Aisles look too narrow.

Trash location doesn't make sense. Next to or under sink.

Fridge location is really bad. Not enough clearance.

DW should be on the other side of the sink.

Thanks for the feedbacks. Aisle and clearance can be adjusted easily and yes we should reserve more room for that.

Can you comment on why you think the trash/DW should move? For trash I can get that it could be closer to the sink, but I am also a bit worried that if the trash drawer is kept pulled out, it might interfere with prepping. For DW I am not sure if I follow since the right side of the island is meant to be the cleanup zone.

Sorry was not looking at it correctly. DW is fine but I would reconfigure so the DW and fridge don't open into each other. I would also get more space for prep than you have. Move the DW to the very end of the island and move the sink with it.  Trash close to sink so it's convenient for both prep and cleanup. Under sink would be the best imo.

Ah yes good point about DW and fridge opening into each other. Moving the sink together with DW does make more sense.

Ideally I do want the trash to be under the sink so that I can get more storage on my island. What worries me a bit is that, since this is a workstation sink, with cutting boards and other stuffs on it, if I or other people want to use the trash while I am cutting stuffs on the sink, it might be a bit annoying. Do you have your trash under your sink or have used similar layouts? Would that be the most convenient layout from your experinece?

I would say usually workstation sinks are good where you have limited space. You will have enough space so I'm not sure how useful the workstation aspect would be. Regardless, you want trash nearby. Even if you put everything down the garbage disposal, food comes in packaging. If it worries you, pull the trash bin completely out of the cabinet when You're prepping and put it where you want it. I prep adjacent to my sink. My trash is in my prep space. I think it would work better to have cleanup sinks and prep sinks but not all kitchens can support that. Yours can, so if you are interested in doing that you could.

I'm replying to bump you... Usually kitchen layout questions get a lot of feedback so I'm not sure where the kitchen folks are!

I’d move the fridge all the way to the right end of the perimeter and bring the drawers and cabinets for storing dishes much closer to the dishwasher.

You have gotten some great suggestions for the DW above and the trash needs to be in a better place.

Have you thought about adding narrow drawers beside the range like this.

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You could also move dishes to drawers like this.

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> Have you thought about adding narrow drawers beside the range like this.

Thanks yeah I'll defintely look into those accessories.

> I would say usually workstation sinks are good where you have limited space. You will have enough space so I'm not sure how useful the workstation aspect would be. Regardless, you want trash nearby. Even if you put everything down the garbage disposal, food comes in packaging. If it worries you, pull the trash bin completely out of the cabinet when You're prepping and put it where you want it. I prep adjacent to my sink. My trash is in my prep space. I think it would work better to have cleanup sinks and prep sinks but not all kitchens can support that. Yours can, so if you are interested in doing that you could.

Thanks yeah it makes more sense now. I thought about having two sinks, basically one on the island and the other one on the left perimeter so that becomes the cleaning area. I am just not so sure that I need it now since I am the main cook in the house and 90% of the time I am by myself. So I guess for now I would prefer having more storage than another sink unless there are some significant layout issues that can't be resolved without having two sinks.

> I’d move the fridge all the way to the right end of the perimeter and bring the drawers and cabinets for storing dishes much closer to the dishwasher.

Yeah I would love to store dishes closer to DW, but at the same time a bit worried about the fridge being too far away from the stove and the rest of the kitchen lol. I guess that's the tradeoff here.

Ice, water, stone, fire is the kitchen prep order ‘rule’. The ice (fridge) and fire (stove) don’t need to be particularly close. I think there’s some other kinda of suboptimal decisions here, but I’m not sure what stage you’re at. Are you just dreaming up some plans before taking it to a designer? Or are you about to pull the trigger on a cabinet order?

> The ice (fridge) and fire (stove) don’t need to be particularly close.

Yeah I get the rules and they do make sense to me. Maybe it’s just my personal cooking habits, but I often times find my self taking out something from the fridge and dump them directly into the pot. Maybe it’s some sauce that has to be kept in the frige, or some left over meals that I want to cook with the rest of the stuffs. I could, of course, take everything out from the fridge and put them on the countertop and island first, but just in case I forget something you know lol. I am not completely sold on either side yet so need to think more about it.

> Are you just dreaming up some plans before taking it to a designer? Or are you about to pull the trigger on a cabinet order?

I am working with a designer right now and just going back and forth of different options. Once the plan is finalized we will soon place an order. So please raise anything that you feel suboptimal!

