I like your initial layout. Where will the prep area be, on the island? It's very nice to have the trash can located within arm's reach of the prep area. Recessing the refrigerator should be easy - you'll have to give up some depth in the closet behind it, though.

Before suggesting much of anything, a couple of small questions.

Where is the new lanai?
The added door is because...
Do you have a full floor layout you could post?
Where are the best views?

You're going to have more expertise in your climate than I do, but I don't know that I'd lower the ceiling (hot air rises and all). I wonder tho, about some kind of vent in the ceiling that could open, either passive or powered. Not for a vent hood, but as a cooling feature.

Everything below isn't fatal or anything - it just might SEEM like it. It might feel worse than normal because I'm not going to be making suggestions for changes.

Everyone comes at layout from their own viewpoint and the POTENTIAL issues noted may not be a problem for you. Also, sometimes you can't have everything. Every kitchen has tradeoffs and I like to be sure people are aware of the ones they may be making.

The dining area is at the bottom of the drawing, but the dishes/cleanup is all the way at the top. Just saying - the round trip to table or deck (also at the bottom) is something like 20 feet further than it needs to be.

The position of the ref vs. the position of the dish storage will encourage people to walk through your prep/cook zone. Also, those darned ref users normally also use the micro - so depending on where the micro is, there might be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing through your prep-cook zone.

This is very much just personal preference, but I'm not sure I would like the pantry on the other side of the island. This is partly because we keep all of the non refrigerated food in the pantry. Also partly, sheer laziness because I wouldn't want to take another 24 ft roundtrip to get something I forgot.

Planning on three seats in four feet might get a little tricky . I know you can fit 3 with a perfect half circle (24" deep) plus a little side but am not certain about the shallow arc. Partly because of the law of the knees which states that two sets of knees can't occupy the same space at the same time. Also, there is the corollary of the legs - animate legs can not pass through inanimate legs. You might need that because you may need legs for a two foot overhang.

Things are always a little bigger than you'd think. Counters subtract 1.5" from the aisles for each edge facing an aisle. Even counter depth refs stick out by around 6" by the time the doors and handles are added on. Ranges are anything up to around 29" deep. So, a 42" aisle can become more like 35" inna heartbeat.

The last thing is a consideration if you have never had a prep sink. You might find that you spend 70% of your time hanging out near the prep sink and less than 10% doing cleanup. It might be good to gather some intel about the proportion of time you are using your existing sink for prep or cleanup. If its mostly doing prep or other stuff connected with cooking, then maybe consider not making cleanup the primary focus of your kitchen design.

Thanks for your replys.

dseng: yes, prep area and sink will be on island. I am trying to figure out best location for trash. I keep reading it's best to locate at prep area, but what about dumping rubbish during clean up? Is it possible to have a pullout next to the prep sink that will open toward the cleanup sink instead of the stove??

bmorepanic: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I'll try to respond to each. I went through the "new to post link" but cant find the instructions on how to bring your quotes into this post. Our lot has a weird shape - arch. has created the house to take advantage of prevailing breezes and shield us from neighbors...(or shield neighbors from us)! Yes, there are some tradeoffs here.

New lanai - will be outside beyond family room. yes, gulp it is a hike and is something DH and I are mulling over. We mostly serve buffet style in the kitchen and bring the salad bowl to the table. I use trays to bring utensils, glasses, etc to the outside.

added door - it will catch prevailing breezes and give me some great ventillation. I could be convinced to trade this for a window if that would significantly improve layout. Yes, we will have low profile roof vents.

full floor layout - I will try to post this later today, however, it is not fully finalized and has quirks that we are working out. Maybe more appropriate to post to the new home site?

views - ahhh, yes. Well, we traded views for a level lot. We will have to create our own little oasis with landscaping. Kitchen window looks out to small side yard. Window seat in dining room looks onto nice front yard - probably the best view.

Position of ref - I have struggled over this. We also keep all non-refrigerated food in pantry (except for baking which I keep in my lzysusan). I originally had fridge and pantry locations switched but find that I go back and forth to fridge more often than back and forth to pantry when I am at the stove. Is there another solution that I'm missing?

(fridge and pantry are side by side and 10' from sink in my current kitchen. Not ideal, but....I have lived with it).

Totally agree with your comment re: others walking through prep zone to use fridge.

