'I would place open shelves or voided door on the upper cab on small wall jog[to the right of range]. the double doored upper cab will be inconvenient.You'll use that spot for plating food and out to dining room or grabbing a glass and pouring milk/juice out of fridge and want that quick maneuvering . the wide dbl door when swinging open will be hard to handle because it's a reduced depth base cab so you are standing RIGHT in front of the upper door. The kids will be over at the window area,and besides there are no cabs there to store dishes,so each "landing" spot with dish storage cabinetry[or shelves]has to really work.Tto the right of sink,on the wall I'd place a cabinet of regular height for maximum dish storage[instead of ledge extending to the right].You could extend that open ledge above sink to the left and shorten the far left cabinet if the ledge is important to you. I might instead have cabinets run the whole stretch above sink at 18 in backsplash height.....and carve out space for microwave to left or range/either in wall or base cabinet. The kitchen looks nice,just make every landing/storage spot really work so the kids seating doesn't shortchange what the cook wants/needs.

The ledge was something the designer threw in, so I have no feelings about it at this point. Can you clarify the cabinets at 18 in blacksplash height? I don't know what that means, but I think it means they would all be the same height, which I would prefer- but would they all be the smaller cabinets? I wondered about a regular height cabinet to the right of the sink but wondered if it would look weird having only one there and 2 on the left.

Storage is the one thing I lose with this design change, so I have to really think about what would go where...

"18 in backsplash height" means the bottom of cabs rests 18 in up from counter, which is typical. I'd omit the ledge and run all the cabinets on the sink wall so the bottom is one continuous dimension at 18 in up from counter[maybe 21 in up if you want a little more elbow room]. If you want a reach and grab area,instead of ledge,make the cabinet above sink without a door. it looks like left to right I'd do a 33 in,24 in without a door,or glass door ,then 33 in [is it a 92 in wall or so?]. You have a few inches not used-the far left may need a filler in the corner on the wall,but to the right of dishwasher is a question.....make the sink cab 27 in for a few inches bigger sink rather than wasted inches on the right. They'll give you a nice curved corner for your counter-don't worry about bumps.

I'm doing IKEA, so can't do a 27 in sink cabinet- 30 is the next option, I believe, which, unfortunately, would be too big. The inches to the right of the DW weren't used b/c of having enough space between rows of cabinets. Yes, 92" wall. Maybe we can figure out how to add a few inches somewhere though- I'd also like it to go a bit further if we can figure out how to do that, as I don't think we're going to do a lot of prep to the left of the stove.

So there doesn't have to be higher cabinets above the sink? I'd so much rather have them all the same height (and taller).

Where to put the microwave is my other issue... I like the symmetrical look of the cabs on either side of the range- not sure I want to add a microwave to those.

Put the mw in the lower part off the upper cabinet seen in photo #4. Change the lower cabinet to all drawers.

I like that idea about the micro, except that those cabinets are shallow (the space is 17" deep, so the uppers are shallower than that) and the mw won't fit. Same problem w/ the drawers, though maybe we can hack something- I want more drawers.

A GE spacemaker II will fit. You can do a built in look or just freestanding. I have one on a 12" shelf.

Not mine.

I'll look into that microwave- I'd love to have it built in but again, we're doing IKEA and I'm coming up with all these ideas that would require significant hacking!

reduce the size of cabinet to the left of range and reduce the pantry size a bit and install microwave cabinet between these two....either wall microwave cab or base microwave drawer . Or devote a shelf with wiring inside pantry for microwave. If you reduce the cabinet left of range by12 in or so and steal some pantry area,seems like you could get a microwave cab there .... if deeper cabinet on the wall is needed it would be fine because the pantry is 18 or 21 in deep-it would sit nicely next to that if you don't want it inside the pantry or below counter.

ikeafans.com has search attempts for specefic things like"microwave cabinet' or "built in microwave" and people demonstrate/discuss their use of all the carcasses, fillers and panels to create things like this. Ikea cabinets get sliced and diced all the time.

The ledge makes the sink area look off balanced.
Is there a way to have 2 longer cabinets flanking the sink area and a shorter one over the sink.
For your fridge - be sure there is enough room to open the door completely - saw a few posts about that issue
Not sure best spot for the MW

I am not sure of dimensions, so don't know if this will work.

Can you make the cabinets in the island shallower and add a bit of depth so the kids can sit at the island to chat and do homework. If I were a kid, I would much prefer that to sitting with my back to the room. Of course, it will do double duty as a place for snacks and morning breakfasts.

And, if kid space is on the island, you can have cabinets where the desk is shown, as well as some on the island also.

I sort of like the shelf over the sink, but I would want the cabinets on either side to come down to the same distance from the countertop.

Bellsmom - I think that is what I was trying to say also about the sink area - thanks