I'm having a hard time reading dimensions so this is just a very quick stab at what stands out to me. First and foremost... the range placement is a problem. There is no prep or landing space on either side. Are those steps next to the frig? As things currently stand, I'd flip the frig and pantry. It looks like it would make a nice pantry space. But really, we need to know about you and your household. HOw many people, cooks, kids, orientation to other rooms, overall dimensions, space between island and perimenter cabs. OK... I'll stop overloading you now!

No problem. There are 3 of us now with one on the way. We are quite casual and rarely entertain, but I think it is because we don't have a space to do so right now. We have 42" around the island on all sides. The bottom of the page is the new living room addition. The right side is the current foyer which will be extended towards the bottom of the page. A railing between the kitchen and foyer to give a more open feel. The top left of the page is the new office space (old kitchen) for my home business and the top right is the new dining area, which is currently the eat-in area of the existing kitchen with a 6' gliding door to the screen porch and deck.

There are a set of back stairs in the dining room that go down to laundry and mudroom to the garage. The steps just below them on the page go up to the bedrooms.

The kitchen is about 18' by 13'6". The top wall of cabinets is 12'. We are not set on a range, a cooktop/wall oven is an option as well.

Thanks for the feedback!

K & B

Range in the island has no work space on either side and is a bigger challenge to vent properly. As a first thought, I'd put the range and fridge on the top wall, and use the fridge spot for something else, as Remodelfla said. This would help separate your cooking and cleanup zones. Do you have multiple workers in the kitchen, so could benefit from a prep sink? I find ours a priceless addition to our workspace.

How much space should we have on either side of the range? Any ideas on where the micro could go? Really don't want a micro hood combo. Would the fridge stick out too far? Should it go right on the end?

I can't draw as well as others so I'll just give some thoughts.
1. I definitely switch the pantry and frig.
2. Move cooktop/oven or range to the frig run.
As to how much space on either side; it depends on how/where you prep and if you tend to use one side as opposed to the other. I tend to prep on one side only so will scoot my range down and have more space on one side. You'll want a minimum of 2' on at least one side... 36" would be better.
3. Do you bake and need a baking counter?
4. I would put a prep sink in the island on the left end across from the range
5. MW... if you want your kids to be able to access the MW independently you might want to consider a MW drawer or put one in the pantry. If you don't want them to be able to use it on their own then I'd put one by the frig above the counter.
6. Is there a second level or can you vent a hood straight up through the ceiling?
I just kept thinking of things as I was typing... sorry!

Excellent feedback! Keep it coming.
There is just an empty attic above this space so ventilation is not a problem.

STUPID QUESTION ALERT What do you use a prep sink for? Both DW and I cook, but not usually at the same time. I do most of the everyday dinner cooking and she does the baking and entertainment cooking.

I am going to try and update the drawing for another post tomorrow.

Any thoughts on the shape of the island? We like the semi-table like feel of it.

I like the switching of the pantry and fridge. Do you think a full depth fridge would be too obtrusive over there? Perhaps we could bump the wall back a little.

You could recess the frig into the wall or bump out your cabs to 30" on the cook side. You'd still have 36" clearance on tehthat side of your island and that should be adequate. If you recess the frig or get a counter depth frig then clearance should be OK? Someone better chime in on that one.

A possibility..
{{!gwi}}

If you swapped the fridge and pantry, I'd worry about there not being enough room when the fridge door is open and someone is sitting in the stool across the aisle.

Instead, how about putting the pantry where the fridge is in your drawing, and putting the fridge on the sink run. You could even make the sink run counters deeper. I would nudge the window and sink up toward the top wall a bit, if that's an option. Then you'd have that whole top wall for range or cooktop/oven/microwave. I'd be inclined to stick with a range and put the micro under the counter in the island, either facing the sink or the pantry. Without the range in the island, you could make the island a bit narrower and increase your aisle width, especially on the side with the stairs.

Here's a quick attempt at what I mean...

Holligator's plan keeps that nice island with seating toward the open foyer/living area and places work areas toward the back sides, less on view from the foyer below. It still offers the chance to create very attractive view lines and opens up your middle area by getting the range hood out. The fridge can be paneled, and an architectural stove hood designed that doesn't look extremely kitcheny and works well as a focal point from the living room.

"What do you use a prep sink for?"

With 2 of you in the kitchen, and not at the same time, it probably isn't as crucial. Things will change as the little ones get older and if you host family dinners where other adults help out, but I can see it being helpful for your situation, too. The prep sink allows cleanup tasks and food prep tasks to take place simultaneously and in separate places. You don't have to rinse lettuce or prep chicken over stacked dirty dishes. Hopefully, it's also placed closer to the stove for filling and draining pots.

There are more preps going on at once sometimes, too--Maybe one person is rinsing and cutting chicken at the main sink while another washes salad greens in the prep sink.

In addition, the prep sink, if proper placement is possible, can also serve many other purposes, adding to its value. It can be handy for the person baking (adding water to recipes, rinsing dough-covered hands), the people seated at the island, be a place to fill water pitchers, make juice, and wash hands. (With your island shaped that way, it'll be a great place for kids' baking, painting, and craft projects, which will benefit from a nearby water source.)

