dislike any layout with a staircase in the center of the house... I know it is common, but in every layout I see (including the house I grew up in) it seems to disrupt the flow of the first floor and get in the way.
Now if this is an existing house, I totally understand as my old house's layout is much stranger and I can only fix some of it...

Two thirds of the first floor is devoted to food. Do you spend two thirds of your time at home cooking and eating? If so, maybe you should be putting a gym in there.

The last few iterations have seating crammed up against the ovens. Sorry about those skin grafts, Mary, more Chardonnay? Going to 12" there would open up that choke point by the rear hall door.

this is an existing house with a renovation. there really isn't a better option for the laundry than the hallway we have posted, otherwise it would cut right into the flow of the kitchen where the sink area is (if the doorway was there).

the stairs are what they are and that house is a very open floor plan - it just opens right into the dining room and the other living room - which are spaces we don't use as often as the back of the house. we don't have any sort of coat closet on that side of the house near the front door so that's why the coat closet is going there - actually the powder room is existing there right now and we are moving it to the laundry area b/c i think it makes the most sense - it gives us some sort of coat closet near the front door and gives us a large pantry area which is something i wanted. i also thought maybe moving the bathroom from btwn the eating areas was a better idea.

Moving the laundry upstairs isn't an option and making that hallway any wider coming in really isn't an option as it's already cutting into our garage space thereby making it much wider would cause it to probably cut our 2 car garage into a non functional 2 car garage (wouldn't fit 2 cars - i just fits them now.

We spend the vast majority of our time btwn the kitchen and the family room - those two rooms are completely connected so it's really one large space. it's actually how our current layout is and it works for us with the kitchen table in the middle - the new space is just going to be larger. we have a big family (we are going to be a family of 6 ourselves and my husbands parents are at our house with the kids a lot so there are a lot of people on a daily basis. I have a large extended family and host a lot of gatherings. I've always had and grown up with two eating areas a kitchen one and a dining room one. I don't see with our lifestyle us using the dining room area for our every day use - we are sit at the kitchen table right near the work surface type of people. So it might seem that the majority of our space is towards the back of the house but that's b/c that's where we spend the vast majority of our time. if i had designed this house i would have done it differently but working with what i have and what i think will work for us better than it's working now. if you see where i have to cram myself past to get to my current laundry then you will realize what a huge improvement this is.

With the prep sink, and a small island, with no seating, the design works. But, the others are right when they mention that it's disproportionate. One thing you may be missing about all of those 100K kitchens redos on Houzz is that they are in houses that support a 400 square foot kitchen. Doing a 250K reno on an older 19-- house like this may not really make that much economic sense when you look at the big picture. It still leaves you with the small 19--house as the main space, and now it's dwarfed by the new space.

Hola,
my gf's layout is similar to yours and she has a doorway near where your L-shape/cooktop is. She doesn't have a prep sink on the island. So I always look at her kitchen and thought that if she only had a prep sink, and move the island closer toward the diningroom/front of the house, then she's have a prep/cooking zone, and then a cleanup zone. Right now, when she cooks, she is all over that kitchen.

Then when you close off the doorway from hallway by fridge, you can make that hallway a bit shorter and gain space in the garage.

My opinion: Hallways are wasted space.

picture below: see how w/ the prep sink in the island, near the cooktop/oven, your cooking area is toward the right.
But the clean-up area is to the left, away from the cooking area, with that door from the laundry/bathroom wing cutting through the 2 areas of the kitchen.

Best i can find in a short notice:
{{gwi:2141524}}

I think Huango is meaning something like this:

Look! Actual room for a table! And traffic paths!

It's still too large proportionately, but at least now, there IS actually room for people as well as cabinets.

For your low microwave, a drawer microwave.

Said to also be more accessible and user friendly.

thanks much for the redesign green (the sarcasm though is sort of not necessary).

GreenDesign: that is exactly it!
You are fabulous!
A picture is worth a thousand of my jumbled words :)

And I would put 2 DWs flanking the clean-up sink (use 1 daily as the drying rack, so your countertops are cleared).
I love my 2 DWs!!!

While you're at it, widen those windows at the cleanup sink.
and bring down to the countertop.

bad picture:
{{gwi:2136096}}

Here are a couple of ideas:
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{{gwi:2141526}}

In both of them I tried to shorten up the hall to the mudroom. I also tried moving the bathroom back closer to the main part of the living area, too. My thinking is that if you often have 6+ people in your home, the bathroom needs to be centrally located. Suppose someone is in there...you want others to have a nice, convenient place to wait their turn, and an easy spot to check to see if the door is finally open and the next person is free to go in. (Mom of 7 speaking here, LOL. Someone is almost ALWAYS in the bathroom when one of us goes to use it!)

I also gave you a long closet rather than a walk in closet in the mudroom. Why? Because more than one person can use the closet at a time if it's long rather than multiple people at a time trying to squeeze in and out of one small door into the storage room. This also gives you more floorspace for everyone to move around when you are coming and going, all trying to get your coats and shoes off or on at the same time.

I'd also think about including a drop spot just inside the door from the garage. This would be the place to set your keys, purse, cell phone, the mail, a package, and stuff you need to remember to take with you when you head out the door. If you still have a land line, this could be the spot for the answering machine and a phone. If you use a dresser for your drop zone, you could hang a mirror or calendar above it. Inside could go sunblock, hair ties (mom of a lot of girls, here...) a comb and brush, and if your kids are little, maybe even a drawer of children's socks to help make getting out the door easier. Diapers, grocery bags, mittens and hats, goodness, it'd be so easy to fill it up. : )

In the top image, I tossed in a few angled walls to ease the walkways a little. In the bottom image I widened the stairs and from the garage a little, as well as the hall. I shortened them, so maybe (?) they could be a little wider. Not sure, without seeing a vehicle parked in there. ; )

I also shortened up the island in both pictures to make sure you've got wide comfortable walkways on both the sink side and the fridge side.

In both plans, I moved the fridge to the bottom wall of the kitchen near the oven area. I did this to give you a straight shot to the doorway of the back room area of the house (saving you a jig and a jog.)

Hope this helps.

This post was edited by laughable on Thu, Dec 11, 14 at 15:13

The walkway from island to dishwasher should be at least 37". The walkway in the oven and high-traffic mud-room side at least 40". If you are able to get that, you can expand the island. Otherwise consider flipping the island and making it thin and long. when you flip the island make sure you are adding room for seating and determining that walkway is as mentioned above.

I am not clear on the final direction of your island. But I would be concerned that you have enough space to stand in front of the oven, open the oven door pull something out of the oven and turn around without backing into either a chair or the island.

Maybe you can try something like this, if you forgo the butlers pantry.

I moved both DR and Mudroom entries. Swapped fridge and ovens. Fridge recessed to the pantry and MW next to it. When someone is using the fridge/MW, if there's traffic from/to the mudroom, the area can get crowded, but I think if entry is 42" wide it's doable.

(Lots of posts in the tread, sorry, if this has been suggested before.)

{{gwi:2141527}}

I'm no expert, but I quess aisles around the island should be at least 42" (from the edge of the island to the edge of counter/handle of appliance), and on the table side 60-65" b/w island and table edges.

I believe, easy reach instead of an angled upper corner cab would be better and, if possible, a laundry chute would help.