Overall, I really like your design, and I think your choices of materials are great. Only a few fairly minor things jump out at me as concerns.

First, do you have the option of moving the window and sink down a little closer to the stove? This would address several issues for me. I really like having glasses stored right next to my refrigerator. Being able to grab a glass and fill it up is enough of a convenience that I would move that window in order to stick some uppers right next to the refrigerator. This would also make the sink more convenient to the stove for prepping and emptying big pots. I'd also like that big bank of uppers to be broken up, so this would take care of that, as well. Finally, this would give you a bit more landing space next to the fridge, but with the island right across from it, this is not a big issue.

Second, the pics show all cabinets in your bases. I would strongly recommend that you change most of those into drawers. They are far more convenient and ergonomic for storing almost everything.

Third, is your stove recessed into the wall somehow? It's hard to tell from the drawings, but it looks like you have very limited prep/landing space on each side of the stove. This would bother me a lot, and it just doesn't seem safe.

And last, just judging from the pics, the overhangs on your island look uncomfortably small. It looks like you have plenty of room for bigger ones, given the width of the island, so I wonder if you have cabinets under the overhang stealing some of that space. I would want at least 14" of knee room there.

Other than these hiccups, I think you're well on your way to a beautiful kitchen!

Excellent feedback Holligator! Yes, I have been strugglng with the long bank of uppers and have been unsure about moving the window down. Right now, the view is of the garden, but if I move it down even 24 inches, I have a view of an air conditioner and the side of the garage instead. I think it may be worth it though, so I'm going to redraw as an option.

The drawing is a little deceiving on drawers/doors. The two base cabinets on either side of the sink are actually a paneled dishwasher and a trash pullout. There are three doors on the base cabinet to the right of the sink and then another base cabinet with three doors right of the range. The other base cabinets include two drawers, a spice pullout and tall baking sheet storage. The island is all drawers, which is good.

The range is, in fact, recessed into an existing fireplace and will be vented out through the chimney. It will be recessed 12" into the brick, with the front 15" in front of and flush with the cabinetry. The expanded firebox has 6" of clearance on either side of the range within the recessed area. The forward 15" is fully unobstructed. I also wanted to be sure that the island was close by for removing pots and pans, etc. This is definitely an issue- it's been a challenge to design around a fireplace!!! But also pretty fun too!

The overhang on the island is 14" right now. Is that enough, or do I need to go deeper?

Is the butlers pantry the sink and beverage fridge?

Right now you have three different door styles on the upper cabinets, a door, open shelving and glass doors, and it appears it was done to align exactly with whats going on in the base.

I would clean it up by putting four equally sized doors up there with all glass(or all closed), or open shelves in the middle flanked by matching doors, or all open shelves.
It doesn't matter so much which you choose, but it would be cleaner to have an even balanced arrangement. I might opt for solid doors since you have so much glass everywhere else. You could probably get them closer to the counter too since that is a beverage sink and not a washing sink: It looks to be 24" now and 18" would be plenty.

You have enough room that you could pull the range forward some and still vent into the chimney just fine. It could give you room for a little niche behind your stove and maybe even a few stainless shelves above it. I think it would be worth it to do that to get the counter space on the sides. Plus, those base cabinets wouldn't be particularly useful, especially for the items typically kept next to the stove. If you did that, the counter to the right of the stove would be extra deep, which would make for a fabulous baking center.

I worked on the long wall with the main sink and upper cabinets first. Here is my revised version. Does it look better? I'm thinking there are too many glass front cabinets now. Which ones do you think should I make solid?

Next item for fixing is the butler's pantry- great ideas palimpsest!

REVISED LAYOUT
{{gwi:1930256}}From Changeup 4

Revised west wall (I removed the island so you can see the cabinets)
{{gwi:1930257}}From Changeup 4

5" recessed niche with shelf behind the range
{{gwi:1930258}}From Kitchen Remodel

Here is another try at the Butler's Pantry area. The sink is actually quite large (20x16). We have a similar sink in this location now and we love having a large second sink! Anyways, I want to be sure that there is enough clearance to use the sink and have cabinets up above. I put a bank of glass front cabinets here (made all of the cabinets on the other wall solid) and I moved them down from 24" above the counter to 21". They are still 12" deep, though. What do you think about reducing the depth to 10"?

