Lots of blue! It looks nice.

Some things to think about/consider:

• Remember for counter-height seating:

• 24" of linear space per seat

15" minimum seating overhang
What are your aisle widths (everywhere)?
Where is your trash & recycle pullout?
Is your dish storage in the glass cabinets flanking the Cleanup sink?
Where are your various utensils (cooking, prepping, serving, etc.)? Silverware?
Is the small appliance cabinet upper door one door or two doors? I'm thinking it will be too wide to be one door, particularly when it's open. Is it a standard door or is it a pocket/folding/other door?
How high is that hood? It looks too high...but it depends on the size of the hood as well as the power (cfms). If it's too high, consider getting a 48" wide/24" deep hood that has at least 900 cfms (more if you have any turns or have a long way to go to vent to the outside).

Your picture looks distorted/squished, so it's difficult to figure out how much room you have on each side of the cooktop.

Couple style things - just personal opinion. Would work over those bow tops things on the refs. They look stuck on and in a different style.

On the other wall, I would do light rail (with lights!) and crown plus take the center border OUT of the backsplash. I like it a lot on the range side, but feel it makes the sink side too busy.

If its not too hard, look at color inside of the glass cabinets - particularly if your dishes and display objects are white. I'd choose something like the pale gray-blue or the lighter hydrangea color from the tile mural. Then I'd color the plate rack and hood a more intense version of that color.

Layout comments - SERIOUSLY reconsider that glass pantry door. Aside from the Edwardian Kitchen vibe, the ref doors and the oven doors on the other side make it feel like a target. Because of the distortions, I can't tell how that door opens (or if its on the diagonal or in a plane with the ovens) but I'm praying its inward.

If I take my best guess at the size of the back wall, you are showing about a 9 foot island but minus about three feet for the two bookcases. That means at most three stools.

Thanks everyone for the comments.

The island widths I'd have to check on, I don't have that particular pic w/ me. The KD I know made me shrink my island to make them bigger, so I'm sure they are pretty decent sized.

We have six inches on each side inside the hood itself, and then those cabs are I believe 18 inches on each side.

The trash and recycle pull-out is a problem. That is the one thing I do not have any idea where it is going to go! I wanted to do it under the sink but w/ apron front sinks on both sinks, that probably isn't going to work. I'm guessing we're going to have to put it in the island on the other side opposite where the dish drawer is. I'm not happy about that, if you have any better suggestions, let me know!

Dish storage is in the glass cabs flanking the sink. I also have this "kitchen china can" on the wall directly opposite the range wall:

Cooking utensils will be in the stove pullout (which wasn't pictured). Like this (I think I stole this pic. from gardenweb somewhere!)

Silverware, our cab. person is putting thin drawers on both the left and right of the island that are sort of "hidden" drawers or that are part of the island's edge. They will be above, respectively, the set of fridge/freezer drawers on the left and the micro drawer on the right, so if you take something out of the micro or grab an ice cream from the fridge/freezer drawers, you'll be able to grab silverware right there.

The small appliance cab has to be one door b/c it has to be symmetrical w/ the fridge on the opposite end. It is 36 inches, like the fridge. The door slides back into the cab.

The hood, I have no clue. I don't even know if we are venting inside or outside. The KD is just getting us something. I don't really cook (to be honest, I barely reheat anything!) so we don't need any kind of high-powered hood.

bmorepanic, what would you do with the space over the top of the fridge instead?

We're planning on doing lights inside all of the glass cabs. Would you still do light rail on the sink wall?

I like the idea of doing a lighter gray-blue inside the cabs and then the darker blue on the hood, but I'm also concerned about making things too busy since I have a lot going on already. My dishes are lenox butterfly meadow, which I am hoping will look OK w/ the blue in this kitchen. We shall see... if not I have a blue and white french county set that was my mom's or I'll put the fancier Lenox Pearl Platinum dishes in the kitchen cabs or something.

The pantry door, I love. Love. I can't lose it. It does open inward. It is hard...

I didn't see if you actually listed your dimensions, but IMHO for a kitchen this size it seems to be very appliance-heavy, especially if no one in the house cooks very much. Do you really need the fridge/freezer drawers and the built-in fridge and the fridge/freezer in the pantry? That seems like a lot to me. If you want easy access to fridge/freezer from other rooms, what about swapping the fridge and appliance cabinets? If you ditched the fridge drawers that would give you a lot of space for trash/recycling.

And what about the dishwasher plus the dish drawers? I don't know how big your family is but if you aren't cooking it seems that it would be hard to create enough dirty stuff to justify both dishwashers. Again, this is all JMHO!

