Hi all,

First time posting, thanks for reading. I'm not a designer, but I am an engineer, so I like to DIY.

We're aiming to do a full kitchen reno, including structural wall removal, in order to make the kitchen open plan. I've attached photos of the before, and a mockup of our current "best" layout using IKEA's planner.

Here are some issues I'm not sure about yet, and would love some feedback on:

1. The windows are very long, and protrude below where the counter would be. I've seen some houses on our street (all the same) where they just put a counter anyways and just have a gap behind with a filler piece or something. For our current design, I've opted to leave the window spaces empty of cabinets instead, which also solves the corner cabinet problem. Thoughts on this? I've attached two other examples from houses on our street (wartime houses, so they're all identical essentially).

2. The range looks nice centred, but the countertops then are short on either side. 18" seems reasonable, based on my consultation with these design rules (http://starcraftcustombuilders.com/kitchen.design.rules.htm#rule17_namelink). I also thought about moving the range off-centre, and having a 36" counter on just the right side of it instead.

3. The countertop company says that for quartz, they don't recommend more than a 10.5" overhang without supports. They say certain quartz may go up to 12-15" depending on what the manufacturers say, but for now we've only budgeted 10.5" overhang for seating with no supports.

4. I've included 42" walkways at the nearest points within the kitchen floorplan (ie: fridge to island, range to island), and a 36" gap at the closest point between the island and the closet.

5. The backsplash is only for illustration purposes, we will probably go with a teal-ish subway tile to match our couch and etc., and it would not go on the full wall above the fridge. Limitations of the IKEA designer.

Thanks for reading!

ps. Please excuse the mess in the photos. We clearly don't have enough storage space!

Figure 1 - South Wall of Kitchen (to remain)

Figure 2 - West Wall of Kitchen (exterior wall)

Figure 3 - North Wall of Kitchen (right 2/3 to be removed)

Figure 4 - East Wall of Kitchen (to be removed entirely)

Figure 5 - Future Layout Option

Figure 6 - Example of Counter in front of Window (other house on street)

Figure 7 - Example of Shortened Windows (other house on street)

Figure 8 - Rough 2D sketch with some measurements