Mark Mitten 0:03 A corner sink. A corner sink, you better call Paul Paul McAlary 0:32 Okay, Jace, welcome to MediCal. Paul. I just sent you the drawing. I just we're just starting to record now, so we'll start off, but you're looking at the drawing that I sent you, moving those things around solves a lot of problems. You lose the island in the design, but the island was always going to be sort of problematic, and you're going to get a whole lot more cabinetry this way. And that bump out that you have is sort of going to, pretty much all of a sudden not be a weird thing anymore. I guess it's the chimney or whatever. You're going to sort of recess the refrigerator into the one corner, and then have 12 inch pantries that you're going to have on the one side of the refrigerator. And that's going to make your whole refrigerator look built in. And then you have all these base cabinets, and if you want, you can have floating shelves above the base cabinets on the left in front of the window, and that won't really look that strange, because it's in front of a window and it's not cabinets. It's floating shelves a corner sink. I don't know if you have ever listened to our podcast, but we never try to sell a customer a corner sink because it wastes an enormous amount of space, and the dishwasher is opening into you when you're standing at the sink. So you can't even stand at the sink with the dishwasher door down. And then if you try to put the garbage can on the right side of the sink, you have the same problem. The garbage can pulls out. You can't even stand at the sink with the garbage can pulled out. So the bad thing about this design that I sent you is it's going to be way more expensive because you have so much more cabinets and so much more countertop. But had you priced it out in a brand of cabinets or anything yet? Jay 2:20 No, not yet, but I actually, I'm not sure it actually really would be that much more. I mean, at least in terms of the on the left side of the room, it looks like about the same area as with an island without, you know, sort of long well Paul McAlary 2:40 was the sink cabinet is suddenly now going to be real cabinets, and because the refrigerator is moving over to the other wall, you're just going to have more cabinets and more wall cabinets. If I had to guess, if you did this in, let's say, an inexpensive cabinet brand that we would carry, which might be faubu wood in your kitchen, in fab you would, you would most definitely under $10,000 for all the cabinetry that be getting. So maybe eight and a half or something like that. And then the new design that I did, you're definitely probably over 10, but maybe 10 and a half or something, so it's maybe 25% more cabinets, or 30% more cabinets, and then, you know, probably around the same amount of countertop, though, not much difference in the amount of countertop. In fact, I forgot about the pantry cabinets. The 12 inch deep pantry cabinets are going to be sort of expensive, but there's a cheaper way to do that. If you wanted to do them, you could stack 242 inch wall cabinets on top of each other to make it be like a 12 inch deep pantry cabinet. If you did that, that would probably get you to the 10 that 10 and a half $1,000 if you did them as 12 pantries, you're probably at least 50% more for cabinets. Jay 4:04 Yeah, that makes sense, that that's my way to do it. Paul McAlary 4:08 But yeah, I mean, it's certainly a ton more storage. And if you're okay without having an island, the good thing too is it divides the room better too. I think you know now your Peninsula, people will be able to sit at the peninsula, talk to people that are in the kitchen, and then your refrigerator is not front and center. It's gonna not even really be visible very much from the living room. It will all be built in. You'll have a panel on the side of the refrigerator, on one side, the pantry cabinets or the wall cabinets stacked up on the other side, you'll only be able to see the doors of the refrigerator, so it won't be like you have refrigerator jutting out, closing everything in and because it's behind or half of the refrigerator is going to be behind the wall that juts out there. It's going to make the room seem a lot bigger too. Yeah. Jay 5:00 Yeah, okay, and so that's the counter depth bridge. Paul McAlary 5:04 That's a counter dense bridge. And I would recommend getting counter depth fridge, because that way you're just to keep your refrigerator from jutting so far out, and you'd get it 36 inches deep, and you still have plenty of room right before the window, and the whole thing will seem more built in with a counter depth refrigerator. If you didn't get a counter depth refrigerator, then either you have to pull the refrigerator and the pantry cabinets all forward, you know, six inches, because the box of the refrigerator is deeper, or at least four inches, and then the whole thing sticks out that whole ends, you know, sort of sticks out into the room more. So I just think it's nicer if you got a counter depth refrigerator. And then, if it was me, I wouldn't get any of the wall ovens. I would just get a free standing range. And the wall ovens and the cook tops you were thinking about, they were going to be very expensive, so that was going to cost you a whole lot of money. So if you did do the wall oven options in some kind of version of your kitchen, that would be the most expensive of all, because the appliances would be more expensive. The countertop is more expensive. And then the cabinetry, the wall oven cabinets, the most expensive cabinet in the kitchen. Here, you can just get a free standing range. And