Many hours at the computer today yielded a kitchen design. More important than being just “a” design it’s pretty close to "the" design that will go into the farmhouse project. I needed to figure out the cabinets so I could start to make the materials list for building them in the new shop. I needed both numbers and sizes for the base and wall units as well as their configuration – doors vs drawers, panels vs glass vs stained glass, etc.

(Disclaimer: The cheap drafting software I used did not allow me much flexibility so things like the kitchen island, which will have space under the counter for the stools, can’t show it and I was also not able to depict stained glass panels at the top of the upper cabinets.)

The first step was to get the real dimensions from the site (then account for the finishing materials – the 5/8" sheetrock on the walls, the 3/8" engineered hardwood flooring and the 5/8" sheetrock ceiling).

I then had to account for "immovable objects" – the stove and range hood, the kitchen sink, and the electric in the floor for the island. All of the cabinetry fills in the spaces left over.

Once I had all the cabinets defined, I started drafting the plans for the shop. Thus far, I have all of the carcasses designed. I plan to get a relatively inexpensive sheet of finish plywood to see how accurate the plans really are

A few design results …

The counter tops and the kitchen sink will [hopefully] be soapstone.

The pantry, in the far right corner, will be composed of 3 28" wide tall cabinets for a total of just over 40 linear feet of shelf space. that should take care of most of my dry goods and canned goods.

All of the kitchen’s base cabinets will have drawers.

All of the upper cabinets will and under cabinet lighting, shelves and an extra panel at the top which will have a back lit stained glass panel. To be honest, I’m not fond of upper cabinets and hoping most everything will fit in the base cabinets. I’ll use the upper cabinets for the 175 glasses.