lewis + smith Cons are that it is inherently located further away from the cooking/prep area than it wants to be. If you are concerned about the look of the fridge in the kitchen, you can always do a built in fridge with panel to match your cabinets. Or, all undercounter refrigeration.

Interiors International, Inc. I would truly hate it and would be an absolute deal breaker for me. I would rather not have a pantry.

Judy M Can you build it into the pantry with the door facing into the kitchen?

thebigredbarn My dilemma is more about having a bench for seating , having to give up a window, and the layout (with the fridge in the kitchen) will already put the fridge a good space from the stove. This is a lot harder than we had figured, but we are leaning towards having the fridge in the kitchen and giving up the seating.

feeny I really do feel pretty strongly that the fridge needs to be in the kitchen, not the pantry. But why don't you post a floor plan for your kitchen so houzzers can brainstorm a bit about layout. You want a nice work triangle if at all possible.

Dytecture I agree to have the fridge directly in the kitchen. Imaging having to go into the pantry every time you need to access the fridge. More inconvenient if the pantry has a door separating from the kitchen !

thebigredbarn I am fairly new to houzz....What is the best way to attach a floor plan?

feeny If you can put it in jpeg format, you can simply attach it to a comment on this thread.

thebigredbarn This is the layout of the room, this is an old farmhouse and currently has no cabinets and all appliances are movable.

This is my first shot at a jpeg layout drawing.

thebigredbarn Wow it worked!

FYI the pantry is the room on the left of the kitchen.
The door at the top of the picture will go out to a porch were we plan to hang out/eat.
Yes there are six doorways.
The double doorway leads to our living room dining room (30x15).

And lastly we homestead and have 8 children (age 2-15 + 1 one on the way), all love to cook, and can (hence the pantry - which is to be build this spring) , all this to say the kitchen will get a lot of use.

feeny I'm going to bump this up, hoping one of the professional designers here will look at the space. I do see how the doors make it difficult, but it still seems to me you should be able to fit a fridge against the left wall where there are no windows, maybe next to where the pantry will eventually be built. What is the small room on the right hand side of the picture?

thebigredbarn Sorry my mistake the pantry is the room on the right side. The wall were you mentioned putting the fridge is where we were thinking as well.

feeny It would look better against that wall if it could be a counter depth fridge, but I'm not even going to mention that possibility with your impressively large family!

Madeline @feeny. What does "I'm going to bump this up" mean because like you, I feel this is a post crying out for a professional kitchen designer's point of view. I mean what you say matters of course (!) but I hope you get my drift...I'd very much like to see this commented on as it's an interesting and complex DILEMMA!

feeny I agree, Madeline. It's a bit haphazard getting the right people to see the post when so many new design dilemma posts are coming in at the same time. "Bumping it up" means that I'm commenting on it in order to get it to the front of the design dilemma section so people notice it, even though I'm not the best person to answer your question. The dilemmas are listed in order of the most recent comment posted. I'm hoping that Dytecture or lewis + smith or Main Line Kitchen Design or Carolyn Albert-Kinkl or one of the other professional designers who is good with kitchen layouts is on line tonight and sees it. Or Ironwood? Do you do design as well as construction (you seem to know about everything)? But be patient, Madeline. Some of them have already weighed in briefly on this thread, so they will see that you've posted plans and hopefully weigh in sometime tomorrow if not tonight.

thebigredbarn I appreciate all the comments! We have been chewing on this project for several years going back and forth with ideas while we save up money. We are getting close : )

You mentioned making comments would help the discussion continue, is there any other information that would be helpful to have?

The location of the windows is negotiable. There is currently only one window, the one on the right wall. The others are ones we look forward to installing. I LOVE windows and we have a large beautiful garden, orchards, farm fields and mountain, hidden from view when inside our house. These old farmhouses avoided windows on the west/north side.

Thanks again for taking interest in our project!!! Noelle

feeny Actually, the information that the windows are mostly negotiable is helpful, as that increases possible places for the refrigerator (you don't want one in front of a window, after all). But I assume that all the doors are not negotiable, yes?

thebigredbarn Actually...
The top door goes out an enclosed porch whose foundation gave out, and will be removed this spring. We plan to use the siding to side the pantry which is the door on the right side of the drawing. This door on the right wall currently goes out to a small porch. We chose this location for the pantry 1. basement not an option, 2. north east side with lots of shade keeps it cool, 3 it looks good from the outside. We are not planning to put a door in the pantry because it is currently a high traffic run through my kitchen that I would like to avoid (kids opting to go through the house rather than around it.) and we would loose shelving space. Since we use this current exit/entrance so much we figured we should plan on an alternative exit/entrance and so decided to keep the door off the back (the door at the top of the layout). However the door on the left wall is our main entrance through a mud room and is in close proximity to the door out the back. So I maybe persuaded to give up the door out the back.

I think because there are so many 'negotiables' it's been challenging to pin down and finalize a plan.

feeny Are there restrictions involving gas lines for the stove or water for the sink placement? People won't be able to make informed suggestions without knowing all that info. And it may just be too wide open a question for a Design Dilemma discussion. Usually the more focused the topic the better the feedback. So people are more able to comment on the weaknesses and strengths of an already drawn up kitchen layout plan. But I'm hoping people can at least get you started thinking about fridge placement.

thebigredbarn Good news!!
My husband in the process of our mudroom renovations (underway as I type) discovered we can recess the fridge into the wall (half way), this will give us a larger area for our island and more seating :) This is the wall where we were planning to locate the fridge
The suggestions regarding the smaller fridge and a built in helped us think more creatively..
I will post our kitchen remodel plans as feeny suggested on a new discussion and look forward to the feedback.
What a unique tool this is!
Thanks again for your interest in our projects.

feeny Excellent news! That will make a big aesthetic difference, besides giving you more space to work with. Best of luck with the project and with your big, busy family!