The current plan has way too little space around the range, and isolates it on one side of a traffic pattern, so yes, moving that door someplace else would be beneficial.

Many people on here love that corner pantry.

The island in the above kitchen has storage but no other function and may be partly in the way.

Honestly, I don't like this plan very much. It's too dark, no windows in the kitchen itself...and the layout seems very forced. What do you like about the house? The fireplace also keeps light from coming in the space and the porch is blocking light, too.

If you're building your own home, look at some floor plans and find a space that is light and bright, has views from the kitchen, maybe looks into a bright and cheerful breakfast room (with a bay window?) and put the fireplace/family room, across the peninsula/island area.

I've walked through home show houses, similar to this one (at least the part in the pictures) and no offense, they seem very forced and staged. I wonder how anyone could really cook or bake in the space. Such a big room and not much counter space by the range and you have your back to everyone, while you cook.

BTW, I'd be more positive if you already owned the home, but since you don't, I'd find something else. You do realize, we're going to be picky, after seeing YOUR kitchen :)

For me, there's little things and big things about this kitchen's floor plan. I'm going to call the third pic the sunroom and the one with the fireplace the family room. I would like to know where the family room opening on the right goes, the same for the kitchen opening leading in the same directrion and what the little box between them is.

I confess that I have no idea what you mean referring to the sink as an island and the back hall arched opening.

They do have an arched opening thing going. I generally don't like fancy ceilings, but I love these.

So - I will say that the transition from kitchen to sunroom is kinda klutzy. I'm not sure of the position of the sink - I'd be getting water all over sunroom floor. If you do plan on an eating area in the sunroom, I guess I'd rather see something like a buffet backing the sink. If its intended to be informal, then I'd want the toaster, coffee pot etc. on the buffet out there and I'd see if I could work in dual accessible dish storage.

Big floor plan issues are the placement of the ref - you have to walk around the island to get to it, then put things down on the island, potentially push them as fas towards the sink as possible, walk back around and pick up the washables, wash them, put them back, return to the island and work. A prep sink would help with the ring around the rosy thing.

The range is in a terrible spot back in the windowless corner, completely turned away from family and friends with very little space to either side and no storage for pots and pans. The timeout space for the chef.

Its hard to tell sizes from photos, but I'd like to see the range move - and likely transform to a cooktop. Possible new sites are the sink run where the wall space is, maybe where the ref is or even onto the island.

I would think a while on the location of the cleanup sink and dishwasher. If you do a design with a prep sink, I'd be wanting the prep sink closer to where the clean up sink is. I spend a lotta time at prep-cook and not a lotta time just doing cleanup. So I would see if I could have the light, the improved views and the contact with family and friends who might be in either room when doing prep.

Another thought might be to move the arched entry from the back hall towards the corner pantry (if possible) and drift the range run over to a newly formed "L".

Generally, there's something about the style and ceiling that is makin' me down on the corner pantry. So, I'd maybe look around for another location.

Check if they'd let you ditch the entire wall between the kitchen and the sunroom structurally. Of if something could be done with columns and arches.

lavender, the eating area/sunroom, is a bad photo, well, incomplete I guess. The back wall is completely filled with windows. the wall opposite the doors is solid because there is a guest suite on the other side of it. I also think since I want a white kitchen that will make a huge difference in the brightness in there. I think there is a law in central PA that you cannot have painted cabinets--haven't seen a kitchen with them yet.

I also think that I'm not into the built ins around the fireplace, would rather have windows there. I don't know what I would put there. I've really gone to a less-is-more kind of look.

I'm not sure why I liked this floor plan. I know the bedrooms upstairs were perfect. And the number of bathrooms were spot on.

As I said, we are not committed to this plan, we have some other ideas to look at. As I was advised though, it is wise to choose a plan that the builder has used before because it will keep your costs down. If they don't know the plan, they may do some estimating that doesn't work out to our favor. This is a builder with a great reputation, and I'm sure he has built many different homes. My dh had the meeting and will be bringing back floor plans tonight.

I'm not concerned about my back to people while cooking. I usually am not doing a show. And really, not too much time is spent at the range actually doing the cooking. That is why I would make the island longer (add some stools at the end) and add a sink for prep work.

I dunno. I am not in the same town as this kitchen right now so I don't have the luxury of popping over there to look at it.

Again, not tied to the plan, or the builder. That covered porch out back is really nice. Fan and all. The trim work on all the windows is gorgeous. This home had some really nice finishes, including the moldings, and even the steps to the basement were already wide and solid oak. It was those kind of little touches that made us really like it. Plus our realtor was a custom home builder himself, very hard to impress and he really liked the quality he was seeing.

Yes, the kitchen layout/floorplan in the big issue.

The wall between the kitchen and sunroom may be there for furniture placement. Removing it would leave a long peninsula to place furniture against and that may be pretty impossible or at least very limiting for the functions the room has to serve.