then if you wanted a second oven over by the refrigerator on the bottom, you could get a microwave drawer or a microwave speed oven. A microwave speed oven is a microwave and a convection oven combined, so that it can be a drawer or it could be a fold down door, so that if you needed a second oven, you could use that thing as an oven. If you needed it to be a microwave, it could be a microwave. Some of the microwave drawers are actually microwaves, speed ovens and air fryers combined. So that one appliance $2,000 and it's three appliances, you just determine how you want to use it. Jay 7:00 Okay? And you're imagining that would go to the left of the refrigerator. Paul McAlary 7:05 That would go to the left, being one of the cabinets you had to the left of the refrigerator. Jay 7:11 It looks like the bar you got it. You've done a dash line near the seating on the other side of the bar. What did pop up or don't? Paul McAlary 7:21 That's the countertop that overhangs so that people can have the stools can be underneath the count like, let's say you're having a party, you just push your stools underneath the countertop. If you get stools that are like saddle stools, you know, the countertop overhangs a foot. The stools are a little less than a foot. You just don't even have to get rid of the stools. People just serve themselves right from the back of the countertop. And then, if you want to have people sit there, their legs go underneath, and then they have the countertop overhanging the cabinets. And then there's actually another line in back. I don't know if you can tell that there's two thicknesses of cabinets. There's a 24 inch deep cabinet that adds your sink in it and your dishwasher. And then I have 12 inch deep cabinets in back of that, and those 12 inch deep cabinets, you'd have to go underneath your countertop to get at so they're not that used to because you have to go 12 inches underneath the countertop to get at it. But it's like you put Halloween decorations in there, or something where things you don't need very often. And the reason we have those cabinets back there is that so when people sit at the countertop, they're two feet away from the back of the faucet, so there's plenty of space that people can be eating there and working there and doing homework there, and they're not getting splashed by the sink or anything. Okay, Jay 8:40 so that's like, what? It's about a four foot deep. Paul McAlary 8:43 It's a four foot it's a 49 inch deep countertop. Yeah, okay, Jay 8:49 okay, that's what. That explains that line. So, yeah, that makes perfect sense. So then you get up storage, and then on the left, the upper Paul McAlary 8:59 was, it all uppers, and you just sort of divide them up, sort of how you like. You certainly wanted the cabinet doors on either side of the stove to all be the same size. So, you know, maybe it's a 30 inch cabinet from the corner. Maybe I'd have a 30 inch wall cabinet. I mean, the other thing too is if you don't want a hood instead of having your microwave, if you want it to do the least expensive way to do this kitchen, and I don't think it's really a crisis, you put a microwave hood over your stove, and now that's a microwave. It's your vent, your hood. It's not a convection oven anymore. So you don't have the air fryer, you don't have all those things, but it's a way less expensive appliance. It's like a $500 microwave, good. And it's your fan, it's a light, it's the microwave. And if you did that, that's the least expensive way to do it. And then I might have a 30 inch wall cabinet and a 30 inch drawer base or. On the right side of my microwave, then on the left side of my microwave, maybe a 15 inch cabinet that's opens from the left, so that when I'm at my stove, I could open that cabinet and then have oils and things like that, and spices maybe in that cabinet. And then after that cap, you just divide the rest of the cabinet tree that you're going to have on the wall up in equal just to try to get them all to be around the same width, around 15 inch door. And then if you didn't want that, and you wanted to have your microwave drawer or a microwave speed oven or one of those fancy things, and have a hood over your stove, then you just put the hood over your stove, and you move the microwave speed, oven or whatever, or over back to over the on the refrigerator side, Jay 10:46 yeah, I see, okay. Could you walk me through? How you imagine the um, Jay 10:53 the rest of the counters in the peninsula L or the Cabinet could be like, where would you put trash? For example. Paul McAlary 11:01 Yeah, so in this design, it's going to be your choice, but I think the best thing to do is to have a lazy susan in the corner, because that's going to make corner the most accessible to you. And then you're going to have a sink cabinet on the left of that, and that cabinet probably you're going to want to just be a 24 inch cabinet so that you fit a standard single bowl, 21 and a half inch wide interior sink, I can do the math. Jay 11:31 So glad that you identified because the corner sink was the first thing made us want to you work look like, Oh no, the boring rock that Paul McAlary 11:42 was. The first. Well, that's like, if you're a kitchen designer, somebody has to put a gun to your head to put a sink in the corner. So there's got to be, it's got to be a last resort. So that means your cabinetry is going to be like 92 inches. Yeah, so you could actually make your sink cabinet a little bit bigger. So your sink cabinet could fit a bigger stink if you wanted to, but you're gonna have to put your trash can cabinet either to the right of the Lazy