The thing that jumped out is that you have these two tall things - the fridge and double oven in the middle of two counter runs. So it breaks up the contiguous usable counter space into small pieces. At the same time, it makes the wall behind the island unbalanced. I’m not sure though, because we haven’t seen the elevations.

> At the same time, it makes the wall behind the island unbalanced.

Not sure what youo mean by unbalanced. Do you mean the wall on the left side of the fridge? That is currently a load bearing wall that I am thinking to knock down, but the structural engineer told me that they still need to keep some depth of that. It won't be as deep as the full depth of the countertop, but it's still something, maybe 5 inch or so. I don't know if there's any way to install the cabinets and counter top to work around that we do we want a contiguous counter.

If I move the fridge to the right like the following, seems like there's some zone crossing

Maybe this is better and what you're referring to? But then the oven is a bit far from the cooking area lol. I don't really know. There is also a bit window on the left wall, up to the pantry area, so unless I am closing partial of the window, I also can't really move the oven to that side.

I would put your fridge on the short l and maybe consider a range with a drawer microwave instead of the oven micro combo (those are not recommended due to the failure rate of microwaves vs. oven). Then you're back wall wouldn't be so full of tall things. And you'd have dish storage near your DW.

Are there any windows anywhere?

My design book says that there should be a minimum corridor width of 48". You have only 32" in front of the refrigerator and 36" between the snack drawer and island.

> I would put your fridge on the short l and maybe consider a range with a drawer microwave instead of the oven micro combo

Yeah ideally I do want a range lol but I don't really want to throw away my existing ones which is too wasteful since they work fine at least right now. Fridge on short might make sense? I draw it out down below and you can let me know if it looks better or not.

I also update the layout to include windows and doors, and also adjust the corridor width with a more realistic value. The left side of the kitchen is facing to my backyard, so there's a door and window on the left to the backyard. So I can kinda squeeze in a fridge there. There are a couple switches on the wall as well so I am leaving a few inches from the fridge to the door to accommodate the switches. It feels a little wierd that the fridge is right next to the door though.

Have you considered adding a steam oven? Wolf makes a great one that has a lot of features.

> Wolf makes a great one that has a lot of features.

lol yeah I know that looks super awesome. I haven't really thought about replacing appliances here TBH since my current ones work fine. So far I've mostly been focusing on the layout.

Really appreciate all the feedbacks! They have been tremendously helpful to me. After thinking through it more, I feel like this layout seems to be the most efficient one, where the prepping/cooking zone is completely detached from the cleaning zone. The pics below are a top-down view of the entire kitchen, and a front view of the long wall area. The height of the cabinets of the from view is probably far from accurate but I just put them there for reference.

One thing is that I am not sure if I can even have a single continuous countertop like mentioned above because of the wall, so the "left over" countertop is used as just a small bar/display area where I can put my wines/bartending equipment or other decorations on the countertop or the shelf.

I am also still debating about the trash location lol. It doesn't affect the overall layout too much and if I end up putting it under the sink then I'll just have another storage under the island.

Let me know what you guys think!! Again really appreciate all the helps.

Thanks anj_pfor the help a lot!

> They will still block the window a bit but at least they won't look like a mistake.

Ah I see what you're saying. The window dimension is mostly accurate but the window is actually a fixed window that can't open XD so I think we should be good here.

> Your kitchen is perfectly set up for a cleanup zone under the window with a cleanup sink/DW and a prep zone on the island with a prep sink. However that would kind of mean you'd forgo the workstation sink as it's not really necessary for such a large prep space. But it sounds like that is important to you? Is that something you have now?

Yeah I do realize that. I don't have a workstation sink right now, but I guess I am just really liking the features marketed by the workstation sink? I like the ideas that I can chop on the sink so that the juice doesn't make my countertop and island dirty. I also like the drying rack thing because we hand wash dishes multiple times a week so that would be pretty handy. I thought about having the prep sink to be a smaller workstation sink, and the cleanup sink to be a regular sink, but then since the workstation sink will come with those handy accessories, I might find myself willing to wash dishes in the prep sink rather than in the cleanup sink lol. Then I might want two workstation sinks so that it's "balanced"? But seems to not worth the money here since like I mentioned, I am pretty much always solo cooking stuffs, and even if my wife helps me, she will just be doing some lightweight work like peeling potatos. I tried drawing out the 2 sink layout and it does look good, but I feel like it's a bit overkill to me.

> Make sure you plan your island for the slab you want. At that size it will likely require a seam.

Yup I think I do need a seam. It's currently around 12 feet. I am thinking to cut maybe 2 feet so that they can be in one slab, so killing one of the drawers on the island. I am still thinking about it.

