What are your plans for hardware? Backsplash?

Yay for slide outs behind the cabinet door. Out of curiosity, what is your cabinet hardware going to be? And with the ends of the island like that, I'm assuming you are going to have a very large slab top?

Yes the slab is large the island is 10 feet. This is the slab. I'm undecided on hardware fixtures etc I am going to wait until the counters are in before I decide.

This is not snark. I am far from knowing it all myself. I'm not a pro. Just someone who has remodeled a few of my own kitchens and am an avid Houzz reader. Here are a few observations, questions, comments:

1. *Extremely* deep island. Looks too deep. How do you intend to reach the middle of it to clean?

2. Do not order uppers for the dining room side. You have a lovely arched doorway that will be boxed in by uppers on both sides of it. Purchase a great piece of art to go above the dining room cabinets instead of hanging uppers.

You have an abundance of boxy square shapes in these two rooms. Adding uppers here is going to look like cabinets were on sale and you bought as many as you could stuff in the room :)

3. I don't understand the combo of drawers and doors on your lowers in the dining area. If you are a fan of cabinets, install this side with lower cabinet doors and place wine racks inside of them. Much better than placing wine next to a window exposed to light. Wine exposed upper racks are extremely dated for a reason - they are just not good for wine.

4. Drawers instead of cabinet doors are not a trend. It is a true evolution in how cabinets are designed and it is not going back. It is superior storage and much more ergonomically friendly. You might not like them, but others strong feelings about them are simply to get you the most utilitarian kitchen for the money you are spending.

5. People here can sound rude as hell. But, they are usually right. Buying a coat of armor is the price to pay for free design advice on Houzz!

Have you thought about moving the wine rack cabinet next to panty on the refrigerator wall? I think once you move your table back that wall will seem tight with all the cabinets.

Will the end cabinets open the way you have your island set up? It seems like they will hit the board that will hold the countertop up.

I am not a designer, but I think your kitchen is coming along nicely.

Wow, that's a big slab. You will be reaching for the middle of that one when cleaning. On a bright side, you can for sure butcher a whole deer on it, a whole holidays worth of baking, full turkey spread.. and seating. I'm assuming you have the proper supports for it, and that structure just isn't installed on the island base yet?

🤣 at a whole deer. I hadn't thought about reaching the middle of the island at all. Guess my small children will have to put their counter climbing skills to use. It has a lot extra supports in it. It is not just the base cabinets.

I actually had not thought about moving the cabinets to the wall next to the pantry. I didn't anticipate having as much extra space there once the wall was down . But that is actually doable I will have him measure. That space was our eat in and I was okay losing it since we also have a dining room.

" It has a lot extra supports in it. It s not just the base cabinets. "

Hopefully steel table / structure / frame with stretcher bars as anything else will be virtually useless for support. Definitely no plywood or the like as that will be completely useless..

I will share the feedback, although the old island didn't have any of that in it.

Are you ordering additional cabs for this area or what is your plan for this space?

@la_la Girl the mini cabinets will go all the way across once he repairs the ceiling and crown

Old island aside.. it was what it was. But now with this new island. A 10 foot stretch, and an overhang deep enough for seating is reason enough for a good support system. Knowing you have children that will climb onto it is extra reason to have a good support system. It would really suck to have that big slab crack because of poor support. We have seen a few threads about exactly this issue around here. Sometimes with counters with less overhang than you have there.

Look for your supports. And grrrr, photos not loading for me right now. So link instead. It's home depot, but a lot of different places carry these: https://www.homedepot.com/p/THE-ORIGINAL-GRANITE-BRACKET-2-5-in-x-0-5-in-x-12-in-Black-American-Steel-L-Bracket-Countertop-Support-Bracket-LB-12/311400483

ETA, dang it, the other link example didn't load. This has more examples: https://originalgranitebracket.com/collections/countertop-support

Anything over 10" requires support. That large overhang is dangerous, and is going to need posts and stretcher bars. Which won't fit, because of the cabinets on the back, and no place to join that. Or a complete welded steel H support. Custom done. Those small steel bars will not be nearly enough. And have no place to attach, because of the cabinets on the back. This had to be designed into the original cabinet construction, because it has to be attached to the cabinets, and be supported by the cabinets.

