The island is tooo wide. You will have to slop a towel across it to wipe it down. Mine is 4 feet, at counter height, it can bother the achilles bigtime, and no one wants to put on a party spread, and reach across the 2 rows of perimeter complimentary side food dishes to the centerpiece of cascading layers of fruits and wafer cookies etc etc.... If you can do 3 ft 8 inches, that will be nice. It's really not all that much fun to have such a big center island. An island that is not a continent is "much more user and cleaner friendly". :) Bonus: more floor space between it and the dishwasher! YES! Hallways are just not fun kitchens to work in unless you are the ONLY COOK EVER. And when you get older and need a cane or a walker...you will be able to manipulate thru it without having to remodel, or back up(falling is a hazard). Watched a lady live with similar....broken hip was the result.

Sorry, I've been busy with family and work. . "I do have a designer I'm also working with in addition to the architect. She really wanted clean lines from hood to island to fireplace which I think was making functionality suffer a little...she at least wants hood and island to match up...but not possible in your layout... " As others have stated, they will never appear to line up unless you are (1) looking down from high above or (2) standing exactly centered on the fireplace or cooktop and turn your head back & forth. At all other times they will not appear centered..so why suffer functionally for an aesthetic you can never achieve? . "since it's an open floorplan she's thinking of overhead lighting lining up..." No...it doesn't make sense. Again, as others have stated, lighting should be where it makes the most sense -- under cabinet for task lighting, recessed for general lighting & task lighting where there are no upper cabinets, and, if desired, pendants or similar over the island and in front of the window over the sink. . "oh and we are planning 36" induction cooktop. does that mess it up too much?" It just reduces the flanking cabinets: Base cabinets: from 27" to 24" and from 30" to 27" Upper cabinets: from 21" to 18" and from 24" to 21" I agree that you will love induction! I wish we had it. My mom has an induction range and it's great...it's so easy to use and virtually no cleanup is needed! . Pantry... "pantry. definitely like the idea of one long 12" deep wall for food... what is the 60" deep for in your preferred layout?" "I'm planning on putting microwave, blender, and toaster oven [maybe] accessible and usable at all times...and other appliances that won't be out all the time but able to plug in and use [air fryer, instant pot, etc.]" "Not sure how to do window in pantry so as not to show everything..." That's not 60" deep, it's 60" wide and it's a set of cabinets & counters. In one of your layouts you showed an "L" of counters + cabinets, so I thought you wanted that. If you don't then you don't need to put them in. However, with the window in the way, you wont be able to put floor-to-ceiling shelves in that location, so you might consider putting in a counter & cabinets just in front of the window for landing space. Having a window in a pantry is not ideal. It lets in light and heat and those are two of the three things you should not have in a food pantry. Food pantries should be cool, dry, and dark. Refrigerators, MWs, toaster ovens, and windows work against that. Refrigerators and toaster ovens put out a considerable amount of heat, MWs put out heat and moisture, and windows let in light and heat. If you must have a window, refrigerator, and other items in your pantry, then be sure you have very, very good ventilation. I recommend at least one (maybe 2) warm air return and one A/C register in the pantry and consider keeping the door open all the time. In the winter when the heat is on, close and block off the register to minimize heat getting into the pantry. What direction is the pantry facing? If west or south, you will probably also have to deal with heat in the summer from the outside wall. Ideally, pantries should be on inside walls, but since yours in an outside wall, be sure to plan ways to mitigate issues. My suggestion is to put the MW and toaster oven in the Kitchen -- you have room for them and it makes more sense they be out there (and they won't be contributing moisture and heat to the pantry). If you don't want a MW drawer, hang a MW from upper cabinets or put it on the counter. Instead of a coffeemaker, put the toaster oven on that counter as well. If you're concerned about them being in view, they won't be b/c of the wall on the side that will hide whatever you put there. (The coffeemaker could be placed on the counter to the right of the cleanup sink -- it would be closer to water, there's room for it, and it would still be outside the 3 three main work zones -- Prep, Cooking, Cleanup.) Do you have a Mudroom? Maybe you could put the extra refrigerator in the Mudroom. Fitting a refrigerator in your Pantry will be a bit of a problem unless it's only 24" wide or so. To be really useful, the hinge side will need to be next to the wall-- but you will have to have to have 9" to 12" of space b/w the wall and the refrigerator to be able to open the doors fully. You only have bout 45" to work with on each side of the window. The most logical and functional place for it would be on the outside wall directly in front of the pantry door. Anywhere else and you probably won't be able to have anything on the wall opposite it. (Hmmm... Maybe if it was on the wall opposite the window and then nothing in front of the window (no cabinets and no shelves). But, I don't think I'd like that ...it would be wasting space.) FYI....I speak from experience about pantries on outside walls. My pantry is on a west outside wall and in the summer we have to leave the door open b/c it heats up from the sun beating down on it.

On appliances, you have both function and aesthetics. I prefer the look of a slide-in or pro-style range (without the raised panel in the back), but you can cook a perfectly good meal on a standard range, which costs less. Our island place has a 30” GE propane stove with the raised back (maybe eight years old) and a large sauté pan fits poorly on the back burners. They may have changed that. Otherwise, it has five burners with continuous grates, convection oven and self cleaning. Do you have natural gas or propane? Most of the pro ranges are not self cleaning. AJ Madison is a good place to check for models based on features. As for fridges, counter depth is better looking, but generally more expensive, and taller, which affects your cabinets. As for capacity, that’s personal. Do you drink a lot of soda? Do you have a separate deep freeze or second fridge in the garage? You said you have a large pantry. Will you have a freezer there? Maybe you could get a 36” fridge only column in your kitchen, thus giving you more space for cabinets. Think long and hard about open shelving above your fridge. Which of your kids will you bribe to get a ladder and go up there to dust it?

Hi T S, I think that you would be sorry. In theory it sounds great but I think that there would be too many motions each time you needed a fork or spoon. Since I eliminated the rails between drawers, the three-drawer stacks with one shallow and two deep drawers have usable heights of 4" and 10". The two drawer stack has 12" inside. I'd talk this over with your cabinet maker to make sure that you will have enough height in your shallow drawers so that your utensils and larger boxes of wraps will fit easily. If you need more height in the deeper drawers you might be better off going with two shallow and one deep drawer in some of your stacks. Unless you have used 6" pullouts previously and liked them, I would think about adding the space to your drawer bases instead. Some on here haven't been completely happy with them. I do like my Rev a Shelf pullout for utensils and knives. It stores a lot in a small footprint and replaced the crocks and knife holder that used to reside on my counter. Edited to add that the two drawers beneath my range top are 7" and 12" inside. The 12" drawer is for vertical storage of fry and sauté pans which I notice that you want to do as well.