> Sizes, fillers, clearance, etc.

Understood. My designer measured everything so I think that should be good. This is just me wanting to play around different designs visually so the drawing is a bit rough lol. Once I finalize what I want I'll send it to them and have them to do the more accurate layout.

> With the sink/DW placement at the end of the island, combine your island drawer stacks into one large stack, or possibly a skinny cupboard for cutting boards/sheet pans and a 3' stack for prep tools.

That sounds like a great idea!

> I would recommend against using the vertical pullouts adjacent to the range as someone recommended below.

Haha yeah I was kinda debating about that actually. This is helpful and I would probably just go with regular drawers and put the dividers like yours. I really like your spice divider!!

> I would put dish storage and glassware storage in drawers, so instead of that tall skinny cabinet, make that as many drawers as you can, maybe with a cabinet that goes to the counter above that. If you want a full height cabinet, I might consider moving the ice maker/beverage fridge to the end of that run instead - right now it looks a bit cramped in between the two tall cabinets. Where is your pantry?

Yup I more drawers will definitely be helpful. Those two tall things are actually pantries, but just that I can make them have drawers below and shelfs on top. Not sure what is a full height cabinet..? The space does look a bit cramped indeed. I am not actually not sure if it's because height of the cabinet isn't that accurate. I'll need to take it to my designer who will have a 3D rendering to say for sure, and if it still looks cramped, then yeah I can probably just move the ice maker and the small fridge to the end like you mention.

@anj_p: "I would put dish storage and glassware storage in drawers..."

Why? I'd want them on shelves in a wall cabinet where I could easily reach them, not in drawers where I'd have to rummage around to find a plate or glass.

See below - the cab will block the window unless you have 15" of wall space there.

Tall cabs I circled. I don't think a tall cab with just doors will be very functional. If that is your pantry, I might put those two tall cabs next to each other but drawer bases. The first one is perfect for dish storage. If you put them adjacent you can play with how much pantry vs. how much dish storage you need, and keep it all together so you don't have two different areas with dishes, and two different areas with food.

Regarding workstation sinks - remember with those you are kind of limited to your sink for prep. You have this huge counter space that you won't be using. The accessories for a workstation all seem fine and handy but you have to store them somewhere and pull them out to use them. To manage the "juices" there are cutting boards with channels around them that will catch it. I also use a silicone mat under my cutting boards which is easy to clean up and prevents my cutting boards from sliding. I still feel like workstation sinks are better in small kitchens with limited counter space, but if you want it go for it.

This is the mat I use: https://www.oxo.com/silicone-pastry-mat.html?/?utm_source=_goog-srch&utm_medium=paidshopping&utm_campaign=2024-03-01_kw_na_cb_na_cb_oxo_coba_na_na_na_n/a_na_na_na_na_dtc_na_na&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0ruyBhDuARIsANSZ3wqrWzSW2pVm4qURtpFjGtOsb8HmP4k7-CvkqbaXABniBusLeFTuMsUaAtUFEALw_wcB

@wdccruise not sure why you'd have to rummage around. If drawers are directly across from the DW, storage is simple. @Buehl is one of Houzz's frequent commenters on kitchen design and this is one of the recommendations they make in nearly every kitchen. Glassware can live in an upper, but dish storage in a drawer is great.

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> Tall cabs I circled. I don't think a tall cab with just doors will be very functional. If that is your pantry, I might put those two tall cabs next to each other but drawer bases. The first one is perfect for dish storage. If you put them adjacent you can play with how much pantry vs. how much dish storage you need, and keep it all together so you don't have two different areas with dishes, and two different areas with food.

Oh I see what you mean now. Yeah I'll need to measure it exactly to see if it fits a wall cabinet. By "drawer bases" do you mean a wall cabinet still with doors, but the shelves could be pulled out?

No, drawer bases I mean from counter level down is a drawer cabinet base (base cabinet = bases). So I would make that tall pantry cab look like the cab on the end (drawer base with door uppers).

Pullouts are fine if you can't afford/don't have the option to do drawers, but drawers are better in almost every situation. I have pullouts and they're better than nothing, but I've still managed to ding up my cabinets trying to pull them out too quickly and hitting the door, or closing the door to quickly and banging into the pullout while it's still closing.

> So I would make that tall pantry cab look like the cab on the end (drawer base with door uppers).

Ahh yes this is what I wanted as well for sure. I also hate the door with the pullout shelves (my current cabinets/pantries have that) for the exact same reason as you. We hit the door all the time lol.