It wasn't meant to be, but this is my main PREP AREA. I had planned to use the counter along the dining room wall (see View D), where the prep area used to be in the old kitchen, but found myself naturally gravitating to this counter area, next to the main sink. (In moments of extreme giddiness I fancy myself as a ship's master standing on my bridge, with powerful equipment on every hand at my command.... Ah well, at least I'm harmless....)

It's extremely convenient to work next to the sink, with the refrigerator just out of sight to the right of the photo, paring knives and peelers in the upper drawer to the right of the sink, and colanders hanging above the sink. Other utensils like spatulas, whisks, and larger knives are stored across the walkway on the left, as are the mixer, blender, and processor.

This 33" x 20" SINK is 11" deep, and is made of Royal Stone, a solid surface material that can be bonded with Corian. The white drainage rack on the left is an option you can get with the sink, while the chrome rack on the bottom is obviously from a different sink.

I'd have loved to get a Mixa sink (Corian sides with a stainless steel bottom), but they don't come in large sizes, and are very expensive. The Royal Stone outfit can make a sink to match any Corian color, but again, I couldn't justify the expense. So I decided to get a contrasting color rather than trying to approximate the countertop; the spots that look a bit like dirt spatters in the photo are actually blue flecks, against a white background.

The photo above shows the BASKET I have hanging above the drainage rack in the sink. This is a great place for putting plasticware that's still wet out of the dishwasher, leafy veggies after washing them, sponges, etc.; they're out of the way, and if they drip, they drip into the sink. The clothespins on the chains are for clipping wet plastic bags up after I've washed them.

Below is a better view of the FAUCET, a KWC Gastro. It's not an object of beauty, but with its 12" reach, it sure is functional.

I started out considering the popular pull-out and pull-down models, but decided against them because I wanted 1) to have both hands free when using a spray; 2) a long spout so that I didn't have to reach forward, and 3) a long, single lever control mounted above the spout that was easy to reach (on one occasion, I have in fact used my chin!). I had been using the screw-on spray/stream adapter shown here on my previous faucets, and realized that I was perfectly happy with it, even though it was certainly low tech. With this double-jointed gadget I can direct a stream or a spray to any point in the sink. So why did I go to the trouble of installing a separate side spray? I really don't know why, except that my previous faucet, being shorter, didn't allow me to spray the whole sink, so I guess I felt I had to have a separate spray.
The problem with installing the side spray was that the faucet didn't come with a built-in diverter for a separate spray, so the plumber had to tap in directly to the hot and cold supplies under the sink, as shown in the photo below. The copper "Y" on the left side shows this; the dark lumps on the arms of the Y are check valves to prevent mixing of the hot & cold water on the way to the faucet.

The white tubing on the the right of the photo is for the dishdrawer.

This photo was taken from the back of the sink, where I had cabinet doors installed for easy access to the under-sink plumbing.

Planning for TRASH DISPOSAL is not a sexy aspect of kitchen design, and I forgot about it for a while. In the old kitchen, I just had an open container in one corner of the room, both unattractive and inconvenient. Then I found what seemed the ideal solution for my new kitchen: A 6" diameter chute that led from an opening in the countertop down to a container that you pulled out from the base cabinet when it came time to empty it. I no longer have the link, but it was carried by a store in Canada, and was relatively inexpensive, so I ordered it, and discovered one of its drawbacks the first time I had to throw out a box from a frozen pizza --- you need an opening larger than 6"!

So I mounted this rack (on the left) on the under sink door, and for a while used both this and the chute contraption before finally tearing out the chute system, converting the undercabinet space to something useful, and just using the door-mounted bag holder for waste. Food scraps that could get smelly go right into a plastic bag & then out to the garbage can, but this works well for paper towels, bottle caps, and so on. The door is on a touch latch, so I can open it with my knee if both hands are dirty.

Because the cabinetmaker had already thrown out the circular cutout from the countertop, I'm left with the 6" hole, but it's got the original flush cover, which visible at the extreme left of the photo below (it makes a great conversation piece).

I have two DISHWASHERS: an 18" wide Miele Touchtronic (right), and a single Fisher & Paykel Dishdrawer (below); extravagant, but ever so nice!

Here's how it happened. It was love at first sight with the F&P Dishdrawers --- cool! awesome! But a little worm in the back of my brain kept niggling at me, so I finally took some of my largest platters and bowls to the show room, and discovered that the little worm was right, they didn't fit, or if you got them in, you couldn't get much else in. Now I do as little hand washing as possible (forty years of it was enough, thank you), and I really wanted a dishwasher that would accommodate all my dishes and utensils. So my solution was to get a single dishdrawer, and the skinny Miele, which I installed 12" higher to humor my nagging back.

Originally I thought I'd be using the dishdrawer most of the time, with the Miele there for large items or when I entertained. But as it turns out, it's the Miele I use most of the time because, having spray arms above and below the dishes, it's easier to load. The dishdrawer has a spray arm only at the bottom, so it takes a bit more planning to load it in a way that water can reach all the dishes. I also discovered that I used large pots and bowls a lot more often than I would have guessed. And thus I found myself gravitating toward the Miele as my "everyday" dishwasher.

I have to admit I could have gotten along very well with just the Miele; but it does make life easier to have both of them.

Both work well and get dishes clean. One adjustment I'm still getting used to is the amount of detergent to use, because both of them require very much less than my previous Kenmore & Maytag did. Another pleasant change is how much quieter both are, although the Miele really takes first prize in this regard. If the sink drain is open, you can hear the Miele gargling when it drains, but if the drain is stopped, you have to listen very carefully to hear the dishwasher running. The dishdrawer is quieter than the standard American machine, but it does make some strange sounds now and then, and on the whole is somewhat noisier than the Miele.

To the right of the elevated Miele dishwasher is the REFRIGERATOR, a counter-depth top freezer GE model, with water and ice through the door. This appliance is probably the one that gave me the most trouble.

All my friends, and common sense, urged me to select one of the newer bottom freezer models, and I certainly thought that was the way to go until I started looking at them carefully. First, you should know that I'm an ice hound: anything I drink has to be COLD, and stay that way while I'm sipping it. So easy access to ice was a major requirements, and I found the bottom freezer models wanting in this regard: just too many things to pull out to reach the ice. The other feature that left me cold (ha ha!) was that you couldn't clearly see the frozen items but had to dig around to find what all was in the baskets. And finally, since I'm short, I discovered that in some models, I had to stand on tiptoe to see all the way to the back of the top shelf in the refrigerator part. Hence my decision against a bottom freezer model.

Because I really didn't like side-by-sides either, you can imagine my happiness at finding this GE model, as I did early in my planning. And you can imagine my distress to discover, when I finally got around to ordering the refrigerator some months later, that GE had discontinued this model --- AARRRGH! A frantic Google search found two of them, and I immediately ordered one from Witbeck, in Michigan, which arrived in perfect shape at the time they said it would.

What I didn't realize, though, was that this particular one was equipped with the kit for custom panels (grooves all around the doors). I tried removing these grooves and was left with ugly open screw holes, so in the end had to order white acrylic panels for the doors. And then I discovered that my magnets wouldn't stick because of the panels. With all due respect to those who hate "refrigerator clutter," I have become dependent on important notes, backorder information, appointment notices, and so on being right there on the refrigerator door, where I'm bound to see them every morning, so the nonmagnetic property of my paneled refrigerator presented a major crisis.