And also, the cooktop. If you reduced to a 36"' you'd gain 3" on either side, which equal more counter, more cabinets space below, and larger shelves above.

I think you've already bought most of your appliances, right, so maybe this is all moot. Good luck!

Cintijen

Thanks Cinrijen. We did already buy the appliances. The fridge/freezer in the pantry is for dog food. They eat a prey-model diet of raw meat and their food needs to be kept separate. The fridge/freezer drawers will primarily be for drinks and ice cream, which we do buy a lot of. The dishwasher plus dish drawers, there are only 2 of us, but I don't want to ever have to unload the dishwasher ever (something I hate to do!) and we will be having a housekeeper come 2x a week, so I figured w/ 1 full size + 2 dish drawers, I'd never have to b/c it would be able to wait until she came. The range, I'd planned a 36 inch but we got such a great deal on the miele that I had to go for it.

The light rail and lights are so you can see better washing dishes or when you use that area for other tasks.

I really like your dishes. As your image shows, I think it would look better if there was some contrast between the cream dishes and the cabinet color.

Thanks bmorepanic. I agree. I knew I wanted to do the blue in the back of the kitchen china cab. I think I will add it to the other glass cabs as well. It is only a little bit more blue.

I had planned to do the exact same blue for the back of the cabs as I was doing on the plate rack, but I like the idea of picking up a lighter blue in the hydrangeas for the cab backs and then doing a darker blue on the hood and plate rack. Thanks!

I love everything!!! It's beautiful! :)

The dishes are so pretty! You have them against a light background in the picture above...and the butterflies and flowers pop, which is probably what you want, I'm guessing.

I like the cabinets above the fridge/appliance areas, because they have a little "royal" look to them, which fits your french manor home. It would be too fancy, in my french country cottage, but perfect for you.

The chandelier over the island is wonderful and fits the overall style of the kitchen, so well.

Only two things I might consider changing...one is the cabinet doors under the sink. I saw on Sarah Richardson's farmhouse kitchen episode, she used a big drawer and it was so much easier to pull stuff out, rather than climbing under there to look for something. If you scroll down the link, they have a few pictures that show a little of the sink cabinet.

The other thing...what's pantry, in french? Paneterie? :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Sarah's farmhouse kitchen

Thanks Lavender. That Sarah's farmhouse kitchen is gorgeous. In fact, I kinda want to move into that house, the whole thing is gorgeous.

I'll check w/ my cab maker about doing the drawer under the sink. I always hate under sink storage, I think it is such a waste of space and yucky.

I'll go ahead and email my builder and tell him he now needs to find us a leaded glass pantry door w/ the french word for pantry etched on instead of the English one ;) He will love that, I'm sure (just as I'm sure he loved my panicked email about floor heating grates and how I realized the other day I could not cope with those hideous slated standard ones, lol)

All that space, all those appliances and you don't even cook or empty a DW? I want your life! ;)

I think my post came across a little rough. I got blasted with a sore throat and deepening chest cough this morning. I typed before I thought. I need a nap.

Its OK breezy girl. I took it nicely, hopefully you meant it that way ;)

Hope you feel better!

All that space and you have put the cooktop and the island sink directly across from one another? I'd put the island sink to the left in the photo so that there's plunk space directly across from the cooktop and so that if there are only two workers in the room, they're not back to back and likely to bump if not careful.

Thanks florantha. That is a good point, I will have to think about moving it over to the left. I had put it directly across from the cook top b/c just about the only thing that I ever cook is pasta once in a great while, and I wanted to be able to just spin around and dump the boiling water. Didn't think about the possibility of two people bumping into each other if one is using the stove and one is using the sink.

Do you think the asymmetry of that will look OK though? I can't of like how everything is lined up symmetrically.

My sink is a fireclay, does anyone know if that is heat resistant? I had kind of pictured the drainboard space on the sink being sort of a landing space for things coming off the stove?

Breezygirl- LOL! I thought it was funny :)

Beagle- Your builder must know you by now, and know you want the very best for your kitchen. I have to agree with you, about the floor grates.

Is this your blue bokira quartzite? It's beautiful!

{{gwi:2109450}}

I can't wait to see this space. Looks amazing and others have made really good suggestions about details. I love the dish storage cabinets! I'd say it looks like a great place to cook and bake, but ... It'll be a pretty place to eat ice cream? ;-)

Thanks rhome. I think it will be a good place to eat ice cream too. :) I hope to find my stone when I go looking after thanksgiving and I'll at least have pictures of that then, since the process of them actually building this thing is a bit slow.... although they are hoping to pour the foundation on Thursday.

Lavender-
HA, my builder knows me and knows I am completely over-the-top-OCD. I am convinced he thinks I am a bit nutty. Sadly, the original tile and granite person he sent me too already "fired" me and I was assigned to someone "younger" to deal with me, lol. I felt a little sad to be dumped. I guess I drove him crazy w/ my quartzite obsession and my somewhat unorthodox requests (like the hidden in-tile pop-out bathroom tile nook I asked him to create)

This is the blue bokira/boquira slab I found online that I fell in love with. I would SO love to buy this EXACT slab:
{{gwi:2109451}} I only hope and pray we can find something close. I am in love w/ the blues!

Also, I know this isn't the flooring forum, but any suggestions for what hardwood floor to use? Light/dark? Whatever we pick, it is going through all 5000 square feet of the house since every single space is hardwood except the master and upstairs bath. (Not one carpet anywhere in this house except orientals- I HATE wall to wall carpet!)

Boy, that's an amazing piece.

Just my personal opinion, but the location of your prep sink seem ok to me. If you want the island to double as a bar, you could move it towards the outer edge - think of the island in thirds for symmetry issues. Moving it yields a bigger hunk of continuous counter if you need some cookies to go with the ice cream (more of a pie person myself).

Backing up a moment to the top of the refs, I think I'd just do moldings - maybe a nice fancy front showing the bow with edge molding. Depending on the heights of your wall cabinets, I think you'd have only 4-10" up there to fill. I'm using the heights from subzero tc700s. If you're using framed cabinets, the height for display would be 1" to 7" tall.

If it's towards the 7", maybe flat platter storage using a sideless drawer and the arched piece as a front for it. I might think about getting something carved into them. Maybe a hydrangea blossom, or a companion hydrangea tile.

For flooring, all out continental would be herringbone done with oak. You can easily change to a more normal pattern once out of the primary rooms. Probably sucks up most anyone's budget, tho. We just went to see a bunch of old houses in Virginia, so my favorite floors of the moment for large spaces are wide plank oak and heart pine - around 5" and higher.

Beagles,

Everyone has made excellent points already.
I just wanted to add the floor ideas. I love, love, love
dark floors and was going to suggest going dark but
then I saw this image... It is not too dark, medium and
lovely.

Whatever you do decide I must say I love your choices. I
like that you are driven by your love of blue and white.
You know what you want and that is awesome.
Here is a book you might love but I have a feeling
you already have it.

The trash?? You should have more than one location
and maybe even (dare I say it) recycling too.
For me, I always need to wash my hands after I toss
some grimy something out. A trash can by the sinks
(prep too) would be perfect. Well perfect for the
maid anyway.

Enjoy the journey in your kitchen. Looking forward
to seeing all your lovely choices.
~boxerpups

One more blue that came to mind when I saw your
renderings. Light wood floors too.

You need to strike up a correspondence with an old poster here named bluekitchenobsessed! She always said there are only two colors in the world, blue and not blue. LOL. I absolutely agree about moving the prep sink. However, you ought to mime how that function works for you. Pick up your full pasta pot, as though you're standing at your stove, then go through your own natural body movements as you move to drain the pot. Do you step backwards first? Do you turn? Which direction? Where do you end up in relation to the virtual island? Is the sink in front of you? To your right? To your left? Work out the fine tuning of your placement like that.

bmore panic:
I know, isn't that stone gorgeous! I only hope I can find a piece even close to that pretty in real life!

I'm going to have to think more about this prep sink. I'll have to sort of template it out and see how much room I have in the aisles and whether it is easier for me to spin and dump water straight back or to the right or left. I feel like it might bother me aesthetically if the prep sink is not lined up in the exact middle of the stove, since the entire kitchen is built around symmetry. I don't really mind not having a continuous chunk of counter.

As to the area over the fridge. We have 9 ft. ceilings and the fridge isn't the subzero, it is a Bosch B36IB70NSP which is 7 feet tall, so we have two feet up there to work with.

It is a little hard for me to picture exactly what you are talking about w/ the molding, but I like the idea of doing flat platter storage with an arch. Do you mean something sort of like this:

I like the idea of having hydrangeas carved in to the molding somewhere. If I keep the arches, I may try to see if I can have that done on the other wall above the kitchen china cabinet.

I don't like the herringbone with oak flooring, I think it is a bit busy. Thank goodness, since I don't need more things to go over budget on :) I do love the heart pine!

Thanks boxerpups for the pretty pitures! I don't have that book, but I'm going to order it from Amazon.com.