Also, I am intrigued by the idea of having open shelves, but when I draw it, it doesn't look balanced to me. 12" cabinet on right and left with shelves in the middle. The 12" cabinets just look so puny. I could go with straight open shelving- thoughts?

I love the idea of a baking center in the extra deep (28") cabinet to the right of the range. I'm a newbie, though, so would love to hear how a baking center is designed- don't think I've seen one before.

BUTLERS PANTRY AREA - TALL PANTRY
{{gwi:1930259}}From Changeup 4

BUTLERS PANTRY AREA - WET BAR / BEV CENTER
{{gwi:1930260}}From Changeup 4

HEAD-ON VIEW
{{gwi:1930261}}From Changeup 4

Mine are really minor and decorative. They are just my personal opinion of style - so take them for what that's worth.

The niche would be better with a shelf at the mid-point or at about 1/3 - depends on what you'd like to store back there. The other thing that would work visually is a tool rail near the top. It's too tall to be empty and a "special" tile inset would look out of place with the rest of your design ethic.

Pull the rest of the cabinets to the right of the range forward to have a matched edge. Bumps outs are fun, but bumped on only one side looks like a mistake.

If you use this area as a baking counter, consider having a 14-15" deep shelf for canisters - maybe pegs slanted upwards or hooks underneath for rolling pin, sifter, measuring cups, or molds or baking pans. It should be placed high enough to clear your mixer. Maybe make it out of marble?

The other thought is to let the cabinet run die in front of the range frame, and then pick up with a pantry cabinet(s) the same depth as the range frame (16-18"?). Instead of having the window in the wall, put the "window" in the cabinet front. The would get the pantry cabinet out of the hall - looks a little bit clunky and crammed there.

Extend the shelves on the range face of the island to the end and cut the leg in that corner. I might put a door on one of the shelf units or consider reworking the sink side to use another foot of regular depth cabinetry with a two foot long, one foot deep shelf unit. Don't know why, but for me it looks goofy to have the shelves stop and that BIG leg so close.

Consider allowing more foot space under the overhang by moving the false wall closer to the cabinets. 15" is a good minimum depth of an overhang, but in your case, I think I'd rather see 18" and not have the island be such a deep lump.

The ref needs to move away from the door just a little bit - like 1 to 3 inches. I don't like stuff jammed right next to other stuff - or as in this case, is so close that the trim of one thing overlaps the trim of another WHEN you have the space to completely avoid it.

Where were you thinking of storing pots?

You have a lot of door cabinets where most people here *including me* would advise drawers.

I didn't explain my idea well. What I meant was for you to pull the stove forward, out of the chimney a bit, perhaps six to ten inches to create deeper counters and cabinets on each side of the stove. Extending the counter out to the same point in the corner to the right of the stove would give you an extra deep counter there (32"-44", depending on how much you pulled the stove forward. This would make a great space for rolling out dough, etc. This would also mean bumping the island over the same distance, but you have plenty of room to do that.

It would look (very roughly!) something like this...

Then, what I meant about a niche behind the stove was not something recessed, but actually having the counter run back around behind the stove and having the whole area as your "niche." This would leave you room to put shelves (I'm picturing floating stainless shelves) or a rack for hanging pans and/or utensils. Again, very roughly, something like this...

or this...

I like the Butler's pantry as drawn with the equal sized doors. I would not shrink the depth. 12" is about the minimum depth if you ever wanted to store plates or serving pieces in there--so keep it flexible.

I can't tell which is which, but I hope you have the dw on the left of the sink and the trash on the right. With only the one sink, I sure wouldn't want the dw in between me, at the stove, and the sink, but it sure would be handy to reach the trash from the stove and prep areas.

Thank you everyone so much! I should have asked for help earlier in the process, but felt obliged to take the advice of our architect without questioning too much. We meet with our GC tomorrow to kick off demo (this week or next) so I need to have our layout finalized asap.

Bmorepanic, I am definitey going to move the refrigerator down 3" from the door. I totally forgot about that once we fixed the constraint of the window. Yay!

