Oh, this! ^^^^^^ That looks lovely. I don't think it needs to be centered. That looks great. As an alternative, you could build a hood that covers that entire short wall and then just place the working parts (fan, ducts) over the range. That may look better or worse but something you might play with. A lot of the kitchens revealed here have lack of symmetry because they achieve better function without it. Or they find a creative way to balance the lack of symmetry as you have with your utensil crock. A tall, narrow painting would look good there as well if you decide to go with a simpler backsplash although that might be too-too much on the wall if you go with a decorative tile-insert. I'm a window person. Even if the view is questionable, I'd go for bigger windows. The more natural light, the better, imho. Maybe install some kind of trellis to hide the hot-tubbers? For the first time in my life, I have no uppers and my seasonings/oils/sauces are in drawers next to my range. I just bought a couple of cheap spice inserts at the hardware store and a few cheap drawer organizers (plastic boxes) at The Dollar Store. Oh, I love it so much. I can open the drawers and find everything I need at a glance rather than digging through the upper cabinet. As I said, my fridge placement doesn't bother me either due to the pit-stop at the prep area. I hope you find the same with your mock cooking sessions. I like this plan so much better than how it originally started. I hope you feel good about what you've achieved.

>>...didn't have a pantry?>> Well, I wouldn't have any room to store any food, LOL. I cook a lot so I have doubles and even triples of every size cookware I use, plus 25 yrs ago I moved in with six sets of dinnerware and three sets of flatware. I have three separate spice drawers because I cook everything from Indian to Chinese to French and half a dozen other cuisines. It was my first (and so far only, thank goodness) opportunity to design a kitchen, so I crammed in all the storage I could. We were handicapped by only having 1 wall of uppers. One half-wall holds the frig and is open to the LR and DR. The other wall has floor-to-ceiling windows to capture a great hillside view: I worked with graph paper and managed to get everything behind doors. It was about a week before I realized I had FORGOTTEN to put in any food storage! I did have three narrow closets in the DR (a former bedrm) for the upright freezer, the microwave and wine stemware, and the table linens/vacuum/stepladder. But nothing for dried pasta, Asian condiments, dried mushrooms, cans of soup, etc. So.....we had fortunately not placed the order for the kitchen cabs yet. Two 18" wide pantry units were hastily added, and placed in-between the DR and kitchen. The top doors hide fixed shelves, the bottom doors hide rollouts. All are height adjustable, heavy-duty. I'd never had a pantry before. Now I'm spoiled and can't imagine living w/o one! A walk-in would be nice, but there's only two of us so not really needed. Ten years later I had a handyman built us a custom storage unit for our indoor back porch area. It was such a pain carrying the vacuum up and down stairs, I finally broke down and bought a second upright. I don't have any good photos of it, but half is deep enough for the vacuum and BBQ tools, about 12". The other half has shallow, 7" shelves that store dry goods like spray paints (for DH's hobby), DW tablets, Brita filters, vacuum cleaner bags, etc.

Ditto the chalk board paint! Make lemonade out of the lemon. If you want it less obvious paint trim wall color but I would make it look like a frame for the chalk board. Trim is there to hide the edges of the drywall and keep it from chipping which can happen easily especially if they are prying with a screwdriver. Also Ditto the touch latch I have one on my small pantry. If you are going to put a handle match with the kitchen cabinets.

Thank you all SO very much for your thoughtful comments and time. I will post some layout pictures here (just met with our Kitchen Designer yesterday again.) We are going on Year 5 of living here this fall, and I have given constant thought as to the space & use since we have moved it. We have had a project going 100% of the time since we moved in due to the original state of the house. Now it's time to upgrade vs "fix". We are overdue! I've toyed around with ALL ideas (removing walls, extending the bar/not pictured-discussed, etc). For the most part, we like the layout and decided the pantry/2nd Kitchen are functional as is, although I love ideas, thank you all for your thoughtfulness. To answer other comments, I don't need 2 Kitchens + Butler Pantry. But that is the existing layout and it's easier to leave as-is than remove any of these large walls or areas, and I do use the space. I don't need 10K sq ft of house either, but it's what we have. (FYI it was a foreclosure we got for $360K on 25 Acres in Rural Indiana; about $100K put in initially to make liveable, and now we are just slowly chipping away at projects). I am going to reuse a lot of these cabinets in a basement storage room & garage. I hate to get rid of them! The Corian should hold up well in the transition too I think. Here is a picture from standing at the Main Island, looking OUT to the rest of the eat-in kitchen. We'll be adding a furniture-style cabinet piece where the additional cabinets are on the left. This bulkhead we may remove. They are big aren't they..? I have no clue what the $-tag would be to remove all of them (this one cheap likely.) I'll get a quote out of curiosity. My gut feeling just says it will be $$..... Just through that hallway to the left is where the 2nd Kitchen & Butlers Pantry are. I can't wait to get rid of this ugly dark red color. Existing Kitchen. Proposed is moving the Fridge from where it is now (right picture, where proposed Wall Oven & MW are - across to other side). Adding 36" rangetop. I can't go much bigger given the space there and existing gas line. We'll be moving our existing GE Induction, Wall Oven, MW to the 2nd Kitchen so did decide to just do 1 Wall Oven + MW in the Main Kitchen. Thanks for your comments on that! You're all right - as we grow/change, we will need that in the kitchen for sure. I was torn on leaving the 48" Fridge in the Main Kitchen, but it helps me avoid re-doing cabinets in the next picture..... as I have a 48" slot with non-working Fridge. Having a 42" and 48" seems to be plenty, vs adding two 48"s. See below. Here is the before of 2nd Kitchen (Please Excuse the Mess - this was previously a child craft room/nanny area). We would paint these cabs and re-do the ugly hood. Existing Wall Oven + old MW would go in here too on the far left replacing that cabinet. And the other side. Little pocket glass door to the bar. Non working 48" SubZero. 2nd Dishwasher, 2nd Trash Compactor, and Sink. Everything in the existing MAIN kitchen will come into here which is nice. No appliance worked when we moved in but I wasn't ready for a full remodel then. But glad to not be wasteful with those purchases. I have always loved the cabinets/style despite being so wood-heavy, so we are just going to paint these to match the main kitchen, new countertops, new backsplash. PROPOSED: And the Butler/WD/Toilet Room. This is on the other side of the Main Kitchen (behind Range/Wall Oven Area). There is a single toilet behind that far wall. And the other side. Here I don't need a 3rd Dishwasher but am struggling to figure out what to do with that space. I could add another Wine Cooler but seems odd to have in the Laundry/Butler area when we have a Bar. Trash Compactor will become pull-out Trash Bin. Ideas for filling the DW space? Again this will be all painted cabs, countertops, backsplash. But see the big bulkhead in here too? I don't want to take that out. We have 6 Bathrooms to remodel in the near(ish) future. I have to be frugal in some areas if I want other areas to pop more. Layout for these 2 pictures: Comments/ideas/suggestions are all ultra welcome. I will put a separate post about some of our semi-final decisions to our next steps in the remodel and would love your criticism.