Re: DW placement. I say don't worry, you will get used to it. You won't notice it.

Re: two ovens: unless you have a large kitchen, I would let the basement one suffice for a backup. How often would you use both? If only holidays, then not sure it is worth taking the space of your kitchen.

Dishwasher: I'm moving my DW to the other side of the sink, away from the dining room. When I bring in plates now, I have to go around the DW to the sink to scrape them, then load them. It sounds like putting the DW right, as you prefer, would give you the dining room to sink to DW flow. But yes, you will get used to it on the left if you decide that is a better layout.

Double Oven: I love my double wall oven. It's on the end wall of my galley, not in the "triangle," and I always have to carry everything over to a counter. But that doesn't bother me at all, and I couldn't do without the double. I find going down to the basement while preparing a large meal a pain, and I think you would, too, on a holiday. If you had two ovens, you would find you use them more than you think. For instance, you can use the second one as a warming oven while you make something else on top. If you are short, however, make sure they install your ovens a little lower than usual so the top one isn't too high.

Cooktop: I love my cooktop and wall oven for the same reasons as you give. Since that configuration works well for you, why not stick with it? Also, it's easier to get a double wall oven than a double oven range.

Walkway: My entire galley kitchen is the walkway from the garage to the rest of the house. It's not often a problem.

Prep sink: My mother has a prep sink in her small island. It's a good thing. I think you'd like that. It doesn't have to be very big.

HTH

picture of layout?
That requested... I used to have myDW to the right of my sink and now it's to the left. My dishes now go in drawers to the right of the sink. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. It could not be any easier. For the first time in my life I have double ovens. The top is a smaller speed oven. But... we are only two people now though we entertain/have family over on the average of 2x a week. I love having ovens at eye level. If you have the extra ovens, I'd go with what you love working with.

I've had a DW on either side of the sink and both work just as well for me. In planning a room, I would look at flow -- dirty dishes from the table and clean dishes to their cabinet or drawer -- where does the open door block the least flow?

I don't have a basement and never have, but it seems to me that the last thing I'd want to worry about when preparing a large meal and having lots of folks about is running up and down stairs to retrieve hot things from an oven -- or having to worry about the rolls burning, etc. Seems like running upstairs when snacking in the basement would be easier. If you have a two oven limit (built-ins, that is) I'd consider a toaster oven in the basement over running up and downstairs for meals. Where are your movie nights taking place? If that's in the basement, then that might be a lot of your second oven use and sway things. If not, then I'd definitely go with the double ovens. But then, I have an admitted double oven preference anyway.

Wow - it's so overwhelming in the planning stages, isn't it?

I have some thoughts on the double oven and can share our solution. My husband prides himself on hosting Thanksgiving. Sometimes we host the other big holidays too - but the emphasis is always on food come turkey time. His biggest frustration is when he's got the turkey in the oven, the rolls in the other oven, and then my mom or his mom comes over with a "I just need to melt the marshmallows on the sweet potatoes" or "The green beans need a little freshening." When he spotted the GE Profile single-spaced, double oven in Lowes, I literally saw the lightbulbs go off above his head. He decided that would be his big splurge.

So we have a 48" range with a large oven and small oven, as well as the small singlespaced GE ovens that fit in the wall right under the microwave. In addition to feeding a crowd, we're excited about the energy efficiency too when we're just heating a pizza or baking cookies... the spaces are so quite small and will not take up nearly as much room as heating an entire oven.

Good luck!

DW-I've had it to the left, to the right, and to my side opening into my legs. Left or right is fine, opening into my legs not so much. :) What kind of sink will you have, single or some kind of double split? Just make sure if it's a double split that you switch the big and small sides too.

2nd OVEN-I have my second oven in what we call the hospitality center located on the far side of the great room from the kitchen. It was DH's brilliant idea to reuse a wall oven in great shape from the kitchen pre-renovation. I love the location for the reasons you mentioned. Out of the way on a daily basis but available for big gathering and movie nights. In your cooktop paragraph you even mention not using an oven that much. I'd think the basement oven makes sense.

