If the conditioned make up air you will need were dumped into the room where the pass-through leads, there would be less odor passing into that room. Note that a 4 ft x 6 or more ft hood aperture mounted at 7 feet approximating a normal baffled commercial unit will force three inconvenient actions: o Provision of enough vent cfm to keep the entrance velocity high enough at the hood aperture; i.e., to meet the requirements you can find on Greenheck's site for commercial cooking. You might be looking at 2000 cfm depending on cooktop size and what you cook. o An equal amount of conditioned MUA and an attendant MUA control system o A cooktop mounted far enough from the wall and pass-through to allow the expanding effluent to be captured and not passed through (at least in still air) I'm not recommending this. kas

Corner cooktops take up much more space than those on a straight run. And, only one person at a time can be there. If you envision kids helping out at some point, they will not be able to do that with a corner cooktop. It truly isn't a problem to locate the cooktop on the wall oven wall. And moving the wall oven across the aisle doesn't make it any further from the cooktop than it is now. I also really think that you and the kids would enjoy the ability to sit at a peninsula. If you put the fridge directly across from it, you'll find that the food travels from the fridge to the peninsula and with the water right there to your right, the peninsula will become the primary prep center. It will really only be a step to turn and stir the stock or to toss the just chopped ingredients into the stewpot. People become accustomed to making adaptions to overcome the limitations of poor design. I see this all the time. Behaviors, even poor ergonomic actions or poor safety habits become ingrained and rote. And then they fear the change. All they know is the rote actions that they are accustomed to. Don't fear the change! You're getting an exciting opportunity to make not just your kitchen better, but you LIVES better. Yes, good design can make that big of a difference in your family behavior patterns. And you've gotten good advice and a good layout. The only thing additional that I'd suggest is making the U a bit shorter in distance so you have more room for seating on the other side, and putting the DW between the sink and range. That's usually a poor location, but with the peninsula, that will be the prep location and you can now have someone chopping veggies there while someone else on the other side of the sink loads the DW. And someone else stirring risotto. And someone else doing homework on the peninsula's seating side. And someone else raiding the fridge. ANd somone else nuking some pizza rolls. All at the same time. Without getting in each other's way.

Thanks for the response wamot. Yes, the kitchen looks nice from the pictures and yes, the pictures are deceiving :) The floors are all buckled and badly scratched/broken/etc. The cabinets are 10 year old home depot cabinets that are starting to fall apart - everything is loose and saggy, doors are having problems shutting and aligning properly, drawers don't close all the way, etc. We are going to get custom cabinets in a painted white finish with a dark painted or dark stained island for contrast. We will do really wide pre-finished wood on the floor in a lighter color. Budget - we've been given a very rough estimate of $30K for cabinets and counters, by one cabinet guy. I hope that helps! This post was edited by tammyw on Wed, Apr 23, 14 at 15:42

WhostheBosch, I agree it IS a flat out gorgeous kitchen. The whole the purpose of the thread is to explore any and all solutions that would be the least destructive to all that beauty. That 20 inch aisle is really quite wacko though, and the range island is woefully out of scale and has no work room. After seven years, it is time to think of how to fix it. Loves2, An island (with reasonable aisles) can't fit without taking out the Advantium AND bumping into the breakfast room (which means moving the porch door). The alternative is Buehl's much earlier drawing of a range penninsula where the skinny penninsula is now. Buehl, appreciate your keen thoughts on deploying each inch. 42 would be better at the sink for sure. A few of you have noted that point. Well taken. Valins, the counter treatment is dicey. (Great memory on SIL Barrelhaus' kitchen BTW! She remains thrilled, and while breaking all kinds of clearance 'rules' the kitchen still works great for her and her family. A Gardenweb triumph! And what IS with my family and weird kitchen design challenges anyway...?) I could see a different counter treatment for a work island, but that still leaves seaming in the range area. Sure would be nice to somehow recycle the skinny island's 19.75 x 54 granite to left and right of the range... First thing first though. Sis needs to determine her limits - dollar and energy wise. This has been a very helpful and fruitful discussion. I know my brain got well exercised. Whatever direction she chooses, I feel pretty sure all the options have surfaced here. Just as I hoped. Thanks!!