I agree about having trash/recycling next to both sinks, it would be ideal. Unfortunately, my main sink will have a dish washer on one side and a dish drawer on the other, so I don't think I will have space next to that sink :( I'm hoping to put a small pull out trash can underneath it, but I don't know if that will work w/ the apron front sink? Anyone know?

Thanks for the advice about miming the function to decide where to put the prep sink, kitchendetective :) I definitely should find bluekitchenobsessed- I agree w/ her comment about color totally, lol! We're carrying blue themes through the whole house- our roof shingles will be a dark navy blue, blue stone & shutters on front, and the built-in bookcases next to the gathering room marble fireplace, I'm thinking blue for too.

Have you ever seen this Mick de Giulio kitchen?

I have always loved this particular blue trim.

Kichendetective, I haven't ever seen it before but I LOVE it! I'm so happy you posted it too b/c I wasn't sure how the book shelves would look in blue since I haven't actually been able to find any pictures where people have done that. Now I am convinced that I WILL be doing the gathering room bookshelves in blue for sure! It is right off of the kitchen so I'll use the same blue as my kitchen cab accents I think and it will offset the marble fireplace beautifully. I am also sort of thinking now that I want to ask the builder to make the french doors in one of the rooms blue... maybe in the great room or the sun room.

What a beautiful picture!

fyi: while looking about for an interior door with a glass panel for my kitchen I found this one on my search. Any interest for your pantry?

Source 4 Doors--"S-127 Harvest Cast Sculptured Solid Wood Interior Door" available in primed wood.

Here is a link that might be useful: door resource

Thanks florantha . It's pretty, but I"m not sure the harvest theme will go w/ the hydrangeas. I'm pretty set on the pantry door I've selected.

Beagle- Love the stone...it's the perfect blue for your sink!

Don't feel bad about getting dumped. You're just high maintenance...as all truly great women can be! LOL What is the hidden in tile, pop out bathroom tile nook? That sounds very interesting!

For floors, I vote for a medium to dark color, maybe just a little darker than Boxerpup's second picture (with the beautiful chandeliers). Almost an amaretto color...very french manor home, IMHO.

As for the island sink, I like it in the middle, because everything is so symmetrical. If you change to three stools, it will be even more so. If you're cooking, just tell any "helpers" to use the other sink :)

Well, my granite person that the builder sent me to sent me a collection of stone this morning he had found and they were AWFUL! Absolutely horrible. Some of them were not even blue- they were GRAY with tiny blue specs! I told him that there wasn't one slab I would even go and look at in person :( So, now I'm doing my own research to find someone who might carry what I want and if he can't get it for me, I'll just buy it separately and have it installed myself.

I am very upset :(

The pop out bathroom shelf thing, I'm going to have something kind of similar to this fabricated, except our tiles our bigger and I want it to kind of pop out when you press the tile front, like those magnetic cabinets do. That way, you won't see bottles or other stuff in the shower:

Since no one is cooking really anyway, I guess it won't matter if my sink is directly opposite my stove. I really think I'm going to end up leaving it that way b/c the asymmetry would drive me nuts.

I am just so upset about the bad blues :(

There's got to be more stone suppliers! Maybe you can send them your photo, to see who can come closest to matching it. It's just a beautiful blue stone and there's got to be more like it, out there.

Clever tile idea! This is going to be such a cool house :)

There does have to be more. I sent my person the photo originally and I don't really know what he was thinking w/ what he sent me. I found one I love at MSI which has a location not too far from where we are and I guess my granite person has an MSI supplier... but, I don't know whether the slab I like is at the close MSI or one of the other locations. I am keeping my fingers crossed on this!

MSI Stone

Wow! Now, that's some beautiful blue stone! I hope your supplier can get that stone in for you. What a wonderful match to your blue sink.

So, they're pouring your foundation....tomorrow? How exciting! Finally, your dream home is going to become a reality. I can't wait to see how things progress. You're going to have a beautiful french manor home! :)

They are supposed to be pouring the footer tomorrow. There was rain 2 days this week, so I don't know if they will or not. I'm not actually there- house is being built in PA, I'm in NY and doing this all from a distance, but I am sending DF (who is in PA) to meet w/ the builder and check everything out before they pour the foundation.

It is complicated b/c it is a wooded/ very sloped lot, so although we have 5 acres, it was a lot of site prep to try to figure out some place where the house could go and still leave us an area to fence in for dogs. And the homeowners assoc. guy is a little nutty about cutting down trees, so we're having issues w/ that too b/c I want to be able to see the pond across the street from the house and he wants us to leave up as many trees as possible.

This is what we started with:

And this is where we are now. Check out how LONG the driveway is to see the slope.

I'm excited to hopefully have some foundation pics tomorrow.