Susan or over by the refrigerator, one of those two places. You know, it doesn't really make that much of a difference. A lot of times when I'm working, I just pull out the trash can, and then pull it out of the whole pull out and bring it over to wherever I'm working. And then when I want to pull it, I'll put it away. I put it away. So even though it, you know, I have it at the sink, if I'm cutting and chopping, over by the stove or whatever, I might have already pulled the trash can out of the thing, so Jay 12:41 that's how you work? Paul McAlary 12:43 Yeah. I mean, it depends on where you're working. In our kitchen, we have a big peninsula that doesn't have a sink in it, so that's a great place to work. So I'll pull the trash can out from where our sink is, so that which is convenient when you're at the sink, but when I'm working at the peninsula, cutting and chopping right next to the stove, then I'll pull the trash can out and be working there. Sometimes if we put the trash can farther away, it's convenient to all the people in the living room that want to go into. Just get rid of something. They go to the refrigerator, they take out a soda, they finished a soda, they throw it in the recycling right next to the refrigerator. And then when somebody's cooking and working by the stove, they're just gonna have to go over to the refrigerator area, pull out the trash can unit and then bring it over to the area where they're working just temporarily while they're cutting and shopping and doing stuff and creating, you know, trash or whatever. But either one is fine, right? Of the the Lazy Susan, or over by the refrigerator. Um, Jay 13:45 and do you think, Well, I mean, you didn't draw it this way. There's probably a reason that maybe you can walk me through it. So if we did end up with a with a wall oven, um, because does that potentially fit the right of the top of your Paul McAlary 14:07 face? Yeah, I think if you're gonna have the wall oven, then it has to be to the right of the cooktop. That's gonna be a lot of cabinetry. So you're gonna lose a lot of cabinetry, and then, you know, maybe you lose the 12 inch deep cabinets? You're going to have to do something, because I don't think you want to eat up too much of your living room. Something's got to go. So I think the first thing that goes is the 12 inch deep cabinets in the back of the sink. And now, when you're sitting at your the back of your sink, you're sitting at the peninsula, you'll be very close to the sink, so you might not like as much. Generally, when you're doing a double oven cabinet and a cooktop, that's really for someone that has a big kitchen, a big space, when you don't have a big space, you should give up the things that. Don't work well in your space. So just to give yourself more countertop, more cabinetry, more you know, if you have a gigantic kitchen, it's like giving up the island is because it's not a big space, it's a narrow space. So if I ask somebody, everybody's going to say they want an island. If I ask somebody they want to cook top and a double up, or they're all gonna say, yes, everybody wants everything. But then some people's spaces just getting at a way better kitchen, if they just face the reality of their space and don't try to jam too much stuff in. That's really the never ending discussion that kitchen designers have with their customers, that all of us, even though we sell cabinets, we're always trying to get countertops. We're always trying to convince people to get less just because the reality of how you work in the space and everything else isn't apparent to our customers as it as much as it is to us. So sometimes we'll be trying to convince people to get way less cabinetry, because they're trying to jam so much stuff in that we might make a whole lot more money. But, you know, it's a very common discussion we had the kitchen designers trying to convince people to get less cabinetry and or give themselves more space. Jay 16:18 That makes sense. I think that the reason, the thing that was motivating would, one would sort of not liking the microwave over the rain. Paul McAlary 16:27 We can have the hood over a nice hood over the range, whatever kind of hood that you want, and then put the microwave speed oven, or the microwave drawer speed oven over by the refrigerator. Jay 16:39 Oh, cool. And the other thing I was wondering about was a big kind of clutter factor in the current kitchen we have is, you know, you just have so many little appliances. We're getting an oven to have the convection future like we can get rid of, what a proper air fryer and dehydrator. Yeah, you can read a song of the O processor water or Paul McAlary 17:06 gangs that you can't get rid of can all go on the countertop over by the left of the refrigerator, because they're going to be sort of hit right. So if you had a toaster oven or something like that, or you had a blender or any of those things, put them all on the countertops over there, because they're almost going to be invisible with the refrigerator jutting out from the living room. And then you can keep clean, nice, clean countertops over where, where your stove is. And then, by the way, usually how you know how high your ceilings are. So usually, I guess, if you have 10 foot high cabinets, what were you thinking about doing, getting 42 inch high wall cabinets and just having a molding or something on top of them? Yeah, wait. So what you can do if you're doing the hood is, you know, it's going to be a little bit tough, because I think you want your hood vented outside. And if this is a row home, isn't that wall that the stova is on? Isn't that a party wall? It Jay 18:05 actually isn't that. It's a hallway, um, there's an apartment going up to the current Paul McAlary 18:12 so you could probably, you could probably vent out that Paul then, so that's sort of important to vent it out. And if you couldn't, that would be maybe a good reason to get the microwave hood, only because you're not even venting this thing out. And the microwave, it can vent outside if you want it to, but then it's very simple to make it not vent outside. It just goes through the, you know, microwave, up the bottom of the microwave and out the top of the microwave after it goes through a very big filter. Whereas, if you did a hood and you couldn't vent outside, usually there'll be like a grill towards the top of the hood. And then when you run your hood, a lot of the times, you get a grease stain on top of the feeling right near where the hood is. Jay 19:06 Could you tell me what, um, what that overall length on the wall on the left is? Paul McAlary 19:13 Oh, you mean how far you're going down? Yeah, hold on one second. I'm gonna just get what I sent you and compare? Yeah, I Jay 19:22 really, I really like this idea as well, that it oddly breaking up the room creates more of a definition for the living room. And it also like the placement of the refrigerator does kind of block a fight line, so there is kind of a place to hide. Math. Paul McAlary 19:44 Okay, I'm back. So I ended, I just took it arbitrary distance. I ended my countertop about a foot in from the end of where your refrigerator was going to go. I. So that I wasn't really making the I wasn't making your living room really very much smaller, except that when people are sitting at the peninsula in this design, then their backs may be a foot past where the refrigerator ended, or a little bit less. I'm ending the countertop at 12 feet. That's the end of the countertop. Is just around 12 feet, Jay 20:24 okay, that's the end of the 10 inch block. All right, that makes sense. And there's look like kind of, roughly, maybe 30 inch cabinet you've drawn Orion cross, although, obviously, Paul McAlary 20:36 yeah, I mean, I've got it sort of a 30 inch cabinet on the left of your stove. So see if we did it. We said it was all 12 feet. So we could all works. So if we've got first we have a 12 inch over. So we got 12 feet is 144 minus the 12 inch overhang for the cabinets, minus the 12 inches of cabinets that are on the back of your sink, minus the 36 inch Lazy Susan that's going to be in the corner, minus the stove, which is 30 minus A 30 inch drawer base, maybe we'll have to the right of the stove, and that would leave you with 24 inches left between the end of the Lazy Susan cabinet and your stove, if we did it exactly that way. And so then how would you use that 24 if you had an 18 inch cabinet that you were going to put, you decide to put your garbage can pull out there, then that would leave you with six inches. Six inches isn't good for anything. So then what I would do if it was six inches is I probably would make it a 36 inch base cabinet to the right of my stove, but that's getting actually your sink and your stove a little bit close to each other. In that case, I might even put my garbage can cabinet to the right of the stove and have only 118 inch cabinet. Put my garbage can cabinet there, if I didn't put it over by the refrigerator, that's probably a better deal. And then you'll have the 36 inch, big, wide draw base right next to your stove, than the Lazy Susan, so you'll have three you'll have four feet of countertop in between. The countertop between your sink and your stove, which will be a good, nice work area. And then the other side of your stove would just add 18 inches of countertop, which is just a good distance to be able to turn the handles of the pots and the pans out. And then it gives you an 18 inch door, which is a nice size too. So I probably redo that. Maybe what I'll do is, when I send you this, I'll send you it again, just list it a little bit better now that we've talked, if you want me to. Yeah, Jay 22:55 that would be good. That would be real helpful. Can I ask you another couple things about it. The one, one is, you know, maybe this isn't a thing. I just, I've been wondering, because I've been sticking out four pin, is like the the cab on the end, the upper on the end? No, by the peninsula. Like, usually, I don't know visually that weird from a sight line. Like, that's a normal thing people do. Like, you just prepare the cabin if it's sticking out of the wall. Paul McAlary 23:31 No, doesn't stick out. You have the cabinet end, even I would have the last cabinet end, even with you never want the cabinet to get too close to the people that are sitting at the peninsula, so you have to have the cabinets end maybe 12 inches from the end of the peninsula, so that anybody that's sitting at the inside seat of the peninsula doesn't Have a cabinet in their face. And then that cabinet. A lot of times the last cabinet, depending on how it all lays out. I mean, when I do it, I'll sort of figure it out for you. But a lot of times we make that cabinet either a single door cabinet that hinges on the left that sort of you have to reach pretty far over to get at when you're at the sink, or we have it be a single door cabinet that hinges on the right that the people that are sitting at the peninsula access and the person at the St Paul access, but the people at the peninsula can easily get to it, and they open it up. And maybe you keep, I don't know what you keep there, but you could keep plates and stuff like that in it, and then it's sort of, you could set your