NKBA guidlelines: No major walkway thru a kitchen. 12 inches on one side and 15 inches on other side of cooking surface. Cooking surface not to be placed under or next to operable window. Basic thing you need to do is move door to side yard to one or other end of that 10 foot wall. Gain yourself two walls to wrap an L or U Kitchen and have a dedicated foot traffic lane out to yard. Other thing to do: read NKBA guidelines.

Thank you herbflavor. I will consider your points and reassess.

I'm assuming that you want a wall oven/cook top set-up because it's more age-in-place user friendly but your kitchen isn't really large enough to accommodate separate appliances and such a large sink, not without shortchanging storage and counter space, which will make it much harder for you to accommodate multiple people in the kitchen. It's a modestly sized kitchen; sorry to say but something is going to have to give.

Will you use the side door to carry groceries in to the kitchen? Is there another door that you can use instead? You'd have more room to accommodate your appliance wish list if you eliminated the side door. Yes, that would mean a kitchen with corners. But you'd have room for it all plus you'd even have room for a 36" cook top.

If the door must stay - which is understandable - I'll play with the plan and see if I can come up with.

lisa_a thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback and intriguing alternative concept! To answer your questions, yes, we wanted to separate the cooktop and oven for ease of use by multiple cooks. Also, the side door is on the other side of the house from the driveway (who thought that was a good idea?) so it most likely will not get much use. Groceries and people will come in via the front door or one other exterior door. I'm going to mock up your idea in elevation so I can get a better feel how it might live. One question: are you showing a dead corner to the right of the cooktop?

You're welcome!

It is curious that they'd have a side door on the opposite side of the house from the driveway. They must have had a reason why at some point but since it's not how you'd carry groceries in, it's worth exploring what you'd gain if you closed the door up.

One question: are you showing a dead corner to the right of the cooktop?

That's correct. I opted to void the corner in favor of wider drawer bases on either side of the corner. You need to include 3" spacers in the corner so that drawers will clear drawer faces and handles on the adjacent run so the corner plus 3" spacers requires 27" of wall space.

Here's how it would look from above:

This is my kitchen, sink cab on right side, drawer bases center and left in the image.

And how it looks now.

The problem I see with a U shaped kitchen is you don't get any more usable cabinet space but you lose out on counter space. I also have a similar sized kitchen but my windows aren't as wide as yours. I tried lots of different potential layouts but I knew the U wouldn't work as that was the useless original design. What I did was one straight wall with countertop, stove, countertop and then opening to stair landing and back door, so about 8 feet of space. The opposite wall is fridge, DW, sink, counter into corner and then 12 inch deep cabinet and tall pantry cabinet. I took a tape measure and painters tape and laid out the design to see just how far I could go on each wall and still maintain 36 inch opening from countertop to corner of pantry. To make this work, we cut down an easy open corner cabinet so it was 36 one way and only 24 inches on the sink wall.

On the stove side, we pulled the cabinets out from the wall about 6 inches for extra deep countertop and that works quite well. I would have done the other side also but did not have the countertop material available. The one issue is the uppers are against the wall so I lose some access to the upper cabinet shelves. If I was doing it from scratch, I would try for 15 inch deep uppers

The counters are 60 inches apart so enough room that both oven door and dw could be opened at the same time and still have a foot between them but in practice, that would not happen. It is plenty of width for two people (as long as one of them is not my husband who doesnt share well!) My DH likes to claim both sides of the stove and also the opposite side on top of the DW, so as long as I don't want access to either the fridge or the stove, I can work too.

I chose not to take out the existing wall between kitchen and dining room as I wanted to maintain the traditional feel of the house and that wall had existing ductwork and electric. Instead, we went from a 30 inch wide door at the corner to a 48 inch wide archway in the middle of the space. As the house has several other archways, it looks right and still feels quite open and it didnt screw up my crown molding plans for the dining room. It just seemed a bit silly to me to remove a wall then put an end panel on the fridge. Several people who thought I should have opened the space have since decided that the wide opening version works well.

lisa_a, I spent a couple hours exploring your U-concept (very appealing and a most useful exercise) but, in the end came to realize we would regret eliminating the side-yard door, if for no other reason than it’s where we would cook out and possibly eat in nice weather (North Carolina). BTW, part of our challenge with redesigning is that we haven’t actually lived in the house yet so it’s all imagining as best we can. Having said that, your blue painter’s tape storage planning method is brilliant, and will allow me to estimate our storage needs remotely – thank you! I do think that the galley with extra deep counters/drawers plus 15” deep uppers will go a long way in providing needed storage. With regard to the XL sink, I think it only works if utilized with sliding cutting boards, etc. so that one is working over the sink instead of on a countertop, which is how we plan to use it. Oh, and your kitchen looks charming – I especially love the abutting corner windows.

Lyndee Lee, thank you for your thoughts! Your example using deeper cabs is most helpful. Our center aisle will be 60” wide even with 30” deep cabinet runs on both sides, and our uppers will be 15” deep. Your point about not taking down the wall certainly worked in your case (lovely kitchen!). In ours, though, the existing kitchen is only 10’ so removing the wall gives us a full 2’ additional before the natural break of the bumpout in the dining area. I think if we can leave no trace of the existing wall, it will look as though it’s always been that way.

If you have space in the dining area, you might consider extending the countertop over shallow cabinets on the front wall, to provide landing space to the left of the cooktop, and to provide buffet staging, display, plant shelf, etc.

Understand the galley concept - but you don't have near enough counter space for multiple cooks here, and the hardest working area in a kitchen is the space between the sink and the cooktop. It looks to be 24 inches. That's simply not enough.

I think you need to separate the sinks. Ideally, I'd rather see the ovens on the wall with the sink / dishwasher, and a smaller prep sink next to fridge and then cooktop where the ovens show.

But the U shape is far superior from a workability and safe perspective - but understand the wish to keep access.

Hi mama goose_gw zn6OH and thank you for your suggestion. Unfortunately, there is a mere 8' between the bumpout and the front door so the dining area is quite small. We've thought of putting a bench with storage along that wall so that we can push a table closer to the front wall, thereby avoiding the required 3' clearance with chairs.

just_janni, you and others may be right about the counter space - not sure where we're going to come down on that point but we're considering all ideas and recommendations. One thing that's essential to us is having one main working wall on the window side. We have been spoiled in our current house where we prep, bake and clean up in front of a stretch of windows at the front of the house. We love that, and it was key to our choice of the house we’re now discussing. Whatever compromises we need to make, that won’t be one of them. I appreciate your input, thank you!

Is it an option to move and/or make the window a bit more narrow? If that works from the exterior, could you do a 60 or 66 inch window and move it towards the dining room which would leave you enough space on the other end for a cooktop and vent? Then you could put the sink at the end with DW to the right and cooktop, then a small base cabinet against the wall.

Lyndee Lee, reconfiguring the window opening is certainly possible and something we'd consider. I'm more inclined to either reuse the same opening or enlarge it since we're not planning to replace the siding at this time. Plus, the window opening is already off center (21" siding on one side and 42" on the other). I'm not sure it makes sense to go to the expense of changing the window opening only to have the mirror image of that asymmetry, if that makes sense. Thank you though.

message for dak0205... any pro/con/suggestion/ reviews on the sharp steam oven? is it slow to heat given the 120V? does it cool well did it break down or is it great? Thank you for your time in advance