I did start from scratch, but certainly was bound by budget and square footage, and, of course, how it fit with the rest of the rooms. I wanted the hood vent on an outside wall and still thought the sink had to be under a window. ;-) We did, though, make the kitchen and dining space a top priority and compromised elsewhere. I have vague ideas of a 'dream kitchen' floating around in my head since I've been working in ours, but I have what was best for this house, I think.

With 8 kids still at home (most homeschooled, so home all day) my kitchen had to fit multiple cooks and bakers, and I wanted to make sure we'd have room to seat all of us, plus their spouses and kids some day. Also, I'm not at all into a kitchen that is exposed to the rest of the house, so we're talking about a separate dining room for use on a daily basis...Not really 'kitchen,' but related. We cook and bake a LOT, so it had to be a good working kitchen, of course.

If I could start again, or design my fantasy dream kitchen, it'd be a modified galley style with great, closet-style storage...Pantry and lots of fridge space on one end and dishes (serving and baking) on the other. I think I'd worry less about looks and more about great function and easy clean. It could still look great, but I think I'd stick to a 'less is more', clean-lined style (mostly stainless counters), but with some wood touches for warmth and a comfy place to sit as things bake. I haven't drawn it out, so I'm not sure it's even possible to have everything I want, where I want it...Like I said, it's just a vague idea floating in my mind. Maybe I don't want to work out the idea that far, because I want to love my current kitchen and not 2nd guess any more than I already do!

I've seen a couple of plans posted here that would be close. I wish I kept track of them better. I remember really liking Borngrace's plans, but can't remember the details and she's said they're putting off building it. Pabiabi's is the closest plan I can think of that's finished.

Here's our current plan:

Oh goodness, how fun to design whatever I want :oP

I did design pretty much my dream, and was not constricted in my dreams by budget, but only by space (we're in a townhouse and I couldn't pop out the walls on the third floor without someone noticing) :oP

I've worked in several kitchens, but one of my favorite was a huge old manor house. The kitchen was probably 25x25, and was dominated with a huge huge huge square island in the center of the room.

So, I'm going to go with that for my lovely kitchen. A big huge box....no uppers, except for between the entry to the dining room and the family room, where I would put a gorgeous antique style hutch cabinet....but a HUGE one!

The counters surrounding the balance of the kitchen, forming a U shape aside from where they allow an exit to the patio through the french door, are all 30" deep. White marble please, while the island is done with black marble. Cabinets are all painted white.

In the island there are two under counter fridges, and a dishwasher on the far end near the dining room door with a prep sink for clean up. The main sink is to the right of the patio doors, and the stove is on the left wall, with a 36" long counter prior to the stove (coming off that wall by the patio doors). The stove is a Lacanche or perhaps I'd shake it up and do a Molteni, but either way, it's abot 70" long. Maybe a VOlnay with two warming cabinets...hummmm

It includes a salamandar on the left of the stove wall.

The balance of the cabinets are all lowers, and the fridge is noticably lacking, since the daily use items are in the smaller under counter fridges, and the two main cold storage items (a 36" sub zero fridge and 36" sub zero freeze) are in the cold storage pantry. The butlers pantry holds the majority of service items.

Outside the patio is an outdoor kitchen and flower area as well as an herb garden.

Is that fantasy enough? :oP Actually in our Port Townsend house I'mgoing to immitate that somewhat. The kitchen isn't as square, and is challenging me with a short wall in the middle that can't be moved, but I can work with that :oP (We're looking to buy the Old Consolate Inn...it's online). I've wanted to do a victorian kitchen, aka Christopher Peacock, and can't wait!

Well, I've been thinking about it for several years, but didn't plan to act on it for several more. However a nasty waterleak moved our kitchen reno up to 2008.

We had a decent-sized kitchen before at 25'x 13.5' which included the breakfast nook. I had a barrier island in my way, the "bar" between the kitchen and living had no knee space so no one could really sit there and the barstools protuded into a major walkway in the house, and the cabinets were "builder custom" and functioned very poorly.

Some things I dreamed about:

No barrier island!
A bar that people could sit at and be comfortable without being in the way when people walked by.
Efficient well-thought out layout, with an excellent work triangle
Efficient cabinets with lots of pullouts appropriate for their location in the kitchen
We entertain a lot, so I really wanted a place that will be comfortable and inviting for guests.

Extras that were important, but I would be willing to sacrifice for those listed above:

Exotic granite countertops
A baking center with an appliance lift for my KA mixer
A prostyle rangetop
Changing out the pantry door for a pocket door to save additional sf
A large, single bowl sink
A recess in the wall for our refrigerator to make it appear counterdepth - I didn't want to sacrifice the fridge space to get an actual counterdepth fridge

Now, here is where I will encourage you to think outside of the box! I originally tried to make a lot of this happen within my existing footprint. Then my brilliant husband suggested moving a wall. We ended up losing 16 sf of kitchen and getting everything I listed above, plus an additional 4.5'x4.5' pantry (also my sweet dh's idea!).

The only thing I didn't get that I really wanted was an engineered beam so I could lose two columns between the kitchen and the living. In the end I decided it wasn't worth the cost, and we've incorporated our columns into our new 9x4.5 island.

We'll also be having the wood floors (which cover not only the kitchen, but the entire first floor of our home) handscraped and stained, as the floors were damaged by the water.

In the spring we will be putting in our out door kitchen, so my kitchen dreams will be complete.

We don't live in a huge fancy house or have an unlimited budget, but with creativity and a little elbow grease (we're DIYing except for the plumber), we've been able to do most everything we want. So start dreaming!