The fireplace is a conundrum- it is one of the only things that we like about our existing kitchen and we'd like to keep the wall free of upper cabinetry as much as possible to preserve the symmetry of the little windows throgh the brick. The funny part about the chimney is that the brick is 28" deep for most of the wall, but only 8" deep on the right side. So the windows and the firebox are the only features that make it feel centered to me. I'm a little stuck on the firebox recess- it is 20" deep and our plan was to recess the range 12" and use the 8" of space behind for the niche. Our architect insisted that we do something a little fancier behind the range, so we designed the herringbone inset box detail... and I've already received the box of Ann Sacks tile, so I would hate to eliminate it now. That said, Jeff Herman at Modernaire also reommended a pot rail behind the range in the niche, just like Holligator drew above. I love, love, love that idea, but DH will kill me if I don't use that expensive tile. Not sure if I can pull the range out further because our hood is already in production and it's too late to change the dimensions- it will extend 12" in front of the brick and 15" recessed. Also, if I move the range forward, then I think I would need to shorten the island, otherwise the island would shift and protrude into the non-vaulted space in the kitchen.

On the island, I don't want to lose counter length available for seating, but I do want to be sure that people are comfortable. With 14" of overhang the size of the island cabinet itself is 79"x35". Is that too big of a block? I could increase the overhang, but by doing so I lose depth in the little backside storage cabinets (11" now) for infrequently used small items. What would be an ideal tradeoff?

Pots and Pans- arghh! I'm planning to put them in the base cabinets to the far left and far right of the range. For the extra deep cabinet, would it be better to do four deep drawer bins (2 and 2 side by side) instead of the three cabinet doors? I was worried about storage space for big pots and pans and serving dishes and knew that could fit them all in the extra deep cabinet with doors. Not sure if they would all fit with drawers instead?

I'm glad the beverage center wall looks better- okay for the uppers to be 21" above counter? I will keep them 12" deep.

You guys are amazing- many thanks!!!

Fireplace shot (yes, it's a dark and depressing room, but the fireplace itself is pretty cool- ceiling will be removed and vaulted to follow roofline of attic, so fireplace will be ~1.5 stories)

Existing Butler's Pantry - I think the new one will be a big improvement.

RE: Last chance Layout advice!!!

• Posted by: mereanne (My Page) on Sun, Aug 16, 09 at 13:56

Rhome, we can go either way with the trash pullout and the dishwasher. It's really just a question of tradeoffs and I don't have strong feelings on what is the best solution.

DW on the left:
- Out of the way of the range area
- Close to one upper wall cabinet for dishes

DW on the right:
- Out of the way of the microwave and fridge area
- Close to the bank of upper wall cabinets and lower pots and pans storage

DH does have strong opinions (not sure what they are yet) about the DW location because with toddlers we do dishes constantly...more than anything else we do in the kitchen.

We plan to do some prep in the butlers pantry area since there is a big sink there. We prep in there today all the time and love it!

RE: Last chance Layout advice!!!

• Posted by: bmorepanic (My Page) on Mon, Aug 17, 09 at 1:29

There are only two actual difference between doors with pullouts and drawers.

1. Some pullouts have adjustable heights, drawers don't.

2. You have to do more work more carefully with pullouts - otherwise they get damaged. Open two doors fully, pull out tray, select item, push back tray carefully and completely, close doors versus open drawer, select item, push back.

If a pullout tray can be made deeper, so can a drawer. If a pullout can support higher weights, so can a drawer.
I have this game I play with kitchen plans. It's called get a bowl of cereal (or other normal stuff). It's simple, trace your route to get a bowl of cereal on your plan. If I have it correctly, its around 28 feet. It's the other reason I'm expressing some concern over the location of the pantry when I don't see any other storage space for food.

You can do the pot rack or a tool bar inside of the niche. Keep the tile and use it!

RE: Last chance Layout advice!!!

• Posted by: mereanne (My Page) on Mon, Aug 17, 09 at 16:02

Oh goodness, I hadn't even considered pullouts for the cabinets there. I think I have a fundamental opposition to the idea of opening a door and then pulling out a drawer, since it's a two-step process.

