To get what I wanted, a simple galley layout with no corners, meant gutting the space. To make it longer, we stole three feet at one end from the dining room. And we incorporated the eight feet at the other end from a small sitting area we'd made years ago out of an old mudroom. That was the time we put in a wood burning fireplace and French windows and of course those stayed. Everything else: Gonzo.
We built two long runs of counters 30 inches deep, six inches deeper than the norm. It gives us space at the back for canisters and small appliances, leaving plenty of prep room in front. I picked the palest grey marble for the countertops - what I always wanted and practical for pastry-making.
All the storage below the counters is deep, strong, pull-out drawers. Even under the sinks. No more dark holes full of mystery pots, old used yogurt cartons and spilling dog food. And above the counters, all of the storage is open shelving. We measured the shelves so the bottom ones would be just high enough to fit easily over appliances such as our large KitchenAid stand mixer.
Another great advance is the seven feet of space between the counters. There is room for three or four people to work along each counter. I tested this soon after the kitchen was finished when we had 16 women in the room baking for an AIDS benefit. Mind you, about eight of them were sitting down at one end drinking wine by the fire.
We didn't put in a new floor; we just patched the old one and refinished it and the dining room floor in the same colour. Two antique Anatolian kilims cover the floors.
Behind a new 36-inch-wide Wolf gas range, we put a backsplash of hand-painted tiles in the Tree of Life pattern from the Balian potteries in Jerusalem. Like the stove itself, which we'd bought on sale, the tiles had waited in storage for years until we could afford to do the kitchen. My research showed that the best fan for us was a Venta-a-Hood squirrel-cage fan; it is effective and far quieter than most.
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