table essentially from that side. Do Jay 24:49 people ever put like open shell on that end? Paul McAlary 24:54 But sometimes they do. But I think that the floating shelves are you. A sort of a good idea by the refrigerator and then open shelves. If they're knickknack shelves that don't have a wall on the side of the cabinet, that's just something that it's definitely a little bit outdated now. And if they were just an open cabinet that had open shelves in the front that was there. You could do that, but then it would still, from the side, be closed in, you know? Jay 25:26 Yeah, that makes sense, okay, and, and then, though a 12 inch distance from the the seated person's face is ideal, rather than like, because it could also be 24 right? Say it again. So the difference that that upper cabinet starts from the person sitting in the corner, it's 1212, inches. Did that also be 24 or is that weird looking? It would be like off that in Paul McAlary 25:59 there's any reason for it to be 24 you know, the only reason you would want it to be 24 would be maybe, if you ended it 24 inches away, you could put a TV or something on the wall there, okay? And then that would make sense. And then the one person would be too close to it, right? But somebody that wanted to sit at the end of the peninsula. Could be looking at the TV that was on the wall there, and then they could be or a person cooking. Could they were at your sink. They would, they would be able to see the TV there. By the same token, you think, like on the side of the refrigerator, where I have the 12 inch deep, tall cabinets. You could have 12 inch deep, tall cabinets. And if you are going to use the wall cabinets, you could have 12 inch deep, 42 inch wall cabinets on the bottom, and then put 42 inch wall cabinets on the top, and then maybe have the middle one, a single door, or, if you did, tall cabinets, take out the doors on the top of one of the cabinets, and then have open shelves there and or TV or something over there. And the reason that you would just add over there is that's then going to be visible to all the people sitting at the peninsula. Do Jay 27:20 Have Paul McAlary 27:22 you figured out how you're laying out your living room and where your TV's gonna go in your living room? Jay 27:30 Still kind of working that out? Paul McAlary 27:33 So there's no doorway in the living room right Jay 27:37 there? Is it right behind the um, Paul McAlary 27:43 the pair which chairs, the chairs that may have the stools, Jay 27:48 yeah, the stools and the peninsula. Paul McAlary 27:50 And they don't have that on the war plan that you sent me. Jay 27:55 It be there. It's um, I don't know why it wouldn't show up. It's Oh yeah, that's correct. No, it isn't on that. It's on the one with the corrected dimension, the one after the framing. So they ended up putting a door in. It's 64 inches from the front, and the 32 inch door, so the the length of the wall between that door and the corner is 159 so I'm gonna Paul McAlary 28:29 die. What do you have on yours? Oh, we had, I had, uh, 12 feet. So 144 so 159 so you are going way farther down than I was going down, which is better, because it makes your living room bigger. So one fear or so, you're going to have 18 more inches, essentially, and that will just make your whole living space a little bit bigger, but doesn't help you with where your TV is going to go. Yeah, Jay 28:59 it would either go probably in that 64 inch space or the 90 inch off of it wall. Paul McAlary 29:09 Yeah, the 64 inch space, maybe what you do is it goes in the 64 inch space at an angle, and then you put your couch on the 90 inch run and then a chair. Maybe. What I'll do is I'll see if I can sort of figure that out for you too, and I'll send you that as well. You know, that's the thing about people making, you know, it just, you know, I just frustrate us that as things get so far along before these things get ironed out, you know? And it really is the thing that makes to be putting doorways in and doing things like that. How do you do that without deciding exactly how you're decorating the room? Right? So, but I mean, it's not like That's. Uncommon is a bill Oh brothers, that you know does builds tons of homes in Pennsylvania, and people buy the home. It's beautiful. They move in, and then they go to put their bed in the bedroom, and no one's figured out how where the furniture is going, so that the bed ends up being half in front of a window or something like that. It's like, you can't really design a space without really knowing how you how it it's going to have to be decorated. And even with the kitchen too, it's like, it's so important the design that you get for your kitchen, that's sort of the best starting place, you know. Jay 30:38 Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And yeah, having the key doors across, you know, on the diagonal on both sides of the face, it is one of the things that makes their narrow lip difficult. Certainly, what Paul McAlary 30:56 do you mean two doors? Jay 30:58 Well, so there's a door, um, entering. Let me get off the plan Paul McAlary 31:07 the door is that the door, one door enters from the hall, and then the other door is to the left of the refrigerator. Those are the only two doors, right, exactly, yeah. So that's, that's good. I mean, that's what's good about the refrigerator over there is that we always want to put the refrigerator when we can in travel space. Travel space is where people are walking anyway. That way, you know, somebody in the living room, one wants to go to the refrigerator. They go to the refrigerator, take something out, get it. They