I am about ready to order my Ikea cabs (Tidaholm), but really wanted some feedback before I take the plunge; I will also see what kind of advice I get get out of the Ikea store folks, but really the info here is usually better. Can you all please take a look and let me know if you see any room for improvement?

This is a small suburban ranch house built in the early 1960s. There are four of us -- myself, DH, and two children ages 9 and 11. I love to cook and do it most often but the kids help and my hubby will cook too (but usually when I am not there). The stairway down to the family room is a frequent path so I need to watch that traffic pattern.

The links to the diagrams are below. The "aerial" diagram shows the layout of basically the entire public area of the main floor of the house--the wall with cabs #1 through 7 is an outside wall, there is a large window over cabs 5 & 6, the front stoop is on the other side of that wall and the front door is on the short wall perpendicular to cab #3. The area to the left of the front door is the foyer; the big empty area to the left is the living room area, with a fireplace on the interior wall. The upper-left rectangle is actually a bedroom (so not part of the plan).

At the bottom right, is a back door that leads to the garage, and that rectangle in front of that door represents the stairs that go down to our basement family room, and above those stairs is a large window in that outside wall.

The cooktop is on the long wall on top of cab#3 (36" bank of drawers). I would like to re-use a large piece of butcher block I own as a counter between the cooktop and sink, and that would be my main prep area. The island would be my baking center.

I have mostly drawers, but also included two 15" pullouts for tall items, plus a pullout trash, and a 15" cab with wire pullout baskets. I wanted to keep some flexibilty--is this a good balance?

As to measurements, the long wall of cabs (#1-7) is 13'4", the other perimeter wall is 105" from the corner of cab 15 to the end of the fridge; there are 88" from the corner of the fride to the outside wall. Around the island, there are 36" between the island and the perimeter where cabs 1-7 are, and 48" between the short end of the island and the fridge wall. There are 53" from the other side of the island to the short red cabs. This certainly seems enough, but boy would I like to add a small overhang and some barstools to that side of the island -- I don't seem to have room for that though, and I am wondering if I really need it when I have a big dining table right there as well. I could also give up those short red cabs (they are about 13" deep) but I need all the storage I can get.

Sorry this is so long-- I don't have a printer that works with this computer, so I can write anything on the diagrams, and I was trying to answer the usual questions upfront. Thanks to all who take the time to assist ---

Links:

Here is a link that might be useful: