I am personally not a fan of OTR microwaves. Don't like the poor ventilation; don't like it in my face, don't like having to bob and weave when I'm cooking and someone else wants to nuke an item.
DH really wanted double ovens so we got one with a micro option in the top oven. It is not very powerful, but then, we never cook food in the microwave, we just use it to reheat left-overs.
How often do you use a MW and for what? Would it make sense to put it in the pantry? Or could you create a sort of 'drop-zone' in that empty space next to the refrigerator and tuck it in the wall above the counter?
So many things to think about in kitchen planning...Good luck!

Are you still open to overall layout comments? If so, I recomend moving the DW to the other side of the sink...for 2 reasons

(1) get it out of the Prep Zone...especially important as your family grows & the "little ones" start to help in the kitchen (prepping, cooking, cleaning up)

(2) get it away from the cooktop/range...I would rather have it blocking the refrigerator than the cooktop/range, blocking the Prep Zone, or blocking access to the bottom of the kitchen...ovens/pantry/Cooking Zone.

I would put the MW either b/w the refrigerator & cooktop/range or in the oven stack. If you get a range instead of a cooktop, with a single wall oven you will still have two ovens.

That's an interesting idea (combo MW/oven). We use the microwave quite a bit. Not only do we reheat leftovers, we cook rice, do steam-in-bag vegetables, cook popcorn. We use it less than I did as a bachelor (many fewer hot pockets and TV dinners) but probably every other night and nearly every day at lunch.

Buehl, I have considered swapping the DW to the other side of the sink. The points you made are both valid and I will take that into consideration. As for the space b/t the cooktop and sink, that's where I envision our dishes/glasses being stored, possibly because that's where they are in our current house (although that just happens to be right above the DW).

It's so overwhelming! I tend to zero in on one aspect at a time (i.e. "Where should I put the MW?" and the other day I honed in on picking out a sink). When you put it all together, thinking about cabinets and countertops and backsplash and flooring and LIGHTING, it's panic-enducing.

I do like the idea of the convection microwave over a wall oven.

Keep in mind that a combination of oven and MW means when you are using it as an oven you will not have a MW; when you are using it as a MW you will not have a second oven. The former will the biggest issue.

I'm just speaking as a family with two children and both parents working full-time. We often have prepping, cooking, and cleaning up all going on at the same time. A DW in that location would be a major issue and would be a reason to remodel!

Valid points, indeed. And as for the DW, would swapping it and the sink solve the problem?

I'm obviously new at this. But I was reading in the FAQs about prep, cleanup, and cooking areas and thinking about how to avoid them overlapping.

If prep is to the right of the sink, cleanup (dishwasher) is to the left, then as you pointed out the cleanup area conflicts with the cooking area. Problem! Well, if it's swapped, then prep and cooking are slightly less at odds (I would prep with my bum facing the dining room), but I have to cross through both other zones to get from the fridge to my prep space. Also, swapping sides of the DW/Sink puts the DW farther from any cabinet I could put the dishes away in. It seems important to note that the island will be all one height, unlike the drawing.

Right now, it's just my wife and I, and it's not a huge problem. Option 2 is probably better. Good design is good design, though, and we don't want to be kicking ourselves a few years down the road.

You need to decide what's important to you, but as far as I'm concerned a double oven is a "meh, I might very occasionally use it" whereas an OTR microwave would be a daily annoyance.

I'd nix the OTR microwave and then decide whether the extra storage or the double oven is more important to you.

Greg-

That's kind of our thinking. We would at most need two ovens a couple of times per year, and our families have never had them.

They just seem almost standard now in new or remodeled kitchens, so I don't know if we'll regret not having two.

As your family grows and more larger events happen at your house you will likely wish you had 2 ovens. For us it was when we were at my in-law's at the holidays and my MIL put the turkey in the oven before she made breakfast. We are in the south and you just can't have Christmas breakfast without the biscuits--well, we did that year!

We have the double ovens and put the microwave over them in the cabinet. You basically eliminate the drawer under the ovens and lower them which lowers the microwave for easy access. When the MW is not in use, the cabinets are closed & no one sees it.

As far as your DW positioning, I don't agree with other comments above. In our house we are not stacking the DW when we're cooking, but we are in & out of the refirgerator when we are cleaning up. So in my house the setup shown on your plan works perfectly and to switch the DW to the other side of the sink would put it in the way during clean up. Think about how you use the kitchen and set it up accordingly.

