From what I've read so far, both plans strike me as...starters. I also definitely like the U better, but that's not saying much yet. I'm making some assumptions here that may not be at all valid in your case. But, you're having trouble designing a kitchen you really like into that space. You have a lovely room for dining that you almost never use. Is the front living room what you think of when you look forward to getting home or also gathering dust? Yes, center-hall colonials are tricky, but is the way your first floor serving you all you could want? If you could somehow sell seldom-used square footage for $50,000 and the promise of at least hundreds saved each year in expenses, would you? And be happy to live in the downstairs space still left? With this sort of scenario in mind, to me the first plan makes expensive changes with absolutely no promise of genuinely expanding living into the space available. Enlargement of the kitchen should shift at least one daily meal into the space currently occupied by the dining table, but would it? Or would it just perch you guys on stools and damage the DRM's elegant ambiance? I know the bay is new, but it also looks like a former kitchen and breakfast room that underwent an unfinished transformation--that outside wall an obvious remnant of its previous life. (If you did this, how about doors to a nice brick or stone patio outside instead?) The second plan is a simple spiffing up of the parts of your house that get heavy living, so I agree it's a good choice if you like the way you live in the rest your house just fine as is. Small kitchens are greatly underrated and can be truly excellent, so once you work out the details to get what you want--excellent. I'm also guessing the coziness of your kitchen dining area is one of its big assets, so that part doesn't need to be larger. If this were my remodel, though, and if the front rooms were mostly unused, I'd be not be happy with the allocation of my space. People do find ways to make good use of center-halls without ruining their character. Those that do tend to sell very well in most markets. After all, a lot of people who like their look won't buy them because of their space-use issues. For my own list of wants, I like halls for themselves and would definitely want the center hall as a major feature--with nice views in both directions. I would not want a large kitchen, but I'd want a bit larger one laid out just the way I like it. I'd like two places to dine with different moods, but only if they were both used a lot. One would be decorated nicely enough for seating guests to dinner, but so formally that it repelled us most of the time. (We have this, BTW.) I'd want a living area that multifunctioned for daily living and allowed guests to separate--in actual chairs!--into different conversation groups. If it had to be in 2 different rooms, I'd want good circulation and communication between them. I'd want an inviting, comfy area I could go read while my retired DH watches drag races, and vice versa--he splits while I watch Design Star, (one of those embarrassing things I wouldn't normally admit to). I'd like one living space to be sunny, with doors to the garden, and I'd like another to be just right for snuggling up inside when it was horrible out. All this in a center-hall with those great corner rooms and a kitchen remodel opening up possibilities, and I'd start by erasing their labels.

Sounds great! Would you be able to post a sketch (on graph paper or something, so we can see the scale) of the new plan?

It's funny because this is our 3rd house, 2nd major kitchen renovation, and 2nd major renovation in this house, but we still have quite a few firsts... This will be my first major renovation with GardenWeb's help, which I am really excited about. I first discovered GardenWeb 3.5 years ago when I was looking for a new range. The one that was in this house when we bought it was horrible, so I decided that if we had to replace it I wanted it to be something amazing and requested a high end one as my 30th birthday present from my DH. These forums were invaluable to me in helping me decide which range was right for me and I'm so glad I found them! Unfortunately, it was also shortly after finishing our 1st major renovation in this house, which was a complete redo of our master bathroom, which included completely reconfiguring the space, stealing some space from the master bedroom, and moving the laundry room upstairs so that it's right outside our master bedroom. I absolutely love it and think it turned out great, but I do wonder sometimes if I had discovered these amazing forums earlier if it would have been even better... :-) This is our first time doing a kitchen renovation with kids. When we redid our kitchen in our last house we did everything ourselves except for the granite countertop install and we were able to come home from work and work on it until we went to bed, and then work on it all day on the weekends. With 2 small children (5 & 2) there is no way we could do that again so we are hiring professionals to do it for us this time. Plus we are expanding the kitchen with a small addition which is something we couldn't do anyway, which leads me to my next first... Another first with this kitchen renovation is that it will be my first time putting an addition on. We were in townhouses before this, so this is our first time owning a home where we can actually expand the footprint of the house (not that we could have afforded to before, lol). It's kind of terrifying and exciting all at the same time. The last first that I can think of is that this is the first time we are doing a renovation with a full service design/build firm. In the past we've always been the ones either doing the work ourselves or hiring people we needed to do the work but doing all of the design, coordination, etc ourselves. I'm an engineer and a type-A personality control freak, so although I'm excited to get help with this (I can't do it all with 2 small children and a job) I'm also kind of terrified to let go of some of the control. Our first design meeting is on Tuesday so hopefully it goes well. I am really glad I have the help of everyone on this forum to help though!

Whoops! I was reading all the responses, but I had to skip to the end. A big part of it all is I do not work and my husband does. No! No! No! Your husband works outside the home. You work at home. I would not realize this so strongly, except that for the first third of our marriage, I did not work outside the home where someone else paid me. Then for 19 years I did. Now I am back to working in the home. YOU DO NOT REALIZE HOW MUCH YOU DO WHEN YOU ARE AT HOME ONLY!