Small kitchen here --

Favorite prep space = sink, 30 inches counter, corner, 24 inches counter, range. The fridge is an additional maybe 48 inches from the range. It is a bit of a hike from the fridge to the sink, but I have a landing zone island which makes taking multiple things in and out easy.

I used to have ZERO prep space next to my cooktop -- it was an island with 9" of counter on each side of the cooktop, and narrow aisles (27" and 30") on each side of the island, so no room to do anything without danger of a kid running by and bumping you while you were holding a knife. So, this 54 inches bent counter feels like an ocean of space.

It has a window to the backyard (can watch the kids or the birds), and the deep-corner area is a good place to shove the kitchen aid mixer when not in use.

I used to have the sink across an aisle from my cooktop, and wet stuff would drip as I brought it across to the island. I love having a shot from sink to prep to cooktop without going over the floor.

With my old kitchen, due to limited counter space, I had to prep on a pull-out cutting board, which cut off traffic flow in the kitchen and was a pain to use or clean compared to being on the counter. (The counter is roomier and steadier, and almost nothing gets on to the floor or the cabinet below.)

My secondary prep space is a smallish, storage-and-counter-only island (50x25) that has the long edge facing the sink and the short edge facing the range. I use it as a landing zone for the fridge, to keep cookbooks handy but out of the dirty zone, to stage food onto the serving dishes as it comes off the range, and as room for kitchen helpers when doing family projects like Christmas cookies. It's also a great landing zone when I come in from the grocery store, or to keep to-do lists and stage books for the kids during the day (we homeschool). It also has an outlet which I've only used once or twice. I also love this space.

My prep area between my cook top and sink is about 3 feet with another L shape on the other side of cook top that measures 3 feet by 2 feet. It works fine for my husband and I cooking together. Our fridge will be installed across the kitchen from our prep area by about 7-8 feet. One thing I'm loving about our kitchen (so far)is that there is plenty of landing space where ever there is an appliance. We also have a 6 foot peninsula for kitchen cleanup next to the other side of the sink. We enlarged our window and can almost see the entire back yard. I am looking forward to spending time in the kitchen this spring watching the birds and flowers. We gave up storage for the larger window, but will be well worth it. Enlarging the window was one of the best things we did to our kitchen. I went without a pantry in order to have an open inviting feel when people came in to the kitchen. Not having a pantry also allowed me to have a double oven. If we decide we want additional storage later we'll storage to the laundry room next door. When we packed the kitchen up for remodel I also realized we had way too much "stuff" anyway.

My favorite prep zone will be my new kitchen in our hopefully, new house starting this Spring!

I currently have about 2 feet of prep zone right next to the stove and the kitchen sink is to the left of me going the opposite direction. I raised 4 kids & a husband in this teeny tiny town kitchen - how? I still don't know! And I was a everything from scratch cook...ground my own wheat for homemade bread kinda gal. Sooo, if it weren't for my kitchen table right there, I don't know if I could've survived.

How funny, empty nesters & I'll finally be getting the kitchen I needed for the last 33 years. Oh well, better late than never!

I'm still not getting a huge kitchen by most standards but it will be HUGE for me :)

rhome really helped me design mine...and you'll get lots of great advice from the experts here.

I will have an L-shaped kitchen with 2 prep zones including an island (Yay! Always wanted an island!) I'll post the plans below to give you an idea...sorry if you've seen these before but it will help you picture what I'm talking about. There's a window in the corner but you can't really see it much in the drawings.

The fridge, stove & prep sink form a nice prep zone & if I need more prep area - there's always the area to the right of the cooktop. The larger sink & dishwasher area will make a good clean-up zone.

We've changed the plans around a bit - pushed the kitchen back & put the dining area to the south. All this will face the 24' wide wall of windows 2 stories high so we'll get lots of light. Ignore the pantry area - it's changing but the other part remains the same:

North wall:
Raised dishwasher to the right of the sink with micro above, wall oven to the right of that - this was to help me with my back problems.

West wall:

My 4 ft x 5 ft island with prep sink in it is my primary workspace. In a perfect world, I'd make 2 improvements:
1) I'd rather have the long side of the island across the aisle from the stove instead of the end
2) where my 14 x 16" sink is a useful size, I might go larger to be able to rinse my cast iron skillets that would have no need to go to the cleanup area, since they're not going in the dw.

