First on the aisleways. They do look a tad bit large to me, and I do think that you could get away with a narrower ailseway between the island and refrigerator and between the island and the cooking area. Tape out 40" and see how that works for you. I like the idea of a bigger island if you've got the room. Note though, that where your island seating is I might not reduce that aisle way. Will those stools there be backless where you can push them under the overhang, or will they have backs? Imagine people sitting in them and other people needing to walk by.

On the layout: Do you have kids? Do you have kids that you want to be able to get into the refrigerator without getting too much into the work triangle? The reason I ask is that I might put the refrigerator a little more center on that wall, and thus closer to the range and closer to the prep sink. That would mean reducing by half the base cabinet between the refrigerator and what looks like your DW. ?? But if you have teenagers that you want them to have access without getting in the way, then I see the reason for the placement there.

Are you planning a french door refrigerator, or a full door? I just find french door refrigerators awkward if they are not more centered to the room. If it will be a full door, make sure it gets hinged where it opens toward the range.

What is next to your prep sink?

Thanks, Shezzy! I just finished meeting with the cabinet guy, and he agrees with you that the fridge should be more centered (I'm getting a side-by-side). Adding the broom closet will accomplish moving the fridge over, so that all works.

As for what's next to the prep sink, there is a tray cabinet on each end of the island. I like having a little countertop beyond the prep sink, so that seems to work well.

The cabinet guy also was agreeable to making the pantry cabinets all the same depth. However, I think I'm going to go with 20" deep (aaah, the joys of custom-made cabinets!) to accommodate a few large platters I have that I'd like to store in the bottom cabinets.

Speaking of that pantry wall, I downloaded a pic from a post here about a week ago that was almost exactly what I want for that wall of cabinets. I did a little drawing to alter it slightly, but this is what I am thinking....

I wish I could remember whose this was (and, whoever it is, I hope you don't mind that I am copying your idea!)...

And here is my slight revision....

Thoughts?? :)

In a kitchen of your size with both a prep sink and separate cleanup sink it is nice to break up the work flow into zones that do not cross over too much. The way you have it now your cook zone (ref to prep sink to range) intersects with your cleanup zone (sink/DW/cabs).

Can you move your sink window or are you open to other layouts where your cleanup sink is not in front of the window? Easiest fix would be to swap cleanup and prep sinks--though my preference would be to see the cleanup sink on the refrigerator wall, refrigerator and broom closet where the range is, and range where cleanup sink is in your drawing. One of the most important decisions to make it placement of appliances. Think of how you cook, if others will be in the kitchen at the same time and how these activities will overlap.

Since ranges typically stick out a few inches beyond the cabinets for the oven door, I'd be leary of going less than 42" aisles--also NKBA recommends 48" aisles where you have seating. Imagine someone seated at the island and another person wanting to access the pantry cabinet. ANother option would be to do angled seating so that it curves around the outside edge of your island if it is more open in that direction.

Your pantry wall sounds very nice.

Are you planning a table in that empty area? If so, I'm not sure if you have enough space for chairs all around. I think you need a minimum of 24" to pull out the chairs and then you need aisles to walk around. I can't tell what the dimensions are of that area or if you are planning on using it for eating or family room.

Your room dimensions are similar to mine except mine is only 13 1/2' wide. Do you enter the room from the doorway to the left of the proposed pantry area? Not sure if you would want the frig to be the first thing you see. I am struggling with my layout as well.

Also, I think the largest aisle should be between the back of the island and the pantry. People will be walking back and forth there when people are sitting and you don't want it to be tight. Looks like you island is 36" deep?? I would take 6 inches or so from the island/range aisle and put it in the island/pantry aisle.

HTH!!!

That 20 inch deep pantry wall will be wonderful.

I actually like your work flow design. Going clockwise from refrigerator, to prep island and prep sink, to cooking area, over to clean up sink and dishwasher. Wiht much respect, I really do not see the intersect of the cooking zone with the clean up zone. I guess only you will know what your work flow would be.

If DH and I lived in that design, I could see myself going from refrigerator to prep island and prep sink to stove, and then handing things to DH at the cleanup sink and DW. Prep and cooking my station, cleanup his station. The ONLY intersect I see is if DH had the DW open and I still had to get to the refrigerator; but I think that's live-able without moving the sink window. YMMV.

