My first thought is that will not be a nice place to work at the sink the fridge is a long way to the sink the DW is not next to the sink and 42” is impossible to work in at all in this layout . That 42” is the minimal spacing between an island and a counter not hemming someone into that space with no room to move . What is the space behind where you want seating? You could not even have 2 people in this kitchen at the same time just a bad design all the way around

Thanks for the comment! Behind the seating is the dining room.

I didn't think the DW is that far from the sink? It's to the left of the stove so that seems close to the sink, no? Agreed that the fridge is a bit far from the sink but there doesn't seem to be any better place for it.

Regarding the 42" I was under the impression that this applied to U-shaped kitchens as well, in fact the first example on this site shows a very similar setup and states the 42" minimum applies to the "aisle" in the U (granted it's considered a "thin" U): http://www.houseplanshelper.com/u-shaped-kitchens.html

wsea, that is also an option, the L with island instead of a U. how wide is that "gap" (meaning the space from the face of DW to the short side of the island)?

It's narrower than recommended at 38" but we can walk past even if the door is down. Trade off for small houses/kitchens.

oh, is that an NKBA guideline? Which one? I was under the impression the minimum for a walkway would apply here, which is only 36" but you're saying even 38" is less than recommended?

I don't recall. I thought the recommendation was 42, But Maybe that was for something else.

You might consider using adult height vanity bases on your peninsula that are either 21" or 18" deep which would give you more floor space in the kitchen. With the 18" deep bases your peninsula top would still be 31" deep and the 48" would make it feel a lot roomier. If you need the storage then consider the 21" deep and the 45" floor space.

that's a good idea too CbD, the only thing is we actually were planning to put the DW in the peninsula (directly across from where it is in the drawing i posted), because the side along the wall would be kind of crowded with the fridge, stove and DW all basically in a row. but if we do that then i don't think the shallow cabinets for the peninsula would work because AFAIK there are no DWs that are that shallow.

Not sure how much room you have to play with, but I would try to move the fridge to the 34" pantry place on the right of the floor plan, below the doorway (I know you would need to capture a couple more inches and increase the depth of the area to do this). Then move the stove to the left where the sink currently is. Finally, sink and dishwasher can be on the back wall where the stove and fridge are currently located. This will open up more space for the sink and dishwasher to be close to one another (I would also place the dishwasher to the right of the sink if your right handed). I live in an apartment and have my French door fridge facing a peninsula as described above and it's not a problem to pass.

Another idea for you to ponder - what if you did something like this with the peninsula/island coming off the opposite wall where that 34" inset is? Then you could have an l-shape kitchen with DW next to the sink. The peninsula would have 18"-21" cabinets with an overhang. Under-counter MW could go in those cabinets too. I would also do a corner base cabinet to the right of the sink - I hate dead corners :)

Another idea for the peninsula might be to do 24" deep cabinets so that you can move the DW there and just have an open end like this that seats 2. You could also widen your aisle space this way.

Do you need the opening between the fridge and pantry? Not sure but I thought there was a walkway at the bottom if the layout as well. If you could close that off you could add a lot of useable space there as well and seperate the apppliance a bit more.

vbilenker, unfortunately that measurement in the picture is off, rather than 34" the pantry is really more like 30", and cannot be made deeper as behind it is the living room. so i think it would too tight a fit for the fridge there (which is in fact where we had hoped to put it at first). also, not shown in the pic is the fact that the wall where the sink is has a big window there -- it would be quite unusual to put a stove in front of a window, right?

wsea, yeah that opening between fridge & pantry is actually a hallway, so closing it off would create a dead-end hallway on the other side and force a bit of a circuitous route from the kitchen to the stuff in that hallway.

Madden, Slick & Bontempo, Inc, I'm not sure if I understand your first suggestion, if the peninsula comes off the inset where the pantry is now, we lose the pantry, is that the idea? (we could have it pull out "sideways" into the hall, I guess.) Your second idea is interesting. This would create a LOT more aisle space (*too* much maybe? it would go up to 54" which I've read might actually be more than recommended between counters?)

Some good ideas here (thanks very much everyone!). Ultimately I think we're going to change it to the L with island, breaking up the closed-in-ness of the U and also allowing the DW to be directly to the left of the sink. With 3' openings on either end, the island will end up being 4'6" long, which is small but hopefully not "we're irrationally desperate to have an island" small.

This is very similar to my recently renovated kitchen (even to backing up on the dining room), and I can say several things:

1) although the bay is cozy for working, you can do it -- even our family of three, coming and going to get dinner on the table, all get by each other just fine. I think ours is about 48" across the short end (judging by the upper cabinets in the photo below), and we even used angled lazy Susans in the corners, which don't make things feel tighter but give a bit more prep space (my motivation was just to avoid the hinged doors, which I think are feeble), and a step stool always floating around someplace.

Anyway, on this one, you can try using a few large shipping boxes to map out the room on the floor (or somewhere) and see how it feels to you, which is all that matters.

2) The huge peninsula counter (actually also has cabinets above in our case) also worried me, but is now one of our favorite aspects -- you can have some amount of inevitable clutter and still "push it back" to get free prep space, and there is just a lot of room for several things going on, such as produce ripening, homework in progress, and dinner dishes waiting to be filled...

Ours might be a bit wider than yours, as we had 24" of cabinets + maybe 6-9 inches of preexisting wall, plus the 10" overhang. If you're worried about the interior size of your kitchen, you could probably get a couple more inches by reducing your overhang (the 10 feels plenty to everybody who has used it) and shifting the cabinets outward that much. You might even be able to get a nicer cabinet to the left of the sink than the current tiny one (tray base?)...

3) In a kitchen this size, there are an astounding number of design constraints. Notice that my dishwasher also ended up around the corner from the sink. There's just no other reasonable way to make it work. There are some *unreasonable* ones, including what the builder of my house did:

This is the same sink wall, and what you can just barely make out is that the 26 (?) inch sink actually extended past the end of the cabinet on the left, into the blind space! super-convenient! heh.

4) I'm not worried by the layout of the other elements. Even having the fridge at the far end of the kitchen only puts it something like 8 feet from the sink, with plenty of counter landing spots nearby. Ours is actually on the opposite wall, where you have a doorway/hall (because our doorway is where your fridge is) and never once in 12 years have I thought about the distance from it to anything else. Not once.

Anyway, I think you've done well with the space available and will probably be happy with the result, with or without a couple of inches of tweak. Nobody will think twice about the relative size of your counter and walk space, that's for sure. Enjoy!

I don't know your style, but I have actually used this freestanding island from Ikea. It is about 50" wide x 32" deep x 36" high. It worked really well, seats two and has open stainless shelves on on one side. I like the look of a freestanding island, especially when it is on the smaller side.

acm, thanks so much for sharing your experiences and your pics, both very helpful and relevant.

M, S & B Inc., the movable island is also an option - maybe not at the very top of the list, but something we'll consider. Thanks!