Actually, for that particular cabinet, I was thinking about just a standard base cab with doors on the outside and a single shelf in the middle. I know I'll have loads of storage volume by using the space that way. Definitely not as ergonomic as drawers or pullouts- but compared to the lifting and hauling and tugging of my toddlers... I'm okay with bending down for this one. I think I'll put serving dishes and really big pots and pans there (we don't use them often) and then put the smaller and more frequently used saucepans in the tall drawer bins on the left.

Our range is a 40" with a frytop in the middle, so I don't plan to haul out the frying pan or griddle as much as I do now. I really do like the pot rail option as a storage behind the range and talked to our GC today about doing that.

Love your bowl of cereal game! What a great way to think about layout. I think I can cut down on the 28 feet through some careful planning. I'd like to store cereal, snacks, and bread in the extra deep drawers in the island (need to recheck my dimensions to be sure they're deep enough for cereal).

On the shelves at the end of the island, I'm planning to store canisters of flour, sugar, rice, oatmeal, etc. and glass jars for kids snacks. Today, I store animal crackers, goldfish, nilla wafers, and raisins in glass jars and so far the kids have been really good and haven't come close to breaking the jars or abusing easy access to snack foods.

That leaves canned goods, sauce jars, and boxed foods like mac n cheese in the tall pantry cupboard. Definitely a longer distance to these items, which is a compromise.

Thank you for helping me think through these issues!

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Rhome, we can go either way with the trash pullout and the dishwasher. It's really just a question of tradeoffs and I don't have strong feelings on what is the best solution.

DW on the left:
- Out of the way of the range area
- Close to one upper wall cabinet for dishes

DW on the right:
- Out of the way of the microwave and fridge area
- Close to the bank of upper wall cabinets and lower pots and pans storage

DH does have strong opinions (not sure what they are yet) about the DW location because with toddlers we do dishes constantly...more than anything else we do in the kitchen.

We plan to do some prep in the butlers pantry area since there is a big sink there. We prep in there today all the time and love it!

There are only two actual difference between doors with pullouts and drawers.

1. Some pullouts have adjustable heights, drawers don't.

2. You have to do more work more carefully with pullouts - otherwise they get damaged. Open two doors fully, pull out tray, select item, push back tray carefully and completely, close doors versus open drawer, select item, push back.

If a pullout tray can be made deeper, so can a drawer. If a pullout can support higher weights, so can a drawer.
I have this game I play with kitchen plans. It's called get a bowl of cereal (or other normal stuff). It's simple, trace your route to get a bowl of cereal on your plan. If I have it correctly, its around 28 feet. It's the other reason I'm expressing some concern over the location of the pantry when I don't see any other storage space for food.

You can do the pot rack or a tool bar inside of the niche. Keep the tile and use it!

Oh goodness, I hadn't even considered pullouts for the cabinets there. I think I have a fundamental opposition to the idea of opening a door and then pulling out a drawer, since it's a two-step process.

Actually, for that particular cabinet, I was thinking about just a standard base cab with doors on the outside and a single shelf in the middle. I know I'll have loads of storage volume by using the space that way. Definitely not as ergonomic as drawers or pullouts- but compared to the lifting and hauling and tugging of my toddlers... I'm okay with bending down for this one. I think I'll put serving dishes and really big pots and pans there (we don't use them often) and then put the smaller and more frequently used saucepans in the tall drawer bins on the left.

Our range is a 40" with a frytop in the middle, so I don't plan to haul out the frying pan or griddle as much as I do now. I really do like the pot rail option as a storage behind the range and talked to our GC today about doing that.

Love your bowl of cereal game! What a great way to think about layout. I think I can cut down on the 28 feet through some careful planning. I'd like to store cereal, snacks, and bread in the extra deep drawers in the island (need to recheck my dimensions to be sure they're deep enough for cereal).

On the shelves at the end of the island, I'm planning to store canisters of flour, sugar, rice, oatmeal, etc. and glass jars for kids snacks. Today, I store animal crackers, goldfish, nilla wafers, and raisins in glass jars and so far the kids have been really good and haven't come close to breaking the jars or abusing easy access to snack foods.

That leaves canned goods, sauce jars, and boxed foods like mac n cheese in the tall pantry cupboard. Definitely a longer distance to these items, which is a compromise.

Thank you for helping me think through these issues!