I'm not a design expert by any means, so I will leave that up to others here that are MUCH better at that. But one thing I noticed and wondered if it would be wise for your household - having two DWs rather than one. With 11 people in the house, you probably can't even get a whole set of dishes from one meal in just a single DW. It may be difficult for you to give up the cabinet space to do that, but I really think that would add significantly to keeping things tidy...I can only imagine that must be a never-ending struggle with a household the size of yours. I'm not certain of your plans as to where you are placing dishes, but it looks like one DW could be to the left of the sing and the other could be to the right. Flatware and dishes might go nicely in the island.

Also, I didn't see a place where you have your microwave, so you may want to plan for that.

An induction cooktop would be an option for faster than gas response, lack of waste heat and safety around kids cause the burners don't heat up.
It would use your existing 220 line.
The Appliance forum has many threads here's one-

Here is a link that might be useful: you know you have induction when

And a current topic with a compilation-

Here is a link that might be useful: induction vs gas coktop

I would have someone qualified come and take a look at the bearing/not bearing issues before deciding on anything. It's too hard without plans for the entire house, but I wonder which direction the floor joists run and whether there are structural elements to the implicit hall way running from the stairs to the dining room or in the wall with the passthough that lines up with the little wall in front of the staircase. It could be fine or you might need to account for some posts and/or either would interfere with widening doorways.

There can be assorted issues with having open areas behind a rangetop and with a narrow bar right behind it. It starts with ventilation costing at least a thousand dollars more, then the potential for people at the bar to be injured by splattering or have their papers ruined and finishes with filling adjacent room with smoke or cooking gunk.

I would also caution against building 3 different eating areas - all of which can't seat your family and not enough "kitchen."

If you are rebuilding both door ways leading to other parts of the house (which could also be a structural change), I'd look at whether some should be moved instead. In your head, try out moving the family room door up towards the sink or the dining room door towards the stairs.

So this is just for ideas - not reality. It's showing a couple of things differently arranged and absolutely is trying for storage and working zones without paying attention to seating and homework. Some of what's here also voids your guidelines on what is acceptable to do - but that's mostly because (and pardon me for this) a lot of people don't know what anything costs - sometimes this includes me. I am now likely to think through cost vs. benefit, get multiple estimates and plan out ways I might be able to mitigate the costs.

Part of why this is just for ideas is that I have no idea what may or may not be possible in your house. So - if you can move over the doorway for the dining room, you can have a really nice clean up area between the family room entrance and the dining room entrance. It helps to separate the table setting, coffee getting and cleanup activities away from people who are still cooking.

Again, not knowing if this is even possible, I would move the exterior entrance to where the low window is and close up the original entrance. Even if you keep that area for table space, it makes it into a nook instead of a hallway.

The range is a trade for the wall ovens. I would make this trade in a heart beat for more counter, storage and not feeling hemmed in by tall things. Adding a dedicated-to-cooking ref drawers unit will cut down trips to the main ref.

Again, it might have something you could use and might not.

Hi, Momx9. Your home must be a lot of fun, and opening up so different areas can communicate well makes even more sense than usual!

I agree that moving the door to the outside makes great sense if possible--one of those basic changes that pay off big. Without the pantry of course (BMore missed that part), this one change would allow the whole breakfast area to be used for table and chairs.

I also agree completely that having the stove open to a counter inviting family to come visit should be avoided, although raising the bar would lessen most of the danger. If your stove/range/whatever were to stay there, though, how about keeping solid wall behind it and opening the counter on each side up? What functions were you intending that bar to serve? If just serving, it still would, and people could still walk up and lean safely at the open areas to chat. If you want family to be able to sit at an open bar and snack and chat, the stove should be moved.

Since that is such an intensely trafficked area past where you've drawn in an island (I wonder just how many passersby 11 people turn into in one day? :), I personally would probably give up the notion of seating people on that side of the island, just take it off the list of possibilities and look for other ideas. How many people do you see really wanting to sit there together at one time? Would just a couple of stools on the outside end do, for those family members who don't want to stand like the others dropping by?

what part of the country do you live in? do you need a mudroom entrance? do you have one?

I do agree w/ no seating at the island - unless on the very end on the right. you need storage there anyway. drawers, drawers, drawers.

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions. My head is spinning again, lol. Not sure it was good I asked. ;) Now I'm working on rearranging everything in my head again. :P

We originally were thinking of closing in the window, or moving the door to where it is. Nixed it because of the cost involved - based on proposed contract #1, we're pretty much at budget already (low 30's).

