I just responded to your other thread, must have been at the same time you were posting this one. You can let that one drop and keep this one active, but you may want to link to that one for people to refer back to. Just copy and paste the URL of that thread in the box below and title it.

For those of you interested, this is the link to the other thread
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg020951388603.html?14

Sorry everyone, I'm even confusing myself!

Jsweenc, thanks again for the instructions on your other post. I thought my pics were too small, but I gave up trying because my head was already going to explode. Learning to imbed an html was a noble goal in itself for one day :) Tomorrow I will try to post bigger pics in this thread. Thanks again for the step by step instructions. And to answer your question, the long side of the islands will be going towards the living room and the short side of the islands will be facing the dining room. The second island will not be in between the kitchen and dining room. It will be at the end of the kitchen where the living room starts (best shown in pic #2). The second island would go in place of the big thing that holds the stove and hood (best shown in pic # 8) Does that make sense. If you look at pic # 8 you'll see how there is a big space in between the sofa and the stove/range tower thingie.
I'll work on big pics tomorrow and let me know if I can explain anything better.. I realize I was waaaaay too wordy.
Feel better!!!

Hi,

I've been trying to make my pics bigger for about 2 hours and I just can't seem to figure it out.

I tried going to photo bucket and resizing each pic and then when that didn't work I emailed myself the pics in the actual size from iphoto and then saved those big pictures to my desktop and then reloaded those onto photobucket. But, when I go to repost them in here and I preview, they are all the same size. Under the pics in photobucket, I click select all and then I cut and paste the info under the first html box into here. Any clues? Calgon!!!!

So the 2nd island you're proposing will be behind the first one...sort of in the living room space? If that's the case, I would vote for no. I think it would look strange to have a piece of furniture or an island in that space. Do you by any chance have a pic that includes the LR space? Maybe with a better furniture arrangement, you could figure out what to do in that area.

I just figured it out. If you copy each html link separately they show up big. If you do it as a whole, they are small YAYYYYY!

here ya go.

view of living room towards kitchen. that big thing dividing the rooms is the range hood. all of that will be gone.

{{gwi:1692671}}

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standing in kitchen and looking towards dining room (we have a sofa in there now) it is now in a lower level and it will be raised to the kitchen height. those dividing cabinets will be gone
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the long side of the islands would be facing the living room. the second island would be replacing this stove

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view from dining room looking into kitchen

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I meant to say wow! You have a lot of space! I take it you did not build the house, given your comments about the "tall tower thingy" and preferring traditional to contemporary. It is quite a unique place, like a contemporary log cabin. You have a great space to work with! It looks like you are open to moving just about anything around, which increases your potential.

I've given you about the extent of my knowledge (won't call it expertise by a long shot). Since I'm still tweaking my own layout even as we are living in sheetrock dust and a gutted kitchen, I am hardly qualified to critique kitchen layouts.

FWIW, I'll take a stab at what jumps out at me.

Just to clarify, you are moving the fridge to the current pantry space and the islands will be 90 degrees from where the current island is?

I think switching laundry and pantry is a good move, but maybe having the pantry door on the kitchen side of that wall will make it even more accessible. Is that enough space for the laundry room then? What is that space to the left of the fridge? Can the laundry room be expanded to incorporate that space?

Also, if you do have two islands, I'd move the inner one a little closer (42-48") to the range run 1) to bring the range closer to your prep area and 2) to give a very comfortable space behind the counter seating. 3.5' is fine; 4.5-5' even better.

Dimensions of counter runs, room, etc. might be helpful, in addition to the ones you have marked already. Where are the DW and MW? I can't read what is to the right of the cleanup sink. Maybe it says Micro (it is in micro print!). I assume that is a range, not a cooktop, and you have no wall oven.

Do you need all the cabinets along the range wall? Can you shorten that run any, having it end even with the island, and have a stand-alone hutch in the DR instead?

Others will be able to see things that I cannot, especially regarding placement of your main appliances and the flow of your zones. In the meantime, look for other threads - one from yesterday, but lots of others - about best design choices, words of wisdom, etc. that will give you some ideas without waiting for responses. Read all of the threads linked in the Read Me thread. They are tremendously helpful. It will keep you busy for a while!

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to your other thread

Jsweenc, you are preceptive to know that my description of the big eye sore crazy tower thingie means that I didn't build it :) You know how you think something might be really cool but then you live in it you realize it makes no sense whatsoever? Yes, that is my house. We did buy this from a previous owner. It's all very cool.. but now I want to make it a little less cool. When you are in the kitchen you have to go down one step, and then walk about three more steps to get to another set of three stairs to eat. ARGH!!! I do want to keep what is great an unique about the house, but just make it less choppy and flow better (less levels and get rid for the ____ tower thingie :)
More to come...

