Welcome! There's a thread going at the moment, probably somewhere on page one, about seeing the kitchen from the front door, with opinions for and against. It's a recurring question, and I'll put a link below to a similar discussion from last year.

Also on or near page one you'll find the "Read Me If You're New" thread. In it are directions for posting photos.

Here is a link that might be useful: Can your kitchen be seen from front door?

To post a picture (scan or other), it must first be uploaded to the internet. Most people use a photohosting site such as Photobucket.

1. Take a picture or scan the layout.

Open an account on Photobucket (free).
"Upload" the picture to your newly created Photobucket account
Click on the picture
Look to the right side of the page, you should see a box labeled "HTML Code". Click on that box. It should briefly change to "copied"
Paste the code you just copied into the "Message" box here on GW.
When you preview your message, you should see the picture.

Post a picture here and we'll give you some ideas about what to do to hide your kitchen based on what we see.

OK, here goes trying to post the scan.
The dotted lines are possibilities to direct traffic and eye flow. The pic on the sketch is an idea to put at the end of the sink peninsula to block the view. The problem with the china hutch idea is that is messes up the flow for buffets.

The space to the left is an office - which leads to a mudroom then the garage. Hopefully, we will have dropped our messes before hitting the kitchen.

Right now I have an L-shaped kitchen with a 9' island. When people come over, they encircle the island and it's very difficult for me to work. Our new kitchen, I'd like to keep them around the sink peninsula.

What do you all think?

You seem to have some decent space there so the problem should be solvable. My first impulse is to simply move the kitchen the left. How about some more details...
original floor plan including windows and bearing walls? amount of destruction and rehab you're willing to take on? Sweeby test? position of items that are not allowed to change? pipes, ducts, windows, etc?

What is route for groceries and garbage? is there a deck door to consider? Is the guest bath a firm decision?

Can you swap the sink with the stove? Often, there is a nice feature behind a stove, so it dresses up. A sink is always a sink and rarely a thing of sheer beauty.
If not, can you move the sink somewhere else so that is is not the first thing people will see?
We had our front door open into our kitchen in our last house, but our sink was around the door and out of immediate view. In this house, post-reno, you can see our island from the front door. I am not opposed to seeing a kitchen upon walking into a house, but I would be mindful of what will show at first.
Unless there was a window with a view behind the sink, I'd try to shield it from view if possible.

Is there a wall behind the sink run, or is that counter totally open to the DR? If there's a wall, why not just wrap it along the hall opposite where guests enter, creating an actual hallway with a nice piece of art, etc. It doesn't need to be wide, just 3 feet or so so that guests entering then can go left or right. It would mean shifting your layout to the left a bit so that the island is still useable and the freezer is more accessible, but it looks like you have the space.

If all the "public" spaces (LR, DR....) are to the right, and you're wanting to avoid guests in the kitchen, it might make sense to have a door to the "guest bath" open into the entry hall, so guests don't need to walk through the kitchen to get to the bath.

OTOH, the bath might be more accessible for family use if it opened towards the office.

Thank you all. I tried responding earlier, but my response must have gone to cyber space :(

Let's see:
This is planning stages for this house, love the entire plan with the exception of entry glitch, so we wouldn't want to relocate kitchen (office, mudroom, garage to left).
We could move the guest bath back into the closet space and still enter through the kitchen with a short hall - nicer? Hopefully still room for a coat closet.

People always congregate in my kitchen. In this kitchen, the sink counter would be the place I would want guests to congregate around (no wall facing the DR) - not my island. (I think I'd move the sink closer to the outside wall - forgot to draw windows). And we'll need to put in an outside door in the nook space.

What I'm wondering is if anyone has any ideas to partially block the space? Maybe, just maybe, something like walls at the end of the counters - could have arches between the aisles or maybe columns with a box beam at the top.

I'm just wondering if we put walls at the end of the counters if people will want to stand around the peninsula? Will it be more difficult to buffet from there?

I do think the photo on the sketch is an interesting idea that would block part of the kitchen and would be pretty when you walk in - just don't know about party flow?

Somewhere I saw shutters that they used like a screen on top of the counter (to ceiling). They were built-in, not free standing.

Thank you :-)

How about glass doored cabinets counter to ceiling on each counter end toward the entry?

Oh, that might be very pretty and they wouldn't have to be very deep (unlike the photo I posted). Earlier, I was thinking about some see-through shelves. They would screen, but not block.

What is 'south" of the dining room? Is that the exterior wall of the house?

"Maybe, just maybe, something like walls at the end of the counters"

...that is what I was trying to describe in my earlier post. If you put a 3-foot wide solid wall at the end of the sink run, centered on the entryway, you aren't phychologically walking into the kitchen. You see a solid wall (or art, or display area, etc.) and you divert either left or right. it doesn't have to change your basic layout much except to center that wall on the opening from the foyer in a gracious way. It doesn't have to be a sheetrock wall, could be cabinetry, bookshelf, display niche, whatever. But just enough to create a welcoming, gracious entry instead of walking right into "Kitchen".

I think the bigger concern is that, after entering the house, visitors have no choice but to walk directly into the kitchen. Regardless of whether they ''see'' the kitchen upon entering the front door, in ten steps they will be standing right in the middle of it.

That is, I think, undesirable on various different levels. If it were an existing house, okay, ya live with what ya got. But for a new build?

If there is absolutely no alternative, then I guess it makes sense to think about shutters, screens, and other cosmetics. But I would revisit the overall layout first.

Do you have a oddly-shaped lot or something? Why this floorplan?

I'm having the same challenge! I'm thinking of pushing my formal entry/foyer out a few feet from the front of the house so your not stepping right into the kitchen!