Still, if I was to move anything, I would maybe suggest swapping the range with the DW, moving the prep sink to the middle of the prep island - but I actually like your present design better.

valinsv -- unfortunately, there is no alternative for moving the window, and my husband would never agree to moving the sink, so I will have to work around that.

malhgold -- that is a really good question. Yes, the empty area is supposed to accommodate a table and chairs. I'm having a farm-style table made, so I have some flexibility on the width. I was thinking of a long and narrow 30x72.

Anyway, now that I put a table into the design (realizing that the table I drew is not exactly to scale), it looks crowded. Do I need to shorten the island?? If I shorten it, will it be weird to have it not align with the end of the counter next to the stove?

Here's the design with a table and chairs added, along with some chairs for the island.

I think if you move the island 5 inches closer to the stove, the layout will be perfect. 42 inches should be enough (how much to you bake or use the oven? How ofter will someone have to walk behind you while you open the oven?) If your oven door extends out 21 inches, that will give you another 21 inches of clearance to stand in front of the open oven door.

Having he extra 5 inches in the walkway accessing the fridge will be better... you have more room to walk from the table to the fridge for a drink. Plus, you have seating there... 47 inches works well for that.

I forgot to say, your table flow will work better if you move the island closer to the fridge wall by about 5 inches too. That way you don't have to shrink the island. How big is it by the way? I think you fridge is in a good spot. If you move it closer to the dishwasher, then won't you have clearance issues with standing at the fridge with the door open and people walking by. Plus where the fridge where it is, it is a straight shot to the dining table and a quick step to your prep area (island).

So, IMHO, moving the island 5 inches up and 5 inches over, will greatly improve flow. Everything else looks great!

OK, how's this? I moved the island over 5 inches toward the fridge and 5 inches up toward the stove. I also took the 6 inches off the pantry bottoms, since they will now be 18" like the tops. When I add up all these measurements (24" base cabs on top wall, 42" aisle between stove and island, 47" between island and pantry, 18" pantry depth), I get 131", which leaves me with 46" for my island width. That would be 24" base cabs facing the stove, 8"base cabs under the overhang (these would be "hidden" by using beadboard fronts instead of regular doors), and a 14" overhang. Oh, the island is 8' long. Does this sound reasonable?

Also, the table is not really exactly to scale in this pic. Some measurements to help picture the scale a bit better . . . the window opening in the dining area is 87" wide, the wall to the far left is just over 10' from the corner to the door opening, and the chest along that wall is 9' long.

I tried to make the table a little shorter and narrower, but the drawing program I'm using is pretty limited.

In the bottom right hand corner of your drawing (far end of the pantry), is that a window or an entry doorway?

I like the new drawing.

That's a doorway into our sunroom. At the other end of the pantry is a doorway into our livingroom, and on the left wall is a doorway into our foyer. The sunroom doorway is the only one with an actual door (a pocket door). The others are just openings. The only windows are along the top wall.

I think that is a big improvement. Would you wnt to consider switching the fridge and the range? I'm not too keen on having to go around the end of th island to get to the fridge and back for prep work and cooking. It also brings everyone through the kitchen and back when they want something to drink or a snack and you're trying to cook. A fridge right across from the island seating and prep sink would seem to flow well -- for prepping and for serving kids a snack. The hot cooking zone would be away from the guest or kids and the range and hood might be a nice focal point on that wall while the sink and window give you the focal point on the other wall. Just one more thing to think about. : )

Hi holligator~
Looks like your design is evolving in the right direction! I love the look you're going for with the cherry and soapstone combination and the pantry wall will be gorgeous.
Our granite went in last week and I'm very happpy with the aisle widths. We are a two cook family with an empty nest but our house is the go to destination for family gatherings with lots of kitchen participation. We have a 41"island w/cooktop in the middle. A 37" aisle seperates the cleanup sink wall from one end of the island. The dishdrawer handles reduce the aisle width to a bit less than 36" but this is still plenty of room for two people to pass each other. When the dishdrawer is open, it'll be easy to just push it in a bit, if someone has to get by on that end. The other aisle, is 41" wide and 40" would have worked fine too. I love being able to pivot between counters. The double ovens are across from the long side of the island and with the doors open traffic will have to wait, but that won't be a big deal, and there is great landing space on the island. On the bar side of the island there is a 48" aisle. So that's whats working for me. I think having a narrower aisle between the island and ref will make the landing space for the side-by-side easier to reach. Good luck with everything!

