I forgot to mention that we'll be using white shaker fronts, Silestone Coffee Brown countertops, and Bedrosians Heathland Nero (dark walnut wood-look) floor tile, which will run all the way through the connecting living room. I'd like the range hood to look similar to this, but with shaker panels:

Have you posted here before? The kitchen seems familiar to me.

Do you anticipate staying in the home forever? If not, I'd try to find a way to include seating at the bar.

At a glance, I would definitely flip the dishwasher to the other side of the sink.

eam44, thank you for the suggestion. I just don't know how wood would hold up with my kids. The living room has a sliding door to the back yard, and water, mud, and sand come in on a regular basis. The current flooring is carpet in the living room and laminate in the kitchen, and both are destroyed. :(

I take it you plan to stand when using the "business zone". Any thought to swapping it and the pantry? Then it would be totally separate, the pantry would be in the kitchen proper and you'd have the ability the either plan a stool/chair or easily pull one up if you no longer feel like standing. You may be losing a tiny bit of pantry space, but could probably make due with regular cabinets on the angled wall and just have some dead triangles.

Your lighting plan needs to include direct lighting on all work surfaces. A light behind you isn't adequate. You create a shadow.

Gennifer B, lol. Three years ago, when we first moved into this house, we started planning the kitchen renovation. Then a pregnancy, foster babies, and some kids with medical needs (when it rains, it pours!) put everything on hold. I believe I posted here, but I can't find that post, and I've had to start over with some things since my frazzled brain doesn't remember some of the details.

As for bar seating, would it be possible to replace the 15" deep cabinets on the far side of the island with bar seatin? I measure the walkway on that side of the island at 36 1/2" with the countertop overhang. Is that wide enough for seating? The other option is at the end of the island, but it is only 41" wide countertop.

Dishwasher: if I move the dishwasher to the right side of the sink, it would open directly opposite the oven. It sounds like you are saying DW on the right is a much better idea; please help me understand pros and cons of the dishwasher placement.

Thank you for your feedback.

Kathryn P., oh man. I'm going to have to think about this. It would make the cabinet arrangement much easier, but I wouldn't be able to have my laptop with me in the kitchen, where I use it most while I am cooking. With the alcove arrangement, I can put away my laptop and use the alcove as a drink station while entertaining. I will think about this more. Thank you for your suggestion.

dan1888, which work surface are you noticing needs better lighting?

Yeah, your double islands are pretty unique and memorable. That's right around the time I was working on the kitchen in my last house; I certainly didn't anticipate a move and another renovation, but here I am. ;)

You could replace the 15" cabinets with an overhang, but I wondered if it might be better to make them 24" (plus overhang) and eliminate the perimeter cabinets on that back wall, instead. You could also just switch those cabinets to 15" deep pantries... I'm not sure that the countertop there will be useful. That would give you a bit more room for seating.

The dishwasher opening into the oven isn't ideal, but at least it pulls the cleanup area out of your prep area. Someone can be loading/unloading the DW without having to walk through your work aisle.

I agree with Kathryn's suggestion to flip the pantries/work area.

I'd also look for another spot for the ice maker. If your sink stayed where it was (maybe icemaker to the left of it?) and your dishwasher was to the right, you could store your dishes in drawers in the base cabinet on the end, closest to your table. It would make it easy to load/unload/set/clear the table.

Gennifer B, I'm going to think about deepening the island, adding bar stool space, and switching the "back wall" counter space to 15" deep wall cabinets. What about the 135-deg wall? Would that be wall cabinets also? I could put a wall oven and built-in microwave there, but that's a lot of wall cabinets, and would the microwave and oven be too far from the work triangle?

The problem I can't get past with the dishwasher is about how our family cleans up. I'd have one person clearing the table (using the secondary walkway to drop dishes near the sink, out of the work triangle), another loading the DW, another washing at the sink, another putting food in the fridge, another sweeping up. I looked more carefully at the drawings, and DW on the right would slightly overlap the fridge and block off others doing cleanup. I'll think about this more, but I just don't think it works.

Icemaker: well, we know it has to be in the island for water and drain. I had originally planned to store dishes on the far side of the island (we empty DW onto the counter to dry, then put away from the other side). But if those cabinets go away because of bar seating, I don't know. I'd like for ice to be near where everyone uses it, near the eating area (I have kids that will run in from that side of the house and just want cups of ice to chew on). Gosh, this galley work triangle area gets cluttered fast, doesn't it?