The problem that I have faced with the few houses of this style/era that I have helped with is that there is very little room for furniture placement. The house I have in mind looked beautiful empty, but the living room had no wall for either a large case piece or a sofa. It was all windows and fireplace and archways and french doors, and we ended up with seating for about four people floated in the middle.

The Great room had one wall for the fireplace and entertainment, one wall for a wet bar, and very little room for furniture. Again the sofa had to be floated out in the middle, and this leads to problems with lighting and traffic patterns etc. If it hadn't been down two steps from the kitchen there would have been a "wall of furniture" dividing the two areas.

To give you an idea of how restricted it was, she moved into a house 1/3 the size and was able to use the same LR, DR and family room furniture.

That is off topic, but you have to analyze the whole floorplan not just the kitchen.

I have seen this layout in a slightly smaller kitchen, wherein the kitchen opens to the family room. In the layout I saw, the stove was not surrounded by two doors; instead, the kitchen was L shaped for stove and sink walls. Two stools were at the FR side of the island. I think with an L shape, its a really nice layout. I might swap the oven & fridge placement to avoid barrier island issues.

P.S. In the photos - horrible glazing.

The kitchen feels very odd to me with everything out of alignment and spread out. (Nice sight lines down to the fireplace, but things don't line up within it.) Think of the typical, meal-prep path... fridge to sink to prep to stove. This will require laps around the island, which is also in the path from the doorway. I'd have to see the floorplan to see how the doorway move would work, but it seems like it would sure help the kitchen.

My first impression is that they planned the house around it and let the kitchen be an afterthought. Sorry if that's not what you were hoping to hear.

Great ceilings!

No prep space around the stove, and big hulking piece of island between the sink and fridge, - you will be getting your exercise in that kitchen.
I would be leery of emptying a pasta pot of water and carrying it across an open doorway all the way over to the sink, or carrying a fry-pan of stir-fry across the open-door to the plates on the sink counter.

I'm skipping over some of the replies, but that general space has a lot of similarities to our kitchen/breakfast/family rooms -- the long hall. Mine is on an outer wall at the kitchen end, so I had 2 exterior doors and one into the garage. I closed off one of the exterior ones to create the hutch that has our fridge drawers. If you put the fridge where the range is, used pantry cabinets and opened up the corner, then had cooktop on the wall where the fridge is with a prep sink across in the island, you'd have something similar to what we have. My doorway into the dining room is on that side and the ovens are at the end of that run (same wall as the cooktop, where the pantry is in this one). That's not often a heavy traffic area for us, so it works well. If you do a 48" range, you probably won't need the oven stack, so even better -- lots of counters.

I was concerned about putting all the cooking and baking on the opposite side of the island from the sink and DW. I was even temped to put the 2nd DW in the island, but we flanked the sink and kept all the clean up over there. The prep sink allows us to wash something or to dump pans or bowls until we do a complete clean up. I can cook on one side of the island and have someone working beside me and someone across from me. DH often preps on the sink side of the island and can use either the main sink or the prep sink (we put the faucet in the corner for use from either side). I had a couple of comments here that said they didn't think it would be that big a deal and finally went for it. We have loved it -- and it looks like you might have a larger pace than we do. Ours is sort of 13x14ish -- the side walls are not even length. Hope it helps to see something similar.

I'm not a layout guru, but what blf wrote is a big issue I think:

"would be leery of emptying a pasta pot of water and carrying it across an open doorway all the way over to the sink"

bmorepanic, the arches you can see in the 3rd photo...

One on the left goes to the foyer, one on the right goes to the dining room.

I totally agree about the sink and splashing.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Judging from the light coming in, I'm guessing the front entry is behind the fridge wall and the arch at the end of the kitchen leads to garage/utility/etc. In my kitchen, a person has to walk into the kitchen 6 feet or more before they would cross the pivot spot between the cooktop and prep sink. That's plenty of time to stop or make the turn and go around the island. Never caused us any concern in the 4 years we've been living with it.

Bee- I would do something with the main sink and range at right angles...like these (MOL) with an island across from the range, with prep sink. The fridge could go on the other side of the range...or on the wall across from the main sink, with pantry and oven/microwave.

Here are a few examples and if you really need the kitchen on the inside walls of the house, the main sink could be open to the breakfast area, with a peninsula.

I did see the windows in the fireplace room, but they aren't bringing much light into the kitchen area. Windows on either side of the fireplace would help :) {{!gwi}}From Kitchen plans
{{!gwi}}From Kitchen plans
{{!gwi}}From Kitchen plans

Here's one with the sink, on the peninsula. If this kitchen was white, it would be very bright and cheerful, even without windows. On the other side of the island would be the fireplace and the fridge and oven/microwave could be on the back wall. I would put the entrance into the kitchen, where you have the pantry, now. Hope this helps :)
{{!gwi}}From Kitchen plans