Your feedback is excellent as usual. Thank you so much for everything. I will work on posting another layout pic in my next response that has some more dimensions and descriptions. I'll address all of your comments in it.
THANK YOU AGAIN!!!! Now that I know how to post these pics, I'm going to be a little posting maniac,. until you all tell me to cool it :)

The house is so unconventional, it gets a little confusing from the pics. Hopefully these new ones and the new sketch will help.

If anyone hates any of my ideas, I welcome hearing it.

Jsweenc, Your ideas are great whether you are professional or not! I can't believe you have the strength to do this while sitting in sawdust. I hope I can return the favor to you one day.

Yes, the island will be 90 degrees from where the current island and peninsula are.

We can expand the laundry room a little bit into that space. It was supposed to be just a bigger hallway but the architect drew an alcove. We have an antique coat rack that we thought might dress up that area. It will take up a good chunk of the wall and is 11 inches deep. The reason we want to dress up the area is it goes to the only powder room outside of the bedrooms so am trying to make it feel a little more formal, as opposed to being behind the pantry.

The range and cabinets run will be aprox 10-12 feet.
The left end of fridge to the right end of the dishes hutch is aprox 16 feet.
The back wall behind the range to where I'd want the second island to end is 17'6''. The current hood tower thingie goes 31'' beyond that, so I do have a little room to spare.

The picture the architect drew had a 5' deep island and it's now a 4', so there was 4.5 feet in between islands after all. I can't remember if the island they drew was 10 or 12 feet long.
I shortened up the cabinets that extended into the dining room. Who knows why that was drawn that way. Not that I'm necessarily against it.

I redrew the living room without all that furniture drawn in. Perhaps that will simplify things. We will probably just have seating in the far section unless it turns out to be necessary for design. I'd rather not waste the $$ on something we'll never use.

Yes, it's a 48 inch range with the big and smaller oven.
I will have appliance garages along the range wall. I will actually have some cabinets made down to the counter and the doors will open revealing appliances, as opposed to traditional garages. Once I have some good drawings, I'll post those. The microwave and toaster will be to the right of the oven in a cabinet. I plan to recess them into the pantry so I still have usable counter space when the door is closed.

On the left of the sink is the fridge. I'll have fridge drawers in the island and maybe the second island too.
On the right of the sink is the dishwasher and then a hutch to match the fridge that will have all dishes/glasses/silverware etc. I'll have a second dishwasher somewhere. Either an 18 inch to the left of the sink or a drawer next to island sink. That can be a whole other thread!!!

here is the kitchen, dining room and part of living room

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this is rest of living room

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This would be view if your back was at the new range. You can see my marble sample.

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this would be facing the new range (the peninsula is gone and island facing the other direction)
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looking into living room and end of kitchen from entry way

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Thought I'd use my nifty new photo uploading skills and show you the style of kitchen I was hoping for.

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Do you think that goes with this space?

I rather like the house the way it is-with the exception of that structure surrounding the range and hood. But the grainy wood cabinets and the stone pillars are what I would want and expect from a house in Texas. It "speaks" of its location. I like the multiple levels, too. It adds an openness-such as being able to view over the dining room table at that nice landscape-that will be diminished when all at the same level. A second island will also diminish that great expansive feeling-I wouldn't put one in especially since you're just setting up for resale. If you're planning on putting it on the market this spring, I wouldn't do anything except paint the upper part of the range/hood structure so it's closer in color to that of the stone. Right now the contrast makes it stand out more.

Another problem is if you do make it over to a more traditional style to sell this year, it will be on the market with lots of other traditional style houses.

I hope I can return the favor to you one day.

I still have lots of questions myself, so who knows? : )

To follow up with riverspots' point, I read back through and saw where you mentioned potential resale. Are you planning to try to sell soon and move or are you planning to stay in the house? If this is for resale, I agree, you will likely not recoup your costs of remodeling. Your more recent pictures give a better sense of the kitchen and why it must be difficult to work in, though the cabinetry is beautiful, so a few less dramatic changes might be more realistic from that standpoint. For instance, I would still say get rid of the tower to open up the view, maybe replacing it with stone or wood columns on either side to define the space, but keep the range where it is.

As for it having to compete with other traditional homes, the structure of the house is still contemporary and I can't imagine that you would be getting rid of all the other contemporary elements just to sell (would you?). Many of the new-style traditional kitchens (is that an oxymoron?) have contemporary elements with traditional styling, such as few to no wall cabinets and open to other rooms, so in your house even something like your inspiration pics would fit well in the space overall, especially since the kitchen ceiling is much lower than the great room.