Here's my rationale for the placement of the range and fridge--tell me if I'm off base. The main consideration was that whatever I have between the two windows will be visible from the living room. I plan to have an attractive vent, with some sort of pleasing looking backsplash, and I thought that would be more appealing to look at than the big ol' SS fridge. Other considerations included having the long side of the prep island more accessible to the stove and having the fridge more accessible to the sunroom and pool/patio area beyond. I figure that anyone in the dining area could just as easily get to the fridge by going on the other side of the island if I'm cooking.

Imo, keep the range where it is. I think your rationale is correct for how you imagine you will be living. I like what you've done with moving the island a little. Great job.

YAY!! I feel so very much better having the "OK" from folks who have been through this. Did all of you second guess yourself as much as I am??

Now, if you wonderful people could please help me solve my flooring dilemma, I'll be all set! :)

Honey, it took me about 41 tries and ten months to figure everything out. I didn't call it second guessing, though. I called it "discovery."

Unless you've done this before, you've never done this before! Embrace the learning curve, or at least hang on tight. You can do this.

I think it looks great with the updates. The fridge is in good spot now... it doesn't block the entry to the sunroom as much. I have my own fridge problems, still working on my layout too. What did you use for you design "software". I went back to paper and pencil and it even gives me a headache to look at it.
This is my thread ..

Here is a link that might be useful: My fridge problem

I understand your thinking, but it looked to me like the side opposite the range has upper and lower cabinets -- not open to another room. Did I not read that right?

Also, if you have a pool and a lot of outdoor activity in the back, will you have drippers come across the kitchen to get something out of the fridge? Do you have another way for the swimmers to get a drink or a snack? My fridge is in a similar location, but offset from the end of the island. We left it there with the remodel, but we put fridge drawers in the breakfast room and greatly freed up the traffic across the room to the fridge. I kow the kids could walk onthe other side, but they always seem to go where the people already are. LOL Anyway, a beverage fridge on that opposite side or even in your sunroom might be nice -- if you have the room for it.

None of these ideas are bad or wrong -- this is just your chance to get the one that you like best, so you want to consider all the options and uses.

Thanks for the encouragement--you guys are the best!

nepool: "What did you use for you design "software"."

Haha...well, my "design software" is not much fancier than your pencil and paper. I mostly used Microsoft Word. I started with a screen shot of the drawing from my KD (the one who wanted to charge me $38,000+ for my cabinets) and I pasted it as a pic in a Word document. Then, I used the "drawing tools" in Word to add the table, etc. When I wanted to move something around, I first got a screen shot of just that section of the drawing, covered the old section with a blank white box using Word, and then pasted the pic that I had cut out back into the larger pic in a new space. Moved stuff around until I liked it, took another screen shot of the whole thing, uploaded it to Photobucket, and voila!

lascatx, the doorway on the bottom wall just below the table opens into the livingroom. If you are sitting on the sofa in the livingroom, you would see the island and, beyond that, either (a) a SS vent with decorative backsplash below or (b) a SS fridge. I just find the range and hood a more attractive view. We don't have a place for a fridge in the sunroom, so I think keeping drippers confined to the short path between the sunroom door and the fridge on that same wall makes sense. I struggled with this particular decision for a long time, and the pros and cons weighed pretty strongly in favor of having the range on that top wall. There were good reasons to have it the opposite way, too, but some reasons were more important to me than others.

Just a word of caution on your table size. I personally think 30" wide is too small. My current kitchen table is 35" wide and I think that's too small with placemats, drinks, condiments, salad, etc. on the table. I jsut measured my placemats and they are 14" wide. So if my table was only 30", the placemat from the person sitting across from me would practically be on top of mine. Just something to think about.

What's that freestanding cabinet piece behind the table?

Thanks for the cautionary note--I'll research the table size a bit more. I may not even order it until the cabs are in, just to be safe. A mock-up may even be in order.

The piece to the left of the table is this wonderful, antique pine nine-drawer chest that I got from my mom. It's nine feet long and can store every bit of table linen I could ever think about getting, along with a whole lot more. The other piece, in the bottom left corner, is an equally cool antique pine sideboard. These two pieces will add a lot of character to the kitchen. They will also help all the new stuff blend in with the rest of the house, which is a 1942 ranch house that looks more like a hunting lodge inside with lots of pecky cypress paneling.