What goes in those cabinets? If dishes are in the one on the right, will that be enough room, or do you have an alternate place for them? if you have storage for the items in those two cabinets elsewhere, might be worth it. If you have no place else to put those items that works well, might not be worth the every day aggravation.

Hi Secondhalf,

I'm commenting in part because your layout is so similar to ours.
A 6 foot window would be lovely for the light.
But I wouldn't trade a 5 ft window for the larger 6 foot window
if it meant I had only an 18 inch wide wall cabinet over the dishwasher area.
In my experience, this is the cabinet where you will store your everyday glasses and dishes.
Do you have another storage plan for your everyday dishes? If so, then perhaps the 18 inch cabinet it OK.

Of the two elevations, I like the balance of the double door 27 inch cabinets flanking the window better.

That said, I'm not in love with 27 inch wall cabinets.
In general, I prefer wider cabinets and think they are more functional.
Is there any way to rework the wall cabinets for a 30 or even 32" cabinet?

I'm not trying to be bossy. But just for reference and for the process of the conversation, here is our similar wall elevation:

{{!gwi}}

Other things to consider, how does the width of each individual window in the three window set relate in size to the width of the doors of your wall cabinets? Do you want the window to be the drama? Or, so you want the cabinets to dominate? Either look could be fine.

I think the second picture looks best...is that the five foot window? I like the proportion of the windows better...and the size of the cabinets. You should have plenty of light, especially if you are planning to have white cabinets. They'll bounce a lot of light around the room :)

If you want more light, make the 5 footer taller - that will let more light penetrate further into the room.

A discrete thing perhaps, but when the window gets wider, its grid pattern changes from even squares or slightly vertical to horizontal. The drawing of the wall of cabinets looks funny to me, with the grids in the cabinets vertical and the ones in the windows horizontal. If the 5 foot window became taller, the grids would become more in tune to the cabinet grids.

My inner safety marshal wants to speak up. In either one, using the cabinet to the right for dish storage is kinda problematic - you can't reach a lot of the cabinet next to the fridge from the left side of the dishwasher; its door and/or the refrigerator would be in your face (literally) if you stood to the right of the dishwasher.

As the door size of the cabinet increases, the door would stick out PAST the counter top by 5-6 inches and would need to stop at 90 degrees because of the refrigerator. I'd be afraid that eventually I'd run my face into the glass door as it stood open.

Francoise47- love your layout..looks like you have about a crucial 12 more inches than we do on the sink wall. There is definitely no more room to make the cabs bigger unless I gave up even more window Are you going with double hung as pictured? I like that concept as I hate casement windows, but I didn't want the divide bar in the middle of the sink. Although now that I think of it, that's what I have now and I never really focused on it. Is there any other reason why you're picking the double hung?

Lavendar_lass- I like the balance of the five foot window too... And because I'm living with awful '90s oak cabs (that I had nothing to do with picking!!!) it didn't occur to me that the white itself will brighten things. Hmmmm.

Thank you so much for the help.

Bmorepanic- love your inner safety marshall! Our dishwasher and existing cabinet is in about the same place now, and although it's not ideal, I'm pretty much the only one who uses that cab and unloads the dishwasher- and I'm 5'10 so I reach pretty far. But you make a great point.

Re window height- that was my immediate thought too and I agree with you. But both my GC and the window guy told me that a higher window would look funny with the outside elevations, as it will be set higher than the other first floor windows at the back of the house. What do you think?

PS - have a happy 4th!

Just saying - and it doesn't look funny to them being shorter than every other window in the elevation? How about dramatically smaller bath windows? Are those allowed? Are they allowed in houses with tall entryway windows?

Because all of those windows are almost always different than every other window in the living areas.

I would go both down and up - start the window 3-6" down from where the drawings show and go 3-6" taller. Perhaps consider going down to counter height? I've seen people run their counter top out a little deeper and use it as the window's sill.

Bmorepanic- Ah...I like that and will call the window guy and GC tomorrow. Thank you!

Hi Secondhalf, I do think that the three windows over the sink is a lovely look. If you take bmorepanic's idea and make the window lower to the counter, it might create the effect of katieob's charming new kitchen, pictured here:

{{!gwi}}

I had crank out casement windows over my sink in my pre renovation kitchen. You can't beat the casement windows for ease of use. But we decided to match the double hung windows we have in the rest of our house when we redid the kitchen. They are not as easy to open. But I do think they are a good choice for the style of our house. We have a big bank of three windows on the "breakfast nook" side of the kitchen that let in lots of light. So I was less concerned about maximizing the windows on the sink wall. But if I had had a bit more room, I would have loved to have put in a triple bank of windows as you are planning.

Because of the 2x6 header size necesarry for the window opening they most likely cannot go much taller.

Francoise47- katieob already has me stalking her 2009 kitchen - hopefully she won't mind me stealing ideas from her new one as well. :) I am going to send this to my contractor tonight.

Dan1888- I have about a foot between the current window and ceiling so I'm hoping that will give me at least some play?

I like the look of the six foot window better than the smaller window. Like you, especially in the wintertime, every bit of natural light is valuable here in Alaska. Our current kitchen plans will give up a couple of wall cabinets so we can put in wider windows. We do have to be cognizant of exterior elevations and will be matching the window header heights of existing windows. Windows of different heights are fine, but having their head heights match on the exterior is important to avoid a "random" look. Think about what would go in the cabinets you're considering loosing and balance that with the additional light and potential view.

If your window goes lower, make sure your faucet will have sufficient clearance for you turn it on and off considering the window, the window sill, the size of your sink and where the faucet needs to be installed etc.