Island seating - didn't even realize I made it 24". Good to know that will work for 3. DH mentioned using a steel plate under the counter for support. Haven't researched this. Another solution would be to reduce 24" island cab to 12" and scoot everyone over a bit. But that gets asymmetrical and I am seeing so much symmetry in the kitchens on this forum. I feel like I need that symmetry.

I have considered placing stove where sink is now, but where to put clean up sink...on island? How do you guys keep your islands with clean up sinks so clear of clutter? I always have a few dishes (cutting boards and hand washables) draining next to my clean up sink.

Aisle depth - yes, I worried about that, too - another reason to scoot the seating over.

Questions - Am I going down the wrong path? Are my dimensions just not going to work for a u-shaped kitch. with island? I am seeing lots of L-shaped kitchens on this forum, but I can't figure out how to do that with this kitchen. Any suggestions for an alternate layout?

How much outdoor eating and cooking will go on?

Would you benefit from putting range on the left-hand outside wall halfway down the countertop from the doorway? It's 72 inches wide, which gives sufficient plunk space on the two wings astride the range. Vent can be made easily to outdoors. Then pantry and refrig and beverage center could be on the other side of island. Loungers could hang on the inside aisle also--they can look outward to deck.

One thing I know for sure if you do a lot of outdoor cooking and eating is that there needs to be plenty of 'plunk space' next to the walkpath between the outdoors and the sink and the launching space. Even the hanging upper cab positioned to the side of the door to the deck is a potential block to feeling comfortable in transferring stuff in and out.

Also, don't stint on the size of the prep sink. Little round "butler sinks" are cute, but cute isn't what you need here. We got a regular one-basin rectangular 8 inch deep sink for our second sink and don't regret it--allows us to process quantities of garden veg and to put buckets, dog bowls, trays and big pans and crock pots and etc. under the faucet. At the very least, get something that will allow you to have a second cook and position the second sink at least a foot from the end of the island so you can transfer stuff like salad makings from one side to the sink to the other side.

In front of the family room means down (as drawn)? Is the back yard also down? Does the kitchen window face the street?

When you talk about serving buffet style, are you thinking of lining stuff up on the island and sending people around it to pickup dishes and food? Where would the drinks/bar be? Are you working when people are picking up?

I'm not criticizing your space at all, there's a lot of different ways to lay it out. I'm trying to figure out if I could see anything that might be better. I don't think it matters if the floor plan is final yet, want to see the utility areas and how traffic moves through the house.

If you want comments about house design, posting in the building a house forum is good. I'd be looking more at whether I could steal something from the utility room for a built pantry or maybe moving the to-garage door up or down.

speaking in a really soft, calming voice Have you thought about flipping dining and kitchen? ducks

Loving your comments!

Florantha: I switched stove/fridge locations, ditched the door and added window just to see how that would work. Made prep sink bigger (thanks for that info) but with this plan not sure where I would stand when using it. I think I would prefer across from the other sink - would this create too much of a conflict with the other sink? (assuming DH is doing the dishes while I am prepping! lol!).

Our most likely route to the back deck would be through the family room. I sort of envisioned the island would provide the plunk space. I know it is a far hike, but just measured the distance from my current kitch to back deck = 15' vs new plan = 17'. Again, not ideal.

I added the upper cabs at the last minute and started second guessing them right away. If I keep the door, will definitly keep your comment in mind.

We thought about switching family room with kitchen, but had a hard time making that work....any ideas???

bmorepanic: Hi again! I downloaded a larger section of the plan for you to look at. Will get the full plan in tomorrow. Kitchen window faces side yard. dining room faces toward the front, Family room faces back. HTH.

Yes, for "buffet" load our plates in the kitchen, then go out on the deck, sometimes I bring the salad separately. Barbeque is out back so any meat/chicken will be served out there. Most of our friends do it this way - it's pretty typical for our area.

drinks/bar - we are water, wine or beer people as are most of our friends. Not even coke or juice for the kiddies. Now I am thinking of a small fridge in a closet on the back deck. Alternatively, DH would like to set up a mini kitchen outside so that is another possibility.

All of this is not to say that we never use our dining room. DH and I probably use the dining room 50% of the time. Guests prefer outdoors. Good china comes out less and less.

I would not have posted here if I didn't want comments, criticism and improvement. The problem is we are limited by our weird shaped lot and the setbacks. So nothing is going to be ideal.

