Hi,

We are presently building a new home with a 15.5 L X 11 W kitchen space. Our builder had originally planned to put an island in the kitchen, but because one of our walls is angled to accomodate the center hall spiral staircase this turned out to be an impractical design.

After a lot of hand wringing we decided to go with a peninsula layout, but with two levels. The cabinets will be 36" high and 24" deep. The 'add-on' to accomodate the second level overhang with be 6" deep and 42" tall and will not host cabinets. The overhang itself will be 12" on the seating side. Overall length of the peninsula is 120", plus or minus. We felt this layout allowed us to maximize our countertop space, which space was tremendously important to my wife.

Our cabinet designer heartily recommended that we stick with the 36" cabs and make the overhang 42" (bar height). My wife and I are trepidatious that the bar height will not be sufficient to accmodate anyone who chooses to sit at the counter. We're also not too sure about the 12" overhang, thinking we should go out to 15". Countertop material is granite.

My wife is a shade over 5' and I am a shade under 6'. Most of our friends and family are around the 6' mark as well. We've sat at 42" counters with 12" overhangs in various showrooms and have not encountered difficulties; however, there's just something that is sticking in our craw that says we should go for higher peninsula cabinets and overhang (prehaps 42" cabs and 48" second level). The remainder of our kitchen will be standard issue 36" counter height.

Anyone have thoughts? Our cabinet designer insistst that 36/42 is the way to go in our space and is also reluctant to push the overhang out another 3" but said he will accomodate our wishes.

TIA