Let me see if I can answer all the questions -- this is a bit long: * The home is 1930s "semi" Colonial with small touches of art deco style in the original hardware, cabinetry and mouldings * The family room is an addition. It is on a step down level (like the original formal dining room in front). We are making changes to blend it better with the rest of the house, including entertainment center cabinetry that better matches the kitchen. * The two normal doors into the new enlarged kitchen are pretty much standard width and are cased in the original trim. If the opening was enlarged, the thought was it could be left uncased and arched, which would match the uncased original arc that leads to the formal family room. We could also custom mill some matching trim. The potential removed wall would still require a beam that hung down about 7 inches. Due to the nature of the add-ons over the years, I'm don't think hiding it into the ceiling is possible in this situation. * We are matching the original flooring throughout the new expanded kitchen and the rear foyer area, to match the original hallway and dining room. It is a random plank, quarter sawn oak with bevels between the planks. However, the family room will be in a different flooring. * The original rear foyer area has an original built-in closet used as a broom closet and two built cabinets in the side, with matching original inset recessed panel doors. The corner pantry was added in later and the doors do not match. The new kitchen cabinets will be inset, white, recessed panel but a slightly different style. These are painted currently in a taupe shade that matches the trim in the rest of the house. * Heading into this rear foyer area is a cased opening that is identical to the kitchen entry to the left of the main entry. We are taking off the door to the entry by the main entry, as it seems like it will just get in the way. * Standing or sitting by the corner windows in the lower left, you should be able to see directly through the two openings directly into part of the family room. At one point, we thought about raising the roof and floor of this room and taking out the wall completely, but the cost was way too high. * I think the bath is far enough away from the main working area of the kitchen and down a little niche, so there are no hangups with it sitting off of the "virtual room". Thanks everyone for your feedback. This post was edited by gooster on Wed, Mar 20, 13 at 11:56

These plans are not the easiest to read because each view is over two pages, sorry. The kitchen is 13.3ft wide x approx 27ft long. Here is the arial view; Arial view 1 - the doorway on the left is into the formal dining room. The other side of the kitchen with the rest of the island: This is the wall on the left of the top arial pic with the door through to the formal dining room. This is the fridge wall - top of the first arial pic. The cabinets will get shallower past the fridge and remain shallow into the rest of the kitchen. The doorway on the right goes into the hallway. This is the continuation of the fridge wall (top of the second arial pic). These are shallow glass display cabinets with a window seat. It's currently showing as 18 inches deep, but we may reduce it by a further couple of inches to 16 inches. Maybe an inch or two deeper than the top part of this pic. The window seat would be deeper because the window is recessed into the wall. This is the bottom of the first arial pic - this shows the sink in front of the window with the dishwasher next to it. This is exactly where the current sink and dishwasher are, so we wouldn't have to change the plumbing. This is the continuation of the sink wall (bottom of the second arial pic) which shows the range wall. We were originally going to do a 36" induction cook top with oven below, so were tryng to make it a feature with a bump out and gorgeous looking hood. I think we are now leaning towards going with a 48" propane Wolf range, so will take out the bump out (gaining 3 inches) and the hood area will be more simple, probably with a stainless steel Wolf hood instead of cabinetry hood. This is the final continuation of the sink/ range wall, just simple upper and lowers. The end of this run matches up to the end of the glass display cabinets around the window seat. The doorway between the range and this run goes into a small utility room with washer dryer and back door to outside. This is the island. The top shows the back of the island, but we are going to modify it. The bottom shows an oven on the left which we will be taking out and replacing with the built in trash pull out, so it will be closer to the sink. We will also probably put a microwave in the island. We're considering putting a small wine fridge on the end of the island (15 inches) with a single criss cross wine rack on either side. The island dimensions are 12ft x 3ft including overhang (maybe a couple of inches wider). To give the island a little heft we plan to do an island like the below with cabinets to the edge of the granite on both ends, and seating in the middle. We will use stools that tuck all the way under the counter (no backs). Now the bit everyone is going to disapprove of. ; ) The aisle on the range side is showing 36" wide. We can gain a few inches here as we are not doing the stove bumped out, so it goes in 3". The aisle on the window seat side is showing as 42". Again we can gain a couple of inches here by making the decorative cabinets slightly shallower. Any thoughts on this? I know the aisle widths aren't ideal, but at 38" on the range side and about 43 - 44" on the other side, I think (hope!) it will be enough. I'm actually not crazy about huge wide aisles anyway, but I know these are on the lower end. The alternative is to take out the window seat decorative cainet wall altogether and have a curved island starting at 3ft and bowing out another 10 inches or so which which would give us an island 46" at the widest point and increase the aisle width to about 50". This is an option, but I think that wall would look so pretty and I would hate to lose it. Thanks so much!

Everyone's kind remarks have certainly made my day! Thank you! But I also can't have you think this is a 100% DIY job. We have been our own GC, did all the demo (two walls came down, and nine layers of floor came up!), my husband did all the wiring, drywall and painting. But I paid the gas man to move the gas line, paid a plumber to install a totally new drain and pipes to the prep sink in the island and I paid for the floor I bought to be installed. We had a local cabinet man $600 for two days worth of cabinet installation to just 'get the show on the road'!! :-) My husband would be capable of doing it, but since it's not his day job, it would have taken him weeks of evening and weekends to plug away at it. That was some of the best money we ever spent. In two days that man had almost all the cabinets in and my husband installed the appliances. So, we've paid for some work to be done, things we knew we couldn't do or didn't want to have to wait a month to do! But I estimate my husband's "handiness" has saved me well over $12,000. I've had to be patient, but it's been worth it. Now, if I can just be patient until this weekend when we hangs my chandeliers......... :-)

Hi Jo Jo - I did this quickly with lots of interruptions, so I apologize in advance if it doesn't work or doesn't make sense. Since you're turning your living room into a kitchen I'm a bit concerned about the view from the front door making it look like that door to the kitchen is still the primary way into the living space. My thought is that you don't need a doorway directly from the foyer to the kitchen and it's probably best that you don't. I thought that if you only had one doorway from the mudroom, you could put your appliances on the interior wall so you could take advantage of your view with bigger windows and a prime position from the island prep space. (Please don't take all those french doors literally, you could put picture windows and doors anywhere along that wall.) I think the powder room is redundant and not the best location for privacy. If you just located the full bath entrance off the side hall you wouldn't need it. Barring any structural requirements, you could widen the doorway to the living room and encourage traffic from the front door there instead of a choice between the entry past the powder or the entry through the kitchen. Quick kitchen layout... If the side hall has storage closets lining the side opposite the wall with the bathroom and study, it should be a nice, private "away space." And you won't need the powder in the center of your public space.