And I have thought about the problems associated with having a bar over the cook-top area. I guess I need to really think outside the box about moving things around. We just so really want to have the kitchen open to the family room cause as it is now, whoever is in the kitchen doing something is completely cut-off from whatever is going on in the family room. But I LOVE having double wall ovens, so really want to keep those; I like having oven up high where toddlers don't have easy access to getting hurt.

I'll see if I can adequately sketch out the whole main living area, but to answer desertsteph, we could really use a mudroom but there really isn't a way to add one in our budget. In the floor plan, the "down" stairs are a half flight to the garage, then twist around and go down again to the basement (playroom, laundry, storage). The "up" stairs go to a bedroom that's over the garage. I have entertained trying to build a mudroom in the space where the concrete patio is (the door going outside from the "breakfast area".) Again, not in the budget right now.

So, if I ditch the stools along the walkway at the island, should I add more storage like shallow drawers? The island cabinets will be purchased new, or custom built, as that is the only piece that we couldn't make work when planning how to reuse the existing cabinets.

Hi, again. In that particular layout, I imagine I would do additional storage on the island. But then, I'm not you and have no idea what should be there except that it's home for a large family and needs to be very functional and able to multitask for a wide range of ages.

What I'm wondering about now is that "breakfast" area. You say you've considered making it into a mud room. Do you not really need that table there all that much? Or, is it mostly used for homework? Lunch for a pair of toddlers?

If you want to keep the whole thing for family hanging and working, moving the door will make that into a space that several people can use at the same time in different ways.

If you someday want a mudroom there, part or all of it could be taken for that purpose, and the door might do extremely well right where it is.

If it were a mudroom, though, where would kids hang to be around mom (aside from underfoot, of course)? What other place would be developed for homework?

The kitchen proper: A major priority is to open it up wide to the family room. My suggestion for a partial opening doesn't seem to meet the need. In that case, 3 possibilities:
1. Stove where you have it backed by a high bar for safety. (Stools? No stools?)
2. Same plan but stove on sink counter, window moved, and a nice open FRM counter for family living. (Room for stools, right?)
3. Different layout altogether, with stove elsewhere but window probably not moved, possibly even including part of the breakfast area.

One thing seems clear, though. I think you should firm up what functions you want that current square footage being called breakfast area to serve, now and in a future when further changes might be made. That's because this is the time for it. You need to design the entire area so you can optimize the way it will serve your various needs. If it's a mudroom someday, for instance, creating seating elsewhere becomes a lot more important, etc. So, what're must-haves for this area?
Meals? For how many? Just the little ones?
Place for little ones to play near Mom?
Additional room for kitchen functions to spread into?
Homework?
Mudroom?
Couch for hanging?
(I'm sorry, but I couldn't read the label on the built-ins you have one your drawing.)

I have to say that I have had a higher bar behind a range (or cooktop) and it really wasn't very safe. In my current kitchen, I can see splatters on my backsplash at about 20" high. Walls are safe.

Possibly, you can cut the wall cabinets beside the cooktop and leave the area under the hood solid but open where those cabinets were - as if the cooktop was flanked by windows instead of cabinets.

Well, better late than never; here is the layout of the entire main living area.

Still wrestling with the overall plan. I feel like I need to keep as much in the same location as possible, to keep the cost where I can afford it, but also feel like the best solution to keeping the cooktop where it is would be to NOT open up that wall, which we REALLY wanted to do as part of the kitchen update.

Wall between kitchen and family room as it is now -

sink/window wall

and the wall between kitchen and "breakfast room" - see the little pass-through window?

Very much a "before" kitchen - plans are to keep cabinets (refinish and repair), reuse stainless counters, raise cabinets to eliminate soffits (did I say that already?) and put a shelf below them at standard counter height, new floor, window, island (made of new cabinets and counter).

This process is making me really cranky though. Cause I feel like I just can't quite get it right. Seems to me, every option has some flaw that I don't want to live with.

I know exactly what you mean emotionally.

What you're doing in trying to reuse what you have is good, but VERY difficult and takes a lot more planning. If you strongly want "X" then the existing layout can get in the way and force compromises between multiple "wants".

You've also lived with your existing kitchen so you know whats driving you bonkers now. I found the thought of spending a lot of bucks and not getting any improvement drove me bonkers.

If you drink in moderation, nows the time!

I imagine you know all the pluses and minuses of reuse/buy and I am resisting the temptation of talking about it. What I will talk about is listing your goals for renovating your kitchen and ranking them. Try to consolidate down into a few sentences or a list of up to 5 things that you really, really, really want from redoing your kitchen.

Don't list "reuse cabinets and counters" - that is a method of making the project fit in your budget. That's also important but reusing what you have isn't the only way to do that.