I would hazard a guess that if you took a poll, your responses would be divided according to what kind of style each person prefers. If you do plan on being in it long-term, then I don't blame you for wanting to make changes to have it reflect your style and have a better work flow, especially with that loooong peninsula to have to walk around.

So, besides the tower thingy and contemporary style, what is it about the current setup of the kitchen that doesn't work for you, that makes you crazy?

Thank you Jsweec and Riverspots.
I will gather my thoughts and send another reply.
In the mean time, I wanted to clarify our resale thoughts. We will probably be here for five years. Nothing immediate is pending. This remodel will be $$$ so I just want to make sure that even if we don't get all of our money back, we get a good portion of it or at least make it much more appealing to a potential buyer to have good luck selling it. My goal is to have a summer home and if we ever get one we may get a smaller house (two for the price of one!) or we could potentially relocate as well. That is why unless it's totally stupid, I would really love to make this house more 'me'. More soon...stay tuned

clkw, while everyone has different tastes, I have to say, IMHO that kitchen is whacked! Nice materials but super confusing layout. Good luck with the remodel, I am sure it will be wonderful.

Sabjimata,
THANK YOU for that much needed comic relief. I laughed so hard the neighbors heard. I even called my husband over. I was roaring. Yes, it's not a cheap or old kitchen which makes it soooo hard to pull the trigger and rip it out, but it really does drive me up the wall. Your opinion is helping my mental block of spending so much money on ripping out nice stuff.

Riverspots, your points are very good. The materials really do match the area. I'm from the east coast and am always amazed how many stone houses are in Austin. In DC only the expensive homes are stone.

I do think the levels 'look' neat, but I trip all the time. I know, that is a personal problem :) I actually fell down the stairs into the eating area and broke two toes when we first moved in.

My thinking in eliminating the levels, which may be the most expensive part, was that in addition to me liking it more, it would make the house more appealing to more potential buyers in an older neighborhood ??? Perhaps I'm biased due to my own clutzyness.

I definitely don't need the second island so if it isn't the right match for this house, I could put a moveable big table on the wall in between the range and the dinning room for my purposes. I will definitely ponder what you are saying. I do like the big open space but I've been told we need to fill it up because our house seems very cold.

Thank you so much for the candid opinion

Jsweenc,

Yes, the house will still be plenty contemporary, just not artsy funky contemporary.

You asked what it is, aside from the contemporary style, that doesn't work for me. I thought it easiest to list the things I hate and definitely want to change, and things that aren't so bad but if I'm changing the other things, it would make sense to consider.

Things I hate:

I have bad knees so the stone floor is KILLING me.

The textured stone is also next to impossible to clean. There is dirt in those crevices left from the day the builders left.

The levels. I hate going down two sets of stairs to eat. If I had bar stools, I'd still have to go down one step to eat. I hate having to go down a step and then around the peninsula to clean it and then back up the step to get back into the kitchen.

I hate having a double sink w/o being able to fit a big pot on either side. I realize that is a completely personal thing and many people love them.

Things that I would live with but in a perfect world would be different:

I normally like dark countertops but the way the light is in this house you can see every spec of dust from a mile away. So, I'd love light countertops.

I'm sick of our contemporary cabinets but I do appreciate how nice they are and I could definitely live with them even though I'd prefer not to.

When going to kitchen from bedroom hallway, it would be nice not having to hug the right wall so I don't have to go down the stairs and then back up the stair.

Would love not having the stair from the kitchen to the living room. If I didn't have the other stairs, it probably wouldn't bother me.

We live out in the country so the pantry is too small for bulk shopping. The house is ginormous, but there are very few closets, not even a linen closet (strange, I know).

The current room behind the kitchen (which will be the new pantry and laundry/utility room) is an office with no windows and a tiny bathroom. The current laundry room is in the main hallway which is visible from the entrance into the house.

The peninsula, while big, is on kinda far from the fridge, range, or pantry to make it really useful as a prep area so it's almost wasted space.

I'm not sure what is ideal, but I know I would like my working areas to be on one side of the island so I didn't have to always be walking around it. Ideally, I wouldn't have to walk around the island to access the sink/dishwasher.

I think we all agree on the fate of the big thingy around the stove ;)

I thought of another thing that doesn't work well in the existing layout.

To access the eating area which is downstairs, you have the peninsula on your right side and on your left side are the built in cabinets on either side of the staircase. That leaves a very narrow walkway going to the dining room. When we have guests, even though the space is big, everyone is dancing around each other to get by.

No, I didn't notice any of this when we bought the house. I just thought, wow what a cool kitchen. It's my first house so I was just very naive about function. I still love our house and we would have bought it anyway, but we just would have paid less. I'm just grateful I stumbled across this site before taking any steps. I am officially TKO