don't interfere with anybody that's cooking. Somebody that wants to go from the living room down the hall. They walk through the travel space. They don't interfere with anybody that's cooking, either, unless that person happens to be standing in front of the refrigerator. But when you figure out where people are walking and where where people are going from and to it's pretty important. So putting your doorway in the picture and the term, we know that that's now all dead travel space. So ending a little bit short is good, because I'm ending short, but then when people are sitting at the peninsula, they're not going into that doorway, which is good, Jay 32:17 absolutely. And though I'd never heard anybody say that about putting a refrigerator in travel space, that's really interesting. Paul McAlary 32:26 That's why you have a hallway in a house. You have a hallway in a house because you have to travel to get to the each of the bedrooms, to get to the bathroom, to get to these different things. So when you create a hallway, you create this dedicated travel space where everybody that's going to any of the bedrooms and bathrooms or whatever are walking down. And you could just imagine, if you didn't have that, then you'd be walking through one bedroom to get to another bedroom to get to whatever. So really, it's one of the most important things in a design of a home is trying to make travel space multi functional, and to try to limit it so you have the most the smallest amount of travel space, which gives you the most amount of living space. I once went to a home that was completely designed by an architect, and architects don't never understand this concept. You know, I had a customer that was redesigning the home that the architect designed for them just the other day, and they were just without knowing any better, they were doing exactly what we're talking about. They were eliminating travel space and to create more open space and combining travel space so they were doing what I've never seen an architect in my entire life, ever even consider which is doing this with travel space? So I was at this one house several years ago, generally a really well designed house, like 20, 25% of the house is travel space at most. This guy's house that he designed was 67% travel space, so it was just all this gigantic open floor that you couldn't have anything on it because it was too close to a staircase. It was another doorway. There it was the most of the whole house was just wasted space, and it was like a four and a half 1000 square foot house with almost that was really a 2500 square foot house that just had all this travel space, Jay 34:33 incredible. I mean, how do you even need and do that? Paul McAlary 34:39 We see crazy like kitchen designers will tell you, every time we see crazy, we can usually trace it back to the architect. They're so used to when, I guess, when they go to school, they're building balsa wood and the outside of the building what it looks like, and that the windows line up and the doors line up, and all of these things to make the. Outside structure, the most appealing to their eye is the most important thing. And then really, how human beings use the space that they create. They don't even get into Jay 35:12 that irritation really, right? Like, I mean, they've been that's Paul McAlary 35:15 where you live. You don't live outside your house. And heaven forbid, that's they do too, is they they use French doors and things all the time that actually, if you have a patio or a deck, or if doors are opening out into the patio or deck, then they're limiting even how that space is used. A sliding door is not as attractive as a French door, but then that's why they make French sliders. So sliding doors that have divided light, they look like French doors, but then, since they slide over, you don't have screen doors opening out onto the deck. You're using up a limited amount of space. And then you're you have more space for your barbecue and for seating and for tables and everything else. So it just, yeah, it's, it's our never ending frustration as designers. Jay 36:05 You intersect with what? Yeah, people have to live in the building in a very practical way, or thinking about it at the volume, or something kind of abstract, right? Paul McAlary 36:16 Yeah. I mean, if you're not thinking about it, if you're if you're trying to create a visual, and you don't care about function, and you don't care about how the thing is really getting used in a logical manner. It just a disaster waiting to happen. Jay 36:31 So can I ask you, it sounds like there's no world in which an island work here, like, I Paul McAlary 36:38 think the only way that an island is going to work. You don't want the sink in the corner. That's just horrible. The sink isn't going in the corner, then the sink has to go in the island, and when the sink goes in the island, then you're going to have some tight spaces. Like if you think about this kitchen that I designed, the places that you're working are, if it's 12 feet across, you have like seven and a half eight feet between the refrigerator and the countertop all the way across from it. And same thing with the stove and the countertop that's across from it. The whole middle of the kitchen is a giant square eight feet by eight feet. So it's totally comfortable with people walking through and working. So once you have that island in your design, you've got like 40 inches on each side, essentially between the island and the wall that sticks out. That's half the distance when the door to the stove comes down, that comes down 30 inches, and you're 