You need a better design first of all. Any design that has two itty bitty blind corners is just gawdawful. It would be better to void the corners than to do that.

A part time house probably doesn’t need the investment of medium grade cabinets. For it, something like Homecrest, Aristokraft, or Quality, or Merillat Basics would suffice. But with a better design. That’s just bad.

Will only you be using this house or will you be renting it? That will make a lot of decisions for you.

@sophie wheeler - Thanks for the input. We had originally mocked the design up with Easy Reach Cabinets, however, that killed the space next to the stove and to the right of the sink, allowing for only a 9" cabinet, or spacers. We didn't want to have a bunch of 9" cabinets. We have considered killing the corner space, and doing a 15" base cabinet, but we have mocked up that design. We live 3 hours from the property, and many of the kitchen places here are on "beach time" so they are open half days on weekends or not at all. I am planning to pop in a few local places tomorrow (Monday) and talk to a local Kitchen designer....which is why I am asking for brand recs, so I can so what is actually available locally.

@anglophillia - Yes, I forgot to mention that we are planning to rent occasionally in my original post, so we are looking for cabinets that both look good, but are durable, and can handle a lot of cleaning/wipe downs. We are planning on renting it for about 1/2 the summer in the near future, on weeks we aren't using it. Hopefully in a year or two we will be using it more, and renting it less or none. But in the near term we are planning to rent, as it should garner $3,500-4,500 week during high season.

Our beach house in the Keys had Martha Stewart cabinets from Home Depot. They held up well and as I remember the price was low.

You definitely need a new design - those corners are horrible. Please do not do Wolf - their doors tend to warp easily. Since it is a rental and if you go through HD you may want to consider American Woodmark. Great little company - great price. But get the layout sorted out first... any particular reason for a peninsula instead of an island? Maybe post a picture of the space and we can make better suggestions!

Good luck!

@debbi - we had American Woodmark in another house we did, we had a lot of problems with the EZ reach cabinet hinges needing to be re-done. American Woodmark did end up coming out to fix them.

The first floor is approx 18/20 ft x 28 feet. There is not enough room to put an island, without cutting into the dining room.

I should have a scale version I can attach later today. We are removing the wall between the family room and DR/kitchen.

Merillat is the same company as Kraftmaid. Their less expensive Merillat Classic line uses the most popular door styles and colors, with fewer options. That allows them to be a more budget offering.

Many companies do this tiered option pricing. Kemper has Kemper Echo, and Medalion has Silverline, etc. Those second lines would be where I would start my investigating in order to still get the look that I wanted.

Here is the scaled layout.

Doing an island pushes into the dining room too much. We are removing the wall that separates the LR & Kitchen.

You were doing a peninsula already - just remove that and put in a nice 4-5 ft island. This would also allow you to slide the stove over making it function a little better - sink to stove is one of the most important pieces of countertop....

This island wouldn't come father down than the ref..

In fact I would make the island even a bit longer. You only need 48" of aisle space, not 64" with an island. So you can move the island a bit closer pull the end down to the end of the fridge, and add more space on the bottom. That gives you only one corner and a lot more storage.

What kind of table are you planning? That Kitchen/Dining Room space needs to fit both the Kitchen and the DR table (with chairs).

Would you consider a partial banquette for table seating? (Bench on one side)

@debbi & @cpartist - I would prefer an island, but the island will push further into the dining room than will allow for a table clearance, only leaving us with around 81" total, for the table width and clearance.

I had also looked at spinning the island perpindicular to the way you had it, but that still won't give us clearance from what I can tell, and then the island chairs would then be pushing into the dining walk space. If we keep the peninsula around 7 feet long on the seating side, this will give us 40" + on the long sides for clearance.

We could do a peninsula perpendicular to the way you had it w/o seating, but I don't think my wife will go for that one.

At one point I considered shifting the dining room to the area closer to the stairs, but that would just be an awkward flow.

I went ahead and laid out the kitchen for you with all the walls accounted for.... I honestly don't know how anyone does a floor plan without all "obstructions" in place. The plan designed for you goes too far down into the room with that pantry at the end. Since there is a slider to the outside you will have to leave room to get out the door. In this plan I used a 78 x 36 table set at 41" from the slider - I also shortened the peninsula by 6" ( this would leave about 48" from the table to the end of the peninsula ) That is the maximum I would do for it. Now seeing all the space and island would not work unless you truly opened it all up and even then it would look odd.

Hope these help:

Good luck!!

@debbi - Thanks so much for your input.

We are taking out the load bearing wall in the middle, and sliding the table more to the middle of the house, so we should have space for the pantry. Since this is a beach house, we are planning on locking the pantry and using it for non-perishables that we will use.

My wife is insistent upon a larger table, because it is a 6 bed beach house. Shes all about the big table, and insists people will use it ....I keep telling her people will go out to eat.

Thanks again for the 3D visual, that is amazing :)

If that is the case then I would do a nice modern farm table 84 " x 36" and center it between the 2 sliders - that would still allow space for a sectional and comfy chairs in the living room and give you the ability to go all the way down the kitchen and do an island with some seats or just keep the peninsula and some seats... I work with a house flipper in Long Island vacation spots and the outdoor spaces are almost more important than the inside! A great outdoor kitchen and patio / deck area... the indoor kitchen will be for breakfast and maybe lunch of the catch of the day...

Good luck!

Are you creating this layouts or are they coming from the cabinet maker? We are on the west coast, but we use procraft, showplace, and they are both closer to you. We also love Grand j&k. It definitely helps to have 3d rendering, comprehensive specs, and we even use Virtual Reality. There's nothing that substitutes a good rendering. Here's what we do below, which I believe is pretty typical for the industry. Make them give you something a little more comprehensive, then you can really imagine what will fit in the space.

@dreammaker - We buy and sell/flip houses in Baltimore and use Grand J&K, and also Wolf. We have been using Grand J&K more, but I have been unable to find a dealer in Delaware....the Grand J&K site seems to only show regional distributors. You think J&K is a quality cabinet, you would put in your own home or a rental home?

Yes, and it's in half my showroom. The selection could be better, and some of the designs aren't as classic as I'd prefer, but overall they are an affordable quality cabinet. There is a brand new cabinet maker in our neck of the woods. Because they are local I have no idea where they ship too, but they are very affordable and have more styles. Called unikraft, but no idea if they ship. We have a dealer in kent washington for GJK, so we usually get 2 day delivery. Isn't procraft closer to your neck of the woods? And I think showplace is in South Dakota?? I know procraft is ok, but we pay a lot to ship out here.

@dreammaker - We have 2 local J&K dealers. And it is 3-5 day turnaround from purchase to delivery here in Baltimore. I believe they get them from a distributor in NJ.

Looks great!!!

Check with "Just Cabinets" in Dover, or Atlantic Millwork and Cabinets in Sussex County for Medallion's Silverline line.