Thank you for your continued input.

So here's what it would look like if I make only one change: removing the shallow island cabinets to create a 10' long bar seating area. Distance from countertop of bar to countertop of cabinets behind (on the non-work triangle side) is 38". The more I think about it, even though we don't need bar space while our kids are little, that will be prime real estate when my kids are teenagers and want to hang out and talk with me while I work in the kitchen (oh, my heart!). See the pics below.

Next, I will play around with 1) switching the business/work area and the pantry and 2) shallow cabinets on the "back wall." Stay tuned!

(Nothing changes in this picture's view):

I played around with making the 135-degree wall into full wall cabinets. I don't think I can bring myself to eliminate the counter space on the "back" wall, though (by converting it to shallow full height cabinets). What do you think about moving the oven and microwave to the 135-degree wall? I can cut off the little 9" cabinet next to the doorway for a longer run on the 135-degree wall. which fits a 24" wide pantry cabinet to the right of the wall oven:

The left side of the kitchen (the work triangle) would be less cluttered with the oven and microwave moved (but would the microwave be too far away?):

Or, I could keep the old footprint on that 135-degree wall. However, then the "pantry" cabinet to the right of the wall oven is only a 12" wide pullout, and I think it looks weird and choppy with the 9" cabinet to the left of the wall oven:

What do you think?

At the suggestion of Kathryn and Gennifer, here's a shot at a workstation in the eating area. Counter height with optional bar stool since I am usually drive-by checking email.

Here's the inspiration:

What if you put the fridge over on the angled wall, instead of the oven? That way, when you're doing the cleanup, the "putting food away" person isn't in the way of the "loading dishwasher" person? And put the oven where the fridge is currently?

Have you considered splitting the clean-up and the prep zones, especially since you now have two sinks? (If you addressed the issue above, I missed it.) With a large family you'll eventually need more than one prep space with a water source, so if you put the clean-up zone one the top wall, you'd have two potential prep spaces for helpers, with an extra space on the island, in addition to the primary prep space, which would work well with the proposed locations of the fridge and range.

DW and dish storage would be convenient to the dining area, and helpers could load and unload the DW, and gather dishes to set the table, without interfering with primary prep and cooking. Utensils and vessels used in primary prep could be pushed across the counter for a helper to load into the DW.

eta--I might also decrease the width of the prep/cooking aisle, and increase the width of the clean-up aisle, to encourage through traffic to avoid the primary prep area.

Mama Goose, thank you for your suggestions. It would be hard to put a sink on the "top" wall; we would have to bust concrete and trench a drain to that wall. :( I might talk to the contractor about that. Would it be weird to have the main sink facing a wall with no window? What should I do about the bar seating?

My current question is about the appliance puzzle: fridge, range (or rangetop and wall oven), and microwave. Here are the options I've thought of:

1) 36" pro rangetop as shown, with wall oven and microwave on the 135-degree angled wall. I don't like that oven/microwave cut into my pantry, and that they would have no landing. I also don't like the expense of a built-in microwave (or worse, a micro/oven combo--one breaking affects the other).

2) 36" pro rangetop as shown, with wall oven under counter next to the fridge and microwave in upper cabinet above oven. I would get to keep my full pantry, and I like that both the microwave and oven would have a landing between, but somehow the work triangle feels more cluttered and stuffed.

3) 36" pro range (or 36" cooktop with wall oven below) in location shown, with microwave in upper cabinet next to fridge.

To complicate the puzzle, I want to consider replacing our 36" wide counter-depth fridge with a built-in pair of Frigidaire full fridge and full freezer columns, which would be 60"-66" wide total instead of 36" wide. To keep them where the fridge is drawn currently would eat up a lot of prep space next to the range/rangetop, would mean the oven and microwave have to move (they couldn't be right next to the fridge/freezer columns, I think), and would put the fridge/freezer right behind the primary island prep space. We have a big and growing family, so the larger fridge space is attractive, but I don't know about a freezer taking up so much real estate. Should I

1) separate the fridge/freezer columns and put the freezer elsewhere in the kitchen?

2) put the fridge column in the kitchen and the freezer in the garage (we will have a separate ice maker in the kitchen),? Or

3) scrap the idea of fridge/freezer columns and stick with the standard 36" fridge/freezer?