Efficient kitchen design

For our forever house, it is important that the kitchen works well. Especially now that I have morphed into a domestic queen, making pickles and jams and pies and muffins every week. We have a fantastic looking kitchen design (I'll upload sketches when I get them scanned), but now I'm antsy to verify that it is as efficient as it can be. These are two great online resources I have checked out:

Blum Cabinet Hardware

&

Starcraft Custom Builders


While both pages provide great info on efficiency, the Starcraft website specifically addresses the windows vs. upper cabinet debate. This is relevant to us because we decided to move the kitchen into the brightest room of the house (central to the activity, open concept to the den & dining room). Yet the reason it was so bright is because of two windows that span lower than a traditional cabinet base.



So: we sacrifice a wall of cabinets or we sacrifice light?

Sacrifice cabinets, for sure. Aside from the prohibitive cost of replicating those windows in their current incarnation save for ten inches at the bottom - why would we move into the brightest room in the house just to squander our source of light? No, I'll get rid of my rice cooker, thanks. So the Starcraft site helps maximize the space we do have, like how to make great use of corner cabinets.



We have just a single corner cabinet, outlined in the trail tape above. An L-shaped piece of lower cabinetry provides room (eventually) for a range in the corner (away from hubbub and small hands), a length of "bar"-level countertop on the left (just like in our last house-loved it!) & a space for a dishwasher. On the short end of the L, a focal sink. The sink will be the first thing you see coming down the interior hallway along the stairwell, so the cabinetry will be "country flourish" - an arched open shelf for pottery and books flanked by tons of fancy trim. Sorta like these inspirations pictures:






Plus a fancy sink with fancy handle embedded in a fancy concrete counter. Fancy fancy.


Have also fallen in love with stone accent walls too, like this:

which would look great behind the oven. A bitch to clean, but I'll worry about that later.

Then the far wall, on the other side of the windows, will be floor to ceiling cabinetry and an archway going to the dining room. And a refrigerator, a nice slim one that fits between those 24" on center beams.

It's a lop-sided and asymmetrical design, but hopefully it provides a visually interesting room with tons function and sunlight.