Prep Zone...most people end up prepping next to a water source - regardless of where it is. In your case, this means the island. You have no other water source in the kitchen.

So, you will be prepping facing the Great Room on the island - with the dirty dishes, unfortunately.

Water is an integral part of prepping...it is used when cleaning/rinsing/cutting up veggies & fruit, as an ingredient, washing hands, rinsing out cans/jars, etc.

This also means that most of your counterspace will not be used that often b/c it is too far away from the water. You might use it when you don't need water for prepping, but unless you plan on walking back & forth b/w the sink and perimeter counters, you will be using the island for most of your prep.

As has been stated, it is a good idea to separate the Prep and Cooking Zones from the Cleanup Zone. While that sometimes means a separate prep sink, it does not have to mean that. You can use a single sink as the separator - with the Prep Zone on one side and the Cleanup Zone on the other side. The DW belongs in the Cleanup Zone. However, this arrangement often limits the size the Prep Zone can be and the # of people who can prep at the same time.

It is also a good idea to prevent as much zone-crossing as possible. Again, this is best accomplished with the above mentioned zone separation as well as designing your kitchen to follow the workflow, including placement of appliances and storage.

Major workflow:

Refrigerator --> Prep Zone & Sink --> Cooking Zone --> Serving/Eating place or Cleanup Zone

Unfortunately, b/c of the way you have your kitchen laid out, there is going to be zone-crossing no matter what you do, so you need to figure out how to minimize it for those tasks you spend the most time at...and that would be prepping.

Kitchen work studies have shown that you spend the following amount of time at each major kitchen activity:
Prepping - 70% (some studies put this number higher - more like 75%)
Cooking - 10%
Cleaning up - 20%

Since Prepping & Cooking are often combined, 80% of your time is spent prepping and cooking and only 20% is spent cleaning up. So, design your kitchen with this in mind. Your case is a bit difficult since you do not yet have children and so you don't know exactly how you will be using the kitchen when your future children start helping, but keep in mind a few things:

(1) If you plan to teach your children how to cook and cleanup, then plan for a multi-worker kitchen
(2) If both parents work and/or your children are involved in a lot of activities (sports, scouts, clubs), most likely all three major activities will be going on at the same time
(3) With children, there will be snacking at all times, so place the refrigerator & MW on the periphery of the kitchen, preferably close to each other (b/c most MW'd food comes from the refrigerator or freezer) and near a water source (b/c you usually have to add water when MWing leftovers, veggies, etc.) It's also a good idea to place the refrigerator where it can be accessed from the most commonly used eating place and the Family (or Great) Room without a snacker having to venture too far into the kitchen (and getting underfoot).

Have you considered an alternate layout? How about something like this?

Zone map:

Forgot to mention...this alternate layout moves the DR doorway. It's 32" wide (standard doorway width).

It also changes the pantry to a 6'6" wide straight pantry. It's a reach-in pantry and it's 14" deep (+ 1" for doors for a total of 15" deep).

I have to say, Buehl's layout is excellent and would work well. The pantry storage would also be much more accessible, no rooting around in dark corners.

Plus, this layout does give you 2 ovens. I only went for one and it works okay for me because I fairly seldom need 2, but people who plan to do a fair amount of entertaining are going to really appreciate having that second one. As it is, my single oven requires me to plan my entertaining around that limitation. I'll choose a baked dish and the rest stovetop. When I can't get away with that, such as at Thanksgiving, I have to choose recipes that can be baked a day and two days ahead when the oven's available, then reheated in the MW. So, for you guys, 2.

Wow, buehl. That's a good-looking layout. Thanks for taking the time to do that! This is obviously better as far as zone separation goes, and is a better choice for a multi-cook kitchen.

It's a little difficult to imagine ourselves moving about that kitchen. We've never had two sinks before. I can certainly see the benefit. Would you put disposals in both sinks?

Does this layout result in more or less cabinet space?

Just getting back to this...just eyeballing it, I think it's the same or maybe more b/c of the extension of the sink wall.

The pantries are the same - assuming 13" deep shelves in both
.....Rectangular pantry cabinets: 78" x 13" = 1014 sq in
.....Corner: 48" x 13" + 30" x 13" = 1014 sq in (you have to account for the 4.5" walls on each end and along the front)

Note: Many of us here have discovered that 12" is the "ideal" depth of pantry shelves for the vast majority of storage. It's deep enough to store cans 3-deep but not so deep that things get lost. (I had 18" deep shelves in my old pantry and hated them! Things were forever getting lost and/or forgotten in the back.)