I meant running bond pattern, not brick joint. Hopefully that wasn't confusing. No one answered so maybe so!

Our dryer (stacked on washer) vent is on the right wall but unit vents out the back so we have flexicble tube from back of dryer to right wall. Our washer also shakes a bit but have never had the tubing come undone from back of dryer or the wall. The flex in the tube seems to absorb all the movement fine.

I'm skipping over some of the replies, but that general space has a lot of similarities to our kitchen/breakfast/family rooms -- the long hall. Mine is on an outer wall at the kitchen end, so I had 2 exterior doors and one into the garage. I closed off one of the exterior ones to create the hutch that has our fridge drawers. If you put the fridge where the range is, used pantry cabinets and opened up the corner, then had cooktop on the wall where the fridge is with a prep sink across in the island, you'd have something similar to what we have. My doorway into the dining room is on that side and the ovens are at the end of that run (same wall as the cooktop, where the pantry is in this one). That's not often a heavy traffic area for us, so it works well. If you do a 48" range, you probably won't need the oven stack, so even better -- lots of counters. I was concerned about putting all the cooking and baking on the opposite side of the island from the sink and DW. I was even temped to put the 2nd DW in the island, but we flanked the sink and kept all the clean up over there. The prep sink allows us to wash something or to dump pans or bowls until we do a complete clean up. I can cook on one side of the island and have someone working beside me and someone across from me. DH often preps on the sink side of the island and can use either the main sink or the prep sink (we put the faucet in the corner for use from either side). I had a couple of comments here that said they didn't think it would be that big a deal and finally went for it. We have loved it -- and it looks like you might have a larger pace than we do. Ours is sort of 13x14ish -- the side walls are not even length. Hope it helps to see something similar.

Elmer, you asked: How could you know anything about this compared to Americans who have been to Britain for a few weeks/months or have watched British TV before? My answer: Because I watched BritComs and other shows BEFORE living there/being married to a Brit. The surface-jokes were funny before I knew the depth of the humoUr. :)