Our main sink is farther into the kitchen, but the prep sink, while being handy to the stove and baking areas, is also more on the edge of the kitchen so people other than the cook can use it without coming through the work areas.

Hope that answers.

I really like holligators layout. I'd add a prep sink at the end of island (away from seating), right across from the stove.

For me, if you add a prep sink to Holligator's, which I would be in favor of, the zones would crisscross and not work. The fridge is in the best dish storage location. BUT...Any chance of putting the range on the left wall with windows flanking it and making the cleanup and dish storage on the back wall? That would be excellent with Holligator's fridge and pantry placement, and I'd add the prep sink on the corner of the island near those things.

Did you say in which direction the dining room is from the kitchen?

Why I'm voting for sailorman. The isn't enough space for the island and the ref-pantry corner is a door circus.
{{!gwi}}

I just don't like stools backing onto stairs either.

So, we are back to one of our original favorites. The fridge just seems to work best in the LR corner cubby. We added the prep sink and the range is on the top run. We have 24" to the right of the range and clear to the corner on the left. One other layout we had was with the range in the corner. It looked kind of cool on paper, but some people have said that access to the range is limited and with the oven door open, you can't stand next to it in the "pie shaped" area.

Also included a layout of the entire adjoining rooms.

Thanks for all the great feedback. I think we are going to take this to HD to have someone do a 3D so we can get an idea of how it would look standing in the room.

We like the LG french door fridge with freezer on bottom, electrolux 30 inch range with double oven and LG DW. Thinking of a counter top GE MW to put either under the island or on a shelf in an upper someplace.

Adjoining room layout,

The reason I suggested the sink and dish storage on the top wall (and the range & pantry on the window wall), besides creating a zone with pantry/fridge, prep sink, and stove, was to have the table setting stuff close to the dining room. Not an important issue?

Can you tell us which room space is what on the rest of the drawing?

Rhome410, I'm guessing we would be eating at the island 95% of the time. Although, the dish storage along the top run would be closer to the island as well. DW is absolutely set on having a window over the sink.

Bmorepanic, In clockwise order on the layout.

Top left is new office/shop area (old kitchen) for home business.
Next is DR, pretty self explanatory.
Next, going down a level is laundry room, bathroom, mudroom. (Attached garaged is on far right of layout, not shown).
Below hallway to mudroom is family room.
To left of that, or to the right of the new kitchen is current Foyer (7 steps below kitchen, our current foyer steps go up three to the left and 4 more towards the top in the existing kitchen area, these steps will be replaced in the new layout)
Below the foyer in the new addition is more foyer and the front door.
Three steps up to the left is the new living room and 4 more steps up to the top is the new kitchen.

Incidentally, the steps going up from the new kitchen are to the bedrooms and another bath.

We are thinking about birch or ash for the cabinets, any opinions? We really like the blum metabox and tandembox drawers but they seem $$$.

Thank you again everyone, you are so helpful.

what if you were to put your pantry next to the DW? Then you'd have beautiful prep space (always a motivator for me) and be able to store dishware in the drawers closer to both the island and table. You could scoot the DW to the other side of the sink so it wouldn't be such a long haul.

We thought it might be nice to have counter space directly adjacent to the fridge. I guess the island is just as close as the counter, nevermind.

On another note, we played with having the range or cooktop in the corner, any thoughts.

FWIW, I love the breakfast bar idea that Sailorman posted. Adding a radius to the bar would allow people to converse better, but either way, I really like it.

The isn't enough space for the island and the ref-pantry corner is a door circus.

bmorepanic, a few clarifications...

The island is actually smaller than in the original design and there looks like plenty of room for it.

I envisioned that pantry with a pocket door and a double door fridge. I would love to have my fridge and pantry close together when unloading groceries.

I also think that a breakfast bar overlooking a foyer would be awkward.

All plans are great for somebody. All plans remodeling existing space have some issues. All people don't weight issues in the same way.

In the end, I didn't think I could add anything to the designs but clearance commentary and I'm sorry if it felt personal. I mostly quote nkba.org for clearances. In spite of the fact they want to sell cabinets, they have the best all around guidelines to me. Much of what we argue about on here is personal opinion and each and everyone of us believes we are correct in whatever opinions we hold.

We all try to get the best kitchen possible for the original poster.

This explanation provided by explanations-r-us, a limited company. Maybe we should have known but we didn't.

For the original poster....

I couldn't see a good way to get all the stuff you want into that space... You "should have" wider aisles than you do have. When the aisles are right, the seating evaporates.

The stairs dump a passerby into the middle of the island instead of routing people beside it. The dining room seems in an awkward location - it's kinda hard to get to when the island is occupied. All the work-a-day spaces are behind the island (have routing through the northeast passage). I keep seeing little johnny-or-jonette doing homework at the island and getting hit in the head with a passing laundry basket.

There's a lot of space in the house already that's designated toward special purposes. I confess that I would rather have the dining room, home office and kitchen be combined and forget about having multiple areas that seat 4-5-6 cause it makes my brain hurt.

So, I asked about the floor plan thinking that maybe those stairs could move someplace else or be smaller or something else could happen in the room design? Maybe the original kitchen could be kitchen and the wall between it and the original dining room could come down? And also wondering if home office could be in "more foyer".

However, you seem pretty happy with your design. So I decided to shut up.