40 inches, so you only have 10 inches to get around it. So it's just going to be a tight space. And you your sink really has to go in the island. And if your sink goes in the island, the countertop is going to have to get a little deeper. That's going to make it a little bit tighter. And then maybe you don't want to sit three people on the back. Maybe you just want to make it a little bit deeper and have two people sit like make it a 36 inch deep Island. Sit nobody on the back, but sit a couple of people on the end facing into the living room, or vice versa. Have people sit on that end that's in the living room, but you only seat two Jay 38:24 on the end. I was wondering about, like, making it, Paul McAlary 38:27 and really, probably, actually, you're only gonna sit one comfortably. Yeah, you're not gonna sit two. You're only gonna sit one. You could maybe sit one on each end, but then they're staring at each other across the island Jay 38:40 cross, right? Cross, the sink, right? Yeah, yeah, which is a little odd. Okay. Paul McAlary 38:47 I mean, there's always just one way that works best. It doesn't have to be the thing that you get. It's just that you have to decide if you want a kitchen that's more functional and has more countertop and more cabinetry and more storage space, and works better and makes the room seem a little bit bigger, then that's the thing I sent you. If you're willing to sacrifice everything to get your island, then if you want the thing to work at all, you pretty much have to put your sink in your island, and then it's going to be pretty tight. And then even when you're sitting at the back of the island, if you're going to sit on the backside, the person that has the sink in front of them will only have a limited amount of countertop, 12 inches or 13 inches of countertop to sit at. But then the two other people will have plenty of countertop. They'll just be using a little bit of the countertop on either side of the sink when they're sitting there. Jay 39:43 Okay, Okay, interesting. Yeah, 40 is that that's smaller than the kind of recommended guideline, right? Like minimum, Paul McAlary 39:52 oh, yeah, when it used to be ideally, yeah, ideally, it's 48 inches. So we cheat all time. And. Sometimes leave 42 but if you're got 12 feet, six minus the foot. So you got 11, you have 138 inches. First, you better get a counter depth refrigerator in this design, because it's got to be driving out way more. But then you got 138 I think if you're going to do the sink, it's the islands gonna have to be 24 with a 12 inch overhang. That leaves you 100 inches, minus 25.5 for the stove side, really tight. So you got 75 and a half inches between the front of that wall and the countertop on that stove side to divide in half the really the minimum distance that you should have between the sink and the island, that's 42 now in back of the island, you're going to have 33 and a half inches. That just means that when somebody sits at the island, they're going to the PERT the last person on the end of the island will have to scoot in for someone to pass them on the other side, but then also that whole other, you know, Wall of cabinetry. I guess you could have some 12 inch deep bottom cabinets that you could have on the wall, you know, in back of the island, but you can't have any wall cabinets or floating shelves or anything over there, because you won't be able to use any of the countertop that if you put 12 inch deep base cabinets, I use wall cabinets as base cabinets, and you put 12 inch deep base cabinets in that nook that's created from the chimney that sticks out over to the window, you could still fit some cabinets there, but it only can be going to be 12 inches deep. Jay 41:40 Yeah, I think that could have what we did. You see the plan B drawing in the email that I sent? Paul McAlary 41:47 Oh, yeah, 12 inch speed. Were they sticking out? Exciting, yeah. But again, always, what you're doing and what everybody's doing when they're drawing these countertops and everything in is you're forgetting that the cabinets might be 12 inches deep, but the countertops are 25 and a half inches deep, so you're losing an inch and a half on every side. So you start subtracting this, you don't end up with three feet. It's the natural thing that everybody sort of forgets. I'm glad Jay 42:18 you mentioned that, because when you were rattling off measurement by going where 37 little half come from. It's because you're looking at the overhang of the counter on each side, Paul McAlary 42:28 and I'm looking at the 12 inch overhang on the back, and it makes no sense having less than 12 inches. Sometimes people say, Well, I'm just going to make my overhang shallower. Well, the thinnest stool is 12 inches anyway. So if it's gonna tuck underneath the countertop, you need that 12 inches just to have the stool. And then the next thing people say is, well, I'm gonna get shallow stools. Well, the shallower stool is 12 inches, so it's the front that hangs out an inch and a half. So it's 36 inches, 12 inch overhang on the back, and then one and a half inches on the front. That's why it's 37 and a half inches for the island. That Jay 43:06 makes sense. Oh, and it's one and a half. So it's standard regiment that counterclockwise. We're hanging in and a half in primary Paul McAlary 43:15 town. So if you did this design, your second design, what would these numbers really be? They would be whatever we figured out. 75 you want to make it shallower on the stool side and not in between your stove and your sink. Because just imagine, if you're at your stove, if the door to the oven comes down, you