I love that my island is multipurpose and works as well for baking projects as cooking...and sometimes at the same time. While I prep or bake, I can see out the window over the main sink, or into the oven...or into the faces of whatever members of my family that might be in the kitchen to chat or to work at their own tasks.

The island is 36" across the aisle from my rangetop. 48" across the aisle from the baking center on one side, and the main sink/dw area on the other. The only way it connects to the cleanup area is that the trash pullout is on that side, so it's as easily accessible to both the cleanup and cooking areas, and I can just sweep things off the island into it from prep tasks. The fridge is about 6 ft away.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Kitchen incl layout

My long island is my favorite spot. I knew what I wanted when I planned it. The space is opposite my cooktop.

The prep area I use most is a 5ft counter section right of the sink. Good point is, it's nice and big and the knives, cutting boards etc are all stored right there. Bad point is, the range is on the other side of the sink with another 30" of counter between them. Why don't I use that part? Because that's the dirty dishes staging area. My SO prefers to prep there and there is a definite conflict between him and the dishes :(

I've been very pleased with our prep area. My work zone is basically a "G" with a peninsula at right angles to the range which is at right angles to the large sink which is at right angles to the mw area. The fridge is outside of the "G".

I originally had wanted an island but couldn't get one to fit comfortably in our 13 x 16 kitchen. I settled for a peninsula and it's worked out better than I imagined. I love prepping while being a slight turn away from all the action on the range. The sink is across from the prep peninsula but that suits me well since I'm really messy with water and I'd rather not be splashing all over the food I'm preparing.

I use the sink for a lot of different purposes while I'm prepping and cooking. It made sense to me to have the large sink in this area. The smaller sink is on the other side of the peninsula along with the dw. I don't need a large sink for scraping dishes before loading the dw.

If I had it to do over again, I would choose the same layout. I've had 5 1/2 years to rethink it and I just end up appreciating it more rather than finding things wrong.

{{gwi:1589642}}

{{gwi:1589643}}

I designed mine for myself, so it's my favorite. :) I had just about settled on a U shape with a table in the center, but that would have meant no fridge drawers in the island, and no extra deep counter top. I gave up the table for a prep island. It's about 45"x60", with a table height area under the rear overhang (which is 6"--just enough to shield the outlets below). There is storage on two sides, and the sink cabinet on the last (home of the fire extinguisher).

I absolutely adore my fridge drawers. They were the big "but I want it" purchase for the kitchen. On either side are drawers. One side has knives and specialty tools, the other has colanders, mixing bowls, graters, funnel, and small cutting boards. This limited space turned out to be perfect. There isn't room for anything that isn't prep oriented. The depth of the countertop allows me to have a vase, a TV, or whatever might look appealing, plus plenty of room for plating and in progress stuff. I have the trough part of the sink toward the prep area, and the bowl away, which also works well. If I'm soaking cress, I can step around, but for just using the colander having the large well away from me, and the drawer close works the best.

The prep zone is also zigzag to the stove and clean-up sink, so it's a pivot and step to either, while leaving plenty of room for other workers, and the fridge and freezer open up to one short end of the island, and the ovens to the sink side, so it's easy to pull out ingredients and push them into the prep zone, and to take completed pans and put them in the oven. It's also just a few steps to the baking area, so if I want to chop some nuts or some other preppy task, it's also right there, and the sink is convenient to goopy hands.

Those are many of the reasons why it's my "favorite". :)

This thread is very helpful to me and I hope others as they try and make their kitchen function as best as possible.

I'm still on the fence on where to have my prep zone. One way would give me 39" space between the sink and stovetop (very handy having both next to each other) but would have my back to view/guests. There would also be a 4x10 island with no use for everyday usage, or would it???

The other alternative is to seperate the stove from the sink and place it on the island (prep sink not an option). This brings in more of a mess but keeps us faced out (a big preference).
Part of me tells me even with the stove not on the island, I would use the island as the prep because we (especially my DH) hates to look at a wall. There is doubt though because the stove dictates a lot of how we cook.

I don't want to post the layouts as I think it's been distracting on what information I need. I'm looking at function only which will direct on ultimate decision.