Critique my kitchen layout please

[blardyfeck]

I'm about to make what I consider to be the most important decision of my life (seriously, months and months of planning, researching, speaking to designers, going to showrooms, visiting friends and acquaintances with new kitchens) and I need a fresh pair of eyes please.
Note the door on the bottom right of the plan is where you enter the kitchen from the hall. The area to the left is the dining room.
The cupboards on the right in between the doors look a bit weird but they're under a sloping ceiling.
Thanks all

The dishwasher should be in the unit next to the sink. Otherwise very annoying to load

I like basic placement of hob and sink. I'd wrap island the other way round the corner so it doesn't involve another waste-of-space corner unit but instead some decent drawers. That gives you two good prep spaces - either side of cooker and people can still perch to help.
You could build in a muiltifunction microwave under your sloping ceiling in custom cupboards to back up the oven. IME people with two main ovens use only one of them 95% of the time.
Hard to think of better place for bin than under the sink. We have 800mm bin unit with recycling as well. Then have some crockery drawers with ikea stylee plateholders to R of dishwasher. I would not put cutlery in an innerdrawer - you will get fed up opening it for every sodding teaspoon. Have a 3 drawer stack.

If you really need a tall oven unit it could be in your stack but it is not ideal if that's the main route between dining area and hall. You can get really good slide out shelf ovens now.

Tall oven unit could indeed be at far right of sink run - missed that!

You should also consider where your crockery will be stored in relation to your dishwasher. My in-laws have their dishwasher on the opposite end and side of the island unit to the crockery and glasses drawers and it is an absolute pain to unload.

Good point Bitterboy
When we moved in here, instead of the usually "stuff in cupboards as fast as we can" I actuallt thought where stuff is stored. Crockery nearest dishwasher. Stuff that you need a bit of like mustard, oil, right by hob then it goes back in cupboard to hand. Tins further way etc.

My kitchen was designed by a builder with zero thought.
There is a drawer until between sink and dishwasher, and it annoys the heck out of me. We tried to swap them but the plumbing made it impossible

Also instead of three? separate cupboards, you could have one big double pantry cupboard with spice racks on the doors, wine racks etc and all shelved out to suit you. Pullout shelves below worktop level, narrower shelves above. You normally see these in traditional style but I think a modern version would be epic. We have a sort of home made version, it's great to start cooking something, open the pantry doors and it's like, here's my wall of food, what do I need?

You need to revisit a decent kitchen designer I think. Both layouts look poor to me tbh

The problem with moving the ovens to the right hand side of the sink is that we would lose worktop.
We did have a design with the oven & combi under the sloping ceiling but it just looked awful so we binned that idea from the start to be honest.
I agree with the point re. the inner drawer and a 3 drawer stack being a better option.
We could put crockery in cupboard in penisula or Le Mans cupboards?
We probably wouldn't have any stools where the oven is, so I think it might be ok to get stuff out of the oven and put it on the worktop behind you.
Like the pantry idea. I have asked about drawers in the larder as apparently pull outs are prone to breaking as they're often overloaded.

I've had 3 designers on the case and the first 2 were dreadful. I think without being able to change anything structurally, we're a bit short of options.
I'll ask the designer to move the oven and see how that looks.
If all else fails, I shall look for another designer.

The designers job is to point out to you that the working triangle is more important than symmetry. Lots of kitchen designers are crap and just put what you describe I nto their computer without critiquing the layout properly at all.

You could take a copy of this plan into a number of different kitchen places and say 'can you improve on this plan?' They should quickly be able to either critique it (stay) or just blithely try and sell you their kitchen instead (leave).

That's what I'd do anyway

Sorry but is there any reason not to have the oven under the hob?

I agree I would want the space R of the sink for either kettle/drinks or stacking dirty pots.

Most kitchen layouts end up with something of a compromise TBH.

I much prefer an eye level oven. If I was buying a whole new kitchen I wouldn't compromise on that!

Yy we were converted to an higher level oven when we bought this house. When DH's back is bad he appreciates not having to bend down. We kept the higher level oven in our new kitchen.

The main thing for me is the location of the oven. It's right in the path of the walking route into the main room, and also if you needed to quickly place something hot down, there might be people/DC sitting right where you want to place it....sorry, but that is a dangerous location.....

