Thanks very much for the honest feedback! I�m glad that I am getting it now before we get too deep into it! I apologize for not posting more info�I did not want to overwhelm all of you. Hopefully this answers some questions. I do like the idea of the corner sink�husband and I had talked about that (he is not crazy about it), but I will bring it up again. Our main goal with this renovation is to update and open the kitchen up into the rest of the main level (we rarely use our living room and dining room now because it feels so cut off from the kitchen). The kitchen is 50 years old (but did go through a "modernization" in the early 90�s), and the cabinets are falling apart and appliances don�t work too well. Our house is a tri-level, with the bedrooms/bath upstairs, family room, laundry room and bathroom downstairs, and living room/dining room/kitchen on the main level. Our house does not have a front door per say, but a main door on one side and a kitchen door on the other that leads out to garage. Here is my rough draft at the main floor layout. The kitchen has two doorways (currently with pocket doors); one that leads into the stairway landing/pantry closet area, and one that leads into the dining room. We plan on taking the dining room wall down halfway and putting a bar counter there. This will not be our forever house. Right now it�s my husband, our 19 month old, and me, but we plan on having 3 or 4 kids and know we will outgrow this house in a few years. Our plan is to stay here for 4-5 more years and then move somewhere bigger with another bedroom and bigger yard. I am the only one who cooks in there, but we like to entertain and that is why we would love to have the room open up into the rest of the main living area. Plus, I�d be able to see the kids at the dining room table and in the living room. Right now, the only usable counter space is the area between the cooktop and sink, and so I am used to just working there. I just really want some more counter space! Here are a few other pics of the kitchen (very old�from when we bought the house in 07) and surrounding area (the wall we are going to take down is the one with the 4 black paintings on it). Also, here is a bigger image of the measurements�I read in the "getting started" forum to shrink the pic, but I guess I did that too much! Thank you so much for all the advice!

Re: the pantry door: it has a wall to rest against inside the pantry so it won't really interfere with shelving if it opens in...if it opens out it will always have to be kept 100% closed. Re: the angled wall/future doorway into the den. That door could just as easily be on one of the straight walls and function just as well. I really don't think that angle and the angle for the patio door near the breakfast nook make much design sense. If the second bathroom is not Jack and Jill it will still have to service the den/bedroom or that bedroom will have no direct access to a bathroom without going through someone else's bedroom. You could make it a bath that is accessed from the hall and rework the closets. That may make a lot of sense because right now that part of the plan is a bit jumbled. I would do some pretty serious playing with furniture layouts in that great room because a room without walls can be very difficult to lay out furniture in. You will have to have floor outlets to service lamps and such, (if floor outlets are allowable by your local code.) And in order to know where to place floor outlets you have to know where you are putting the furniture. Unlike a wall outlet that is inconveniently placed and can either go unused or have an extension cord running from it, a floor outlet stuck under the leg of a sofa or in the middle of a traffic aisle is good for nothing. These are all things that I would consider while still looking at Plans, rather than trying to problem solve in the middle of a build. Some architects have a strong sense of interior design and some don't . If the house is designed from the outside in, the inside may not be all that functional in some areas. I don't design houses from the ground up, but I have worked on a few complete shells where anything could be done within the walls and one of my starting points was the function of the room and furniture layout. I would design the raw spaces around where I wanted the furniture to go. That way you don't end up with a bedroom that has no good place for a bed, which I've seen, more than once.

Interesting how people looking at the same picture see something different ... Take away the doorway and this is the classic U layout. Maybe you could call it a Broken U, but a U is uninterrupted and keeps everything within reach of a single cook -- that's the strength of a U. An L is better for shuttling traffic through /allowing multiple cooks, and that's the functional style we have here. The hood should be six inches wider than the stove below so that it really catches all the odors and grease rather than allowing them to be deposited onto your cabinets. I know this is common advice here, but I've never found a need for a wider hood /never had a problem with odors or grease -- maybe my hood is stronger than average? A related issue: When your stove is on an interior wall, you have to figure out how you're going to vent. It's certainly not an insurmountable issue, but it is one that you need to address. Like others have said, you probably want all drawers in your lowers, rather than a mix of drawers and cabinets. Yes. Inventory your current kitchenware, then assign everything a spot -- that'll allow you to accurately determine whether you have an appropriate number of drawers and cabinets. Personally, I'm planning for my base cabinets: 3 cabinets, 3 three-drawer stacks, 1 four-drawer stack, and 1 pull-out behind a cabinet drawer. I could not have predicted these specifics without having "assigned" items to specific places. The island looks very large. Will you be able to reach the middle of it to clean it? Always a concern for me. A prep sink in the island would do a lot for the layout, that's the biggest change you need if you want to keep the basic layout here intact. I'm not a big fan of repetitive items, but I agree that if the OP's going to keep this layout, a prep sink on the island would be helpful. Realistically, though, adding a prep sink is expensive and would eat prime island storage. I'd rework the plan rather than do this. Other thoughts: I agree with the idea of moving the oven(s) to the side near the sink, and I agree that this area appears to be a potential clutter magnet -- perhaps go with a tall cabinet here instead of countertop? You need to flip the pantry door. Imagine you bring in groceries, set them on the island to organize them ... you have to walk around the pantry door. Best would be a pocket door, but I'm not sure you have the space. You're going to serve beverages from the area near the refrigerator ... but the dishwasher is on the far side of the room /with the island in between. Since you wash so many glasses, it'd be better if the dishwasher and beverage area could be closer. The dining room looks fairly far away from the kitchen; plus everything's going to have to be carried around the island. Any possibility the family room could go into this area (if you rework the mudroom, it could have windows on two sides) and place the kitchen directly in front of the dining room? Overall, it'll be a pretty kitchen, but it could massively improve in terms of function, work zones, placing things in convenient places. "Walk through" mentally and imagine yourself doing everyday chores: Putting away groceries, making your favorite casserole, fixing coffee or a soda, cleaning up after dinner, etc.

semi-circular extension of patio is an element I took from your plan. I don't know what it is, but it only made sense to me if it was an extension of paving. I'm not suggesting you add paving you don't need. (If the grey semi-circle in your plan represents gravel, that is just a softer form of paving.) You are the one deciding what it is and where it is. I'm just trying to make guesses that keep up with you. Mowed grass is the de facto path for areas that are accessed infrequently. There are a few (very few) groundcovers that might stand up to fairly infrequent use if grass is not desired. But part of the equation depends on cultural conditions present: light/moisture/soil, etc. For areas that need frequent access, some kind of non-plant material (paving) must be used. You could say you're "not happy" with something. But if you don't say exactly WHY, then it's impossible to help work toward overcoming the objections. As I mentioned at the outset, it was difficult to interpret the plan because it is not spelled out what things are. One cannot get sense of how elements are, or should, fit together. It would be helpful to label anything that is not plants, even if it is very generic. Whatever shape represents a plant material, assign a height value to it (height when it is mature.) I suggest using a scheme where mowed grass is +0 and all other plants are +whatever-their-height-in-feet-is. If we knew this, the intent and direction of the plan might be easier to figure out.