And that is a giant problem, because you didn't plan any correct support into the design. You have cabinets on the rear of the island with no place to attach any supports. That counter cannot just float in space. Not without risking injury and death. To fix that will need a complete custom steel subtop composed of steel plate plus tubing, with molding to conceal the additional height that will create.

And this is why you needed a kitchen designer. You've already cost yourself at least 10K in mistakes.

You chose a stone that is heavily fissured, and can break easily if not supported correctly. And then did not understand anything about designing the support for it.

THAT DESIGN WILL KILL SOMEONE.

Unless you pause, and redo the whole thing. Or, do the full steel subtop as suggested.

Death Island needs to be redesigned completely.

Holy carp 18205843, how did that happen? Few times too many of setting something heavy there? A toss of the keys the final crack? Yikes.

Thank you for the feedback on the supports, I just asked and he said he is doing invisible metal supports. I'm not doing the work so sorry if my answers are vague.

The supports really, really matter. I have been exactly where you are right now. Mid install with a contractor trying to pass off supports as sufficient. (And I HAD a designer who gave me good specs that the contractor ignored.)

You should not be leaving it up to a contractor to do whatever he feels is safe design. He might be absolutely correct or he may not. I'm not suggesting you hire a designer. Instead use the good, yet snarky, folks on houzz to guide you.

Tell the contractor you are getting some input from a designer on the island supports and you need specs to give them.

Ask the contractor for the manufacturer and item number. Find:

1. The size of the support and what they are made of.

2. Where they will be fastened and how they will be fastened both to the cabinets and to the counter. If he says bolted ask what kinds of bolts, how many, where they will be bolted, if using some kind of other mechanical fastener or other product get all of the details.

3. How many will be used and how far apart they will be spaced.

Report back and get some good guidance here. You might be fine or you might need to press pause, have folks on here tell you how it should be, and then proceed with that plan.

You said you did not need these in the past - but in the past did you have an island of this size and of this material? You do not want the regret of a cracked piece of stone or worse - an accident.

Here's an example of support for a counter overhang. Note how the supports span the top of the cabinets in this example so the cabinet maker / installer needs to make sure the cabinets accommodate the supports. Your fabricator and cabinet maker should be in sync on this so that your counter overhang is safe - especially since you mentioned kids. Hopefully your fabricator can give you some guidance / recommendations.

@Kendrah the "contractor" is my hubby this is a DIy project. Now that I see the photos of the supports I think I was mistaken and the old island did have them. When they said steel bars I was picturing vertical steel poles. My husband said he is putting in hidden supports. I'll try to get a picture of what he intends to use.

It's a shame you weren't willing to give drawers a try - I've remodeled two kitchens, and in both cases, replacing base cabinets with drawers was one of the primary goals. And it isn't a "trend" - I was first introduced to the superiority of drawer storage when a friend showed me the original kitchen in her home, built in 1938. She raved about how convenient it was to just pull out a drawer and see everything, rather than open a door and crawl on your hands and knees to get the thing in the back. I saw that kitchen in 2009.

But alas, you chose differently. When we bought our current house 3 years ago (built in 1995), the first thing I did was add pullouts to the base cabinets, so they acted more like drawers. Of course they were not nearly as efficient - I had 2 pullouts in the space I now have one drawer stack. But this is an aftermarket thing you can do to make your kitchen more efficient, if that interests you. The pullouts are Rev-A-Shelf. I like that the door attaches to the pullout, so it's one motion to open it.

Please note how the steel brackets shown are NOTCHED into those cabinet backs. You cannot cut the cabinet doors to fit brackets, when you have functioning cabinets on the back. If they were non functional, and just decorative, sure. It wouldn't be the best solution, but it would work.

The designer and the GC should be fired. For sure.

How many inches will the countertop extend beyond the face of the cabinet doors?

@Brody Design Build - GC is her husband.

I just bought a cheapy condo as a second home to be near my aging parents when needed. It has all door cabinets as bases. It is killing me to have to get down on the floor to look in the back of a cabinet! We will never get any money out of this place so I don't want to invest in pull out shelves. But god am I spoiled by my new kitchen at home and all pull out drawers. My brother is a chef and designed his kitchen 20 years ago will all drawers. He knew what he was doing!