Having said that, we did try to switch kitchen and dining room - but there are only two walls in the dining room and I couldn't make a kitchen work there. Would love it if you or someone else could make that work.

** So, what do you all think of the new sketch with stove and fridge reversed and prep sink opposite main sink?? Do you think the work triangle is too big? Should I put the door back in and adjust location of stove to accommoate the move? Is prep sink location going to work? Thanks!

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Here is a link that might be useful: Honu's kitchen layout

Going back to my original suggestion to flip refrig wall and range wall...I'd put the small sink on the range side of the island downwind from the other sink. Dirty dishes, etc. go onto the counter areas by the big sink; veg & meat to chop first goes onto the island on the refrig side of island (right side of island on your original drawing) and is worked over on the range side of the island. (Island has to be shallow enough to allow reaching across most of its width.) Refrigerator filling from grocery bags occurs on the outside of the island--closer to garage. Recreational browsing in the refrig goes on away from the cook and refrig is accessed by a straight diagonal walk from fam room, plus refrig is directly near to the dining table, again without bothering cook. Smaller sink should be available to hand-washers or drinking glass fillers without venturing behind the person standing at range.

This routes the non-chopping, non-cooking traffice to the outside of the island. Primary access to the deck is from the fam room and not from the area by sink, right? That proposed deck door into kitchen will only serve for cook & helpers & cleanup, yes? And if you're in a 4-season climate, it will be closed most of the winter, unless you use a grill out there, yes? If so, that keeps the cold wind out of the fam room when you go a-grillin'. And it still allows you a full-length or part-length window to brighten the aisles by big sink and range and to bird-watch the deck from the kitchen.

florantha: Yes, your comments are spot-on. Makes sense to separate the fridge from the work/cook area. I revised drawing to show two possible solutions: Plan A and Plan B. The reason I like Plan A is that I can see deck and fam room and back yard view while prepping. Do you see any downfall to this layout? I put the door back in - our climate is warm all year with cooling breezes 80% of the time. Dislike A/C. Door will help. Love the idea of bird-watching DH while he's on the deck! Yes, door primarily serves cook and incoming traffic. I don't see it as a major traffic route.

bmorepanic: attaching full floor plan. Hope you can see a solution that I missed.

Thanks for all the comments. You have both been so helpful.

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Here is a link that might be useful: Honu's kitchen layout

This one puts cleanup on one of the edges, a little closer and accessible without walking through the prep area. It is slightly larger than what you have been drawing (family room wall is longer).

This is more modern but actually smaller in terms of its presence in the dining area. I did enclose where you have the utility sink to put the pantry out in that area. Alternately, the pantry could be bumped into the utility area (right up against the kitchen wall) and the utility sink be on the opposite wall.

bmorepanic: I see where you are going with the first layout. DW side of sink is raised to hide clean up mess and I still have my window. Also, work triange is tighter. I like this one. You are right, second one is more modern which doesn't bother me, but I think there is less storage? I do like the idea of opening to the utility room. You've given me lots to think about and gotten my thinking outside the box. Thank you!

What software did you use to create the plan view and the elevation view? I tried using the Lowe's sofeware last night without much success. thanks again.

I use Microsoft Paint most often. It draws boxes and circles. Every once in a while, I can get its insane version of a bezier curve to behave. The elevation is just a bunch of boxes.

Glad that helped a bit. More software below. I haven't tried the lowes planner yet.

For myself, I started with graph paper like you did and a mighty big eraser. I have smartdraw that I used for doing scale drawings for permits. It gets the job done but is fairly awful for making decisions - you draw the elevations yourself anyway and it doesn't have 3D views. But nice for when you have to draw every stud to scale in an as-built wall where the space is erratic.

I would not suggest ikea's planner because it has limited cabinet sizes, only ikea finishes and dies all the time. It does have 3D views, tho, so ok to just take a peak at volume.

Many people like Chief Architect. It's got customizable cabinets, door styles, many finishes and can do 3D views.

I had computer problems and was on the phone to India all day. I am not kidding 8 HOURS with a short break. All is well now, just a major headache.

bmorepanic: thanks for the info. I think we have CA and will try it out. I am going to mess around with this layout and post again later, possible with inspiration pics if I can figure out how to get them from Houzz to GW.