can't even stand in front of it because it's those six inches, you know, and that doesn't even have the one inch and a half on each side that you're accounting for. But if you did leave yourself when you accounted for the inch and a half, 30 inches when the door to the oven comes down, that's 30 so then you're if you left yourself 36 you only got six inches. So you can't even stand at the sink or any of those things that when the oven door comes down, can't have a person working at at the sink side and the stove side, the absolute minimum distance you can have that could be even considered a two cooked kitchen. And it's a stretch. It's supposed to be 48 inches. Is 42 so if you left yourself 42 inches countertop the countertop, then you could have a person that would be working at the stove and another person standing at the sink washing something, and they'd only hit each other's butts if one of them bent over. You know, they're all getting tighter. So if you lay it out on the floor, just remember the inch and a half countertops on all the sides and everything else. And then even when you're looking at the floor, it's not going to really seem as small as it really is going to be as when this thing is built up. So if you put like cardboard boxes or something like that on these different lines, you'll get a much better appreciation for how tight a space that you're making. Let's say you leave 30. 36 inches, cabinet to cabinet. Well, when you pull out a drawer, they're all going to be full extension drawers. So the drawers are going to come out like 22 inches. So then that means, if you were leaving 36 inches, if you pull the drawer out, mean you'd have to be a very thin person to be able to stand in front of the drawer that you just pulled out. So you're gonna find yourself pulling out drawers and everything and standing at this on the sides of them. Jay 45:29 I think you've convinced me about that might look like. Yeah, that basically, as drawn I would have to stand to the side of the oven trip. But, Paul McAlary 45:40 yeah, you can't stand in front of the oven. It's unfortunate, but we're giving you more cabinets, more countertop, and leaving you with a bigger living room, so you're really getting more of everything out of the same space. And that's the thing about an island, is an island eats up so much space because it's an island. Could you have to leave space around it on all four sides, you know? So when you have a peninsula, you're only leaving space on the one area that you're walking through. There's no other sides. So an island is four sides, a peninsula is one side, you know, it just frees up so much more space. You're just gonna have a better house to live in? I think. Jay 46:22 What about when people do a drop bar counter so that they can leave like a regular height there, rather than a counter height? Paul McAlary 46:34 I think that that is sort of old fashioned. So people want the countertops nowadays to all be kitchen countertop height. And the reason that they do is it's like some people's kitchen tables are kitchen countertop height. My kitchen table is my kitchen table is the same height as my countertops in my kitchen. So it's sort of a fast thing to have a higher seating area now, but you don't have to. But the lower countertop isn't really that attractive, because you can't serve off of it. If you made the cabinets lower in back of my Peninsula and then lowered it down so that you could sit at chairs in back of the peninsula, first off, everything that was on the countertops on the sink side would be falling over onto the lower area all the time. So if you were cutting or chopping or working, you'd be losing things onto the lower area. But then if you were having a party or whatever, like I was saying, it's so attractive to be able to tuck the stools underneath the countertop and then serve off of the peninsula countertop. And if it was a table height, that's not very convenient table. Height isn't what you serve off of you serve off of countertop height, you know, that's the height where you know that's the working height that you work at. So it's where you the height that you would want to serve yourself out of a salad or whatever. The only reason that lower height makes sense is maybe for very old, fragile people or really young kids that can't climb up on the stool, but it's not that high a climb. It's only the stool is only 24 inches off the ground, so it's not like it's that high up. Jay 48:16 Okay, okay, that's really helpful information. Thank you. Paul McAlary 48:22 And I always tell people, don't think that you used up your phone call. If you change it around and have another question, feel free to call. It's every Friday, two to four, and then however long it takes, if we run over a little bit, then I'll keep talking to the to any call that calls in and leaves their number. I'll get to them on this Friday. I won't send you the drawings with everything until tomorrow, the updated drawings, but I get to everybody. So anytime you're calling between two and four, get in the line. Everybody gets their shot. Jay 48:57 Okay, amazing. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, good talking to you. Okay, Paul McAlary 49:03 have a great weekend. Bye, bye. Jay 49:05 People bye. Mark Mitten 49:06 Thank you for listening to the mainline kitchen design podcast with nationally acclaimed Kitchen Designer Paul McAlary. This podcast is brought to you by Brighton cabinetry, high quality custom cabinetry at competitive prices for more on kitchen cabinets and kitchen design. Go to www.mainlinekitchendesign.com Transcribed by https://otter.ai