Who designed this for you?

I definitely want an eye level oven, so I guess I need to think about an alternative position for it.
The only other logical place is the the right of the sink.
I'll admit I'm reluctant to spoil the run of units along by the sink but I see the issue with getting stuff out of the oven and having to turn around to put things down and people (kids) might be passing through to get to the dining area.
(There won't be people sitting there, the seating will only be on the left, facing towards the right)

The other thing I should point out is there is an alternative route to the dining area through the sitting room.

Which means it's not a constantly-used thoroughfare

How big is your dining area? Would you get a better layout if you swapped your kitchen and dining area, but still keeping the run of tall units between the kitchen door and French doors.

The dining area is smaller than the kitchen and there are sliding doors opening out on to the patio so you couldn't have a run of units there. There's also the double doors to the sitting room and another door to the playroom.

We're finding that numerous doorways in rooms is a bit of a pita

An experienced designer would usually put the whole area including dining part into the design - and they'd ask about where all the doors lead to ( a rightmove type plan can be helpful for this ) so they can ascertain the traffic flow, they'd ask you to fill in /answer a pretty long questionnaire to find out the sort of important things that you would or wouldn't like - all the useful info needed to create a design specifically for you and your family ... And then they'd spend a good deal of time working with you on layout options, showing sketches initially and then moving on to cad images and finally create a 'Shopping around' list for you...

( well, that's how I do it )

You then take your design and ask as many it as select a bunch of kitchen places to quote to supply and if you want install too. You then compare like for like - so you can easily see who's offering a good deal.

.... A sales person who plans kitchens will put units into the space, price it and hope you buy it...

There are some ( usually independent studios ) who break the 'sales person/planner' mould and provide a proper design service too - so worth looking about for them !

Hope that helps !

Why not extend the cabinets to go around the corner on the right hand side and put the oven in there. You'd have to have another corner unit, but wouldn't that be easier and give you some more worktop too. Don't take the units right up to the door frame and don't put the oven in the unit next to the door. There is a sizeable space in the central area as it stands so it looks workable.

Lose the breakfast bar coming round the corner as that just looks annoyingly in the way. Use your bank of tall units for a pantry or just extra storage. Have a seating area in the part of the dining room adjoining the kitchen and it will still be a sociable space.

I have a very similar layout and it's a pain. Walking round the peninsular to check on progress in the oven, people walking past when I'm trying to baste roast potatoes, the potential for someone walking past to stumble and fall onto the oven whilst it's hot, having to take hot pans and trays from the oven and swivel to put them down onto the peninsula. And so on.
My kitchen is being done in October and I am going for two side by side single ovens underneath the hob. Chose side by side single ovens as they can be set higher into (custom) units so shouldn't have to bend further than 45 degrees. I certainly don't want to go back to knee-bending.
My fridge is also next to the oven currently, with 2 cabinet sides so probably 4cms of wood between them iyswim. I do think it affects the efficiency of the fridge.

I can't imagine planning a kitchen with the hob and the oven far apart. Why? Do you never make gravy from roast dripping, fry something then pop it in the oven to finish, fry elements of the meal whilst roasting / baking other elements?

Ideally I'd want eye-level oven, 30/60cms worktop, hob all next to each other.

Actually I have to confess I have never made gravy or fried something and then popped it into the oven (unless you count omelettes finished under the grill...?)
I did say that I wasn't much of a cook so the hob being close to the oven didn't occur to me at all.

And OnePlanOnHouzz, (thank you for responding, I hoped you'd be about...) the designers did go through the motions of asking questions wrt how we use the space, what I need from the kitchen etc. but I suppose with the layout of the room, doors and so on, there are only a few options.

So I voiced my concerns to the designer & he has suggested that we move the oven/combi along the tall units so it's nearer the kitchen area but not on the end. Put storage on the end for crockery etc. (nearer the dishwasher), then have the oven & combi on top of each other, then fridge, then 2 larders for food.

Essentially, if we went with the plan without the additional peninsula, would it really matter where everything was in that long run of units?

If we want the extra worktop, then it creates a barrier to the oven/fridge and it means we have to go round the peninsula and have awkward moments getting things out of the oven and onto the worktop.

It's a tricky decision.