PREP-My island is 38" wide by @ 8 1/2 feet long. I have a 15" round prep sink at one end that forms a not quite equilateral triangle with the range and frig. Best part of my kitchen. I also prep on the island (the long side) and love to be able to sweep right into the sink equipped with a garbage disposal. Double pull out trash and recycle are at the other end so I've got that covered too.

For your other questions do you have a plan you could post? One thing I learned is that you can't anticipate every detail of how your new kitchen will function. I never had a prep sink. If I had I might have gone with a single bowl in a 33" sink base to pick up 3 inches in my dish drawers. But I still have mornings that I love my new sink just as it is. Depends on how flexible you are in making adjustments.

I'm not good at answering some aisle/flow/walkway questions without seeing a floor plan.

I think you'll get used to a DW change. I'm changing mine in the new kitchen.

Prep sink? One of my major priorities in the new kitchen is to separate the cleanup zone from the prep zone. No more wrestling with dirty pots and pans. No more fighting to use the water during prep when someone is handling dirty dishes in the sink. It sounds like you have a big kitchen. I would absolutely, positively have a prep sink. Do all your meal prep there, and let the boys get their drinks, wash their hands, or work on the dirty dishes at the cleanup sink.

I agree with Lascatx about running up and down the stairs during a big meal prep. That would drive me nuts. I used to have a countertop convection oven in the garage as I only had one oven in the kitchen. It was nice to have that second oven available, but it was a PITA to run back and forth while busy. I guess it depends on how often you use a second oven. I think you'd find yourself using two many times (more than you think) if you had it.

Floorplan??

FLOORPLAN!!

It's okay if it's drawn on graph paper. Just use heavy lines that show up.

Re moving the dishwasher, I've had it either side and had no problem. It is where it is. I'm very very right handed and that doesn't seem to matter. It would matter more if it were in an inconvenient place. Mine is on the far side of the sink from the dish cupboard, but equidistant to the baking/cooking cupboards. I don't like mixing clean dishes up with the sink in use so that works great. If you want the kids emptying the dishes while you're washing up the bakeware or something, you'll want the DW where they won't be crossing the sink. That said, some people are very set in their ways and don't adapt easily to the new arrangement. It should be easier for you to adapt because you're planning it, and can think it through and be prepared before you actually confront it IRL.

Ovens: You don't need more ovens that you need. The basement oven should be fine for holiday overflow. Pies and casseroles are pretty easy to transport up and down if you put them in a shallow box or high sided tray. For cookies, you either take longer waiting for one batch to come out to put the next trays in, or run some down the stairs, dealer's choice. That works too.

If you prefer a separate oven, listen to yourself. When I've lived where there was a range, I avoided using the oven. Post your floorplan, even if the walls might still change a bit. It's a starting place. Every now and then there really is a kitchen that is made hugely better by using a range rather than separates, but it's pretty rare, especially since you're designing from the ground up.

Not understanding the walkways. Please post floorplan. :)

As to the prep sink, yes, you'll get used to it. If you don't want to use up your spread out space, consider a narrower sink! I have a trough with a bowl, the bowl facing away from the prep cook. I'll admit that the trough is a little too narrow for the water pressure, and I do get some overspray if I'm not careful with the setting, which is no big deal as it's in soapstone and the water just flicks back into the sink. An 8" or 12" trough might be just the ticket for you, however. Hm... I should say that I wash chickens at the clean-up sink. That's because my counter is lower there, the sink is bigger, but mostly to avoid cross-contamination.

You know yourself best, however. Maybe you need to put the prep sink 18" or so down the long edge, so you can use it near your prep area, but still have the uninterrupted area open for your spreading out.