@Kendrah I love that for you! We are doing slide out shelves which I prefer over the drawers.

Darwin always wins.

Yes, a fustercluck that in the end will not be perfect but will work to some degree that I bet @Ameera P will mostly like and be satisfied with. It won't be anything that pros here would want to put their name on or that home owners here would be happy with were they paying big bucks for. But, it sounds like @Ameera P is learning from the school of hard knocks as she goes along and the least we can do is help her out in the middle of a few mistakes and try to avoid getting into more.

(That said, I didn't read the previous thread where perhaps good advice was ignored.)

I love how all the men are being so sassy and butt hurt over my kitchen. Not a helpful piece of advice to be seen.

Another assumption that doesn’t serve you well.

Don't worry @Ameera P, there are plenty of harsh women on Houzz too. Just ignore the attitude and glean the really good advice they have to share. Easier said than done, but it is the name of the game around here.

Wow folks, can we not act like this is a HT section please? I get it that people can feel quite strongly about things, but we can be civil about it. The OP has made some mistakes, and those can be corrected without being mean or rude about it. They have made a prefrence choice in cabinetry, and does not need to be shredded or treated like a toilet for it. At this point, I can understand why the OP may be reacting poorly to many people piling up on them.

This forum is supposed to be helpful. Please let us do that without all the hostility.

A project that needed EXPERT planning to not be a money wasting disaster that actively endangers people's lives should be called out, and strongly. The arrogance of just moving forward with no knowledge but YouTube is going to get people hurt.

@Minardi what exactly are you calling out? Besides the photo of the UNFINISHED ISLAND not having visible supports what exactly is endangering people's lives? The piling on and rude comments are extremely unhelpful. Surely one doesn't need to go to college to learn to use a drill and drill cabinets into the wall.

But a kitchen is so much more thsn cabinets.

The arrogance of just moving forward with no knowledge but YouTube

The arrogance of me repairing my own dryer with no knowledge but YouTube or clipping my dog's nails with no knowledge but YouTube? It is how people do things these days. Sure, it hurts when you are in said profession and you can probably do it 1,000 times better than someone who is learning via YouTube. But, get with the program. This is the way of the world for folks for so many different reasons. At least @Ameera P is looping in help from a discussion board too!

Wait, what? I missed the part where the OP said they are basing their kitchen off Youtube. Is that just some hostile fabrication? There seems to be no mention from the OP about Youtube.

There are a ton of helpful people on here that would have been happy to help if given a clear question (I need help with X) and a plan with dimensions. You seem to want help with the cabinets on the far left in the former breakfast room because the base cabinets are too deep and the uppers are wrong. What is too deep? How big is the wall? What are you trying to fit there? People ask for and receive help all the time here but we need basic info from you starting with dimensions.

She wasnt open to getting help in the first post either. This forum is incredibly helpful to those who are open to ideas and are willing to make charnges. No one suffers fools who are just trying to humble brag that they did it all themselves, when the result is so awful and unsafe.

I am so sorry Ameera, you don't deserve this. Nor do the cabinets.

Still waiting on what is so unsafe. Looks like i'll be waiting for as long as you guys will be waiting for me to get drawers instead of cabinets 🤪

I believe the unsafe part is about island counter support because it is a really oversized counter. Just provide the info about your counter when you have it.

Did you get enough advice on what to do with the dining area uppers?

I don't recall what the advice on the uppers were but I may just remove them reordering will be 6 weeks so I am undecided if I want to wait.

Updated Progress

Looking good there. How much more to be done before you can really fill it with your stuff and start cooking?

Probably 1 days worth of work but it will probably take another week between work etc. I am waiting for the pendant lights to come in and a few other smaller items.

So real close then. Have you already started filling the cabinets with stuff? I probably wouldn't be able to resist.

I haven’t I only want to clean once, maybe once all the pulls are in. Super excited to organize it all.

So nice of you to post your final pics. Your backsplash worked out so well!

Your kitchen is beautiful

Your kitchen renovation looks stunning! Well done