I so appreciate your comments and it has given me fuel for thought. I know for sure I will go with the seperate oven and cooktop. I'll need to continue to weigh the double ovens option just a bit more. I really know I will benefit from a prep sink. The older two boys are now 10 and 12 and really are helping me out and enjoying to cook and bake. SO, I know a prep sink will just be more and more appreciated in the future. I'm still a bit torn on the dish washer placement. And I feel I'm fine with the traffic lines coming into the kitchen from the garage/mudroom, but I'll see what you all think about that. I have drawn up the plans and will try to get pictures submitted after DH gets home (he has the camera). I do have the luxury of moving walls, etc. at this point. We really are sold on the floor plan and feel like we need to work out the kitchen layout. However, we are completely open to your suggestions for it all to hopefully be our dream, "forever" home. BBL with pictures:)

Agree that dishwasher is not so much which side, but flow from sink to DW and DW to cabinets --make sure that the DW location is supported by the rest of the floorplan or vice-versa. I currently have DW on L but could do R if everything were aligned that way.

Separating prep from cleanup is going to be very key with kids. I did not have good floorplan for that and it influenced interactions. It was hard to load or unload the DW when anyone was cooking or prepping. This works okay between spouses who are good coordinators and have common goal--hey, please unload the DW while I do this because I'm going to start dinner --but is a PITA with kids--you don't want any room for excuses or need to say, I can't do x until he does y.

Can't resolve the oven dilemma except to say, there are good ideas above about how to think about it, and also, you may want to take a moment to list all your options.
I currently have double ovens but only rarely use both at once and would like to consider better use of space in remodel. Of course at holiday meal, the double wins out. I'm considering things like a good-quality countertop oven (stored elsewhere most of the time) or looking into some smaller wall ovens. I am pretty sure I do not need 2 large ovens. I am more of a stove-top cooker mostly--for me it is more often that I want to use 2 different temps simultaneously for certain meals so as to have things ready quickly and not in sequence, and to have a Thanksgiving backup plan. But for a family of 8 it might depend on whether you make a lot of meals using oven method--to me it would seem that you would more often be using larger pans or casseroles and could exceed the rack space in a single oven. However, all that can be managed by choices--yes, one can make the ideal oven-only meal if one has the oven space, but if it's more optimal to have one oven and space for other things, you adapt--you make one part of the meal in the oven and the other on the cooktop or micro (or from the frig!) and you don't sweat it. The basement oven issue could be one of safety--would not want to be expected to feel like I'm supposed to haul a hot casserole up the steps or get a kid to do it. Of course you can use special carriers and have "rules" about how to do it, it but still. Now, people have been hauling such things up or down the basement steps for eons, but I wouldn't plan on it because it just asks for trouble when you consider the dynamics.

I'm going to give this a whirl...very rough, pencil/graph paper drawings.

So, this is the general floor plan of the house, my youngest even added his "mark" in the garage a{{gwi:1481721}}rea

This is a blow-up of the kitchen area, 1 square equals 1 foot. The darker black lines are walls that would depict the rooms and the pencil lines would be the basic kitchen layout unless we really change things around ...

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More of the flow of the rooms...

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Then this is a little of my idea for layout. I absolutely want a long wall of windows (9-10 feet). I love this look, especially flanked by hutches. On the new home building thread I really like how "buckheadhillbilly" set their range wall into the drywall and thus "did away with" a corner cabinet. I like the windows in so many of the kitchens on G.W. I'm so bad w/ names...I remember joan2121 and stiles'kitchen. I need to get my youngest to bed and I will be back for more info. Sorry about the pictures being so large, how do you adjust that? I have more inspiration pictures, but we'll use this as a start.

OOoops, last picture didn't post, some of my start at a layout...
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Just bumping this up with the floor plan! Thanks!

If your fridge is on that lower left wall with pantry cabinets, why not move your prep sink to the other side of the island near the end so that you pivot from fridge to sink and then have the full short end to prep -- as well as the option of a second prep space (with 4 kids, you need a sous chef, right?) on the other side of the prep sink. And on the holidays -- even a third prep space when you pivot from clean up sink to island and have a cooking frenzy. LOL

I think I'd set the sink back at least 12-15 inches so you can have a plate or cutting board set to the end side. If you go more than 18, you may feel too far removed in swinging around the corner there. Does that make sense?