In addition to the grid space diagram you provided, a drawing of the rooms/hallways/closets for your house will be helpful for others to see how their kitchen suggestions/designs "play" with the rest of the house. Traffic patterns and other things are helpful to see when designing a layout. Your drawing can be a very "rough" one that just shows the location of things.

Here is something very very rough. I have actual original blue prints I can post tomorrow

I am unclear. Are you planning on adding onto the existing kitchen-just making better use of the space or are you gutting the original kitchen and adding on an entirely new kitchen?

Gutting existing and doubling the space for an entirely new kitchen.

Do you enter at ground level and walk up to the kitchen? I was thinking along the same lines as sena, but I included support posts and beams, in case the walls are load bearing:

If you can put windows along the North wall, the layout for the new room could be flipped (top to bottom on this orientation). If you don't want the peninsula for seating, the wall could be extended a couple of feet, to match the stub wall beside the pantry. The support for the peninsula is a pony wall and steel support frame. The base cabinet beside the fridge is pulled out to match the fridge box depth, with the MW on a shelf. The cabinet beside the MW could open to the side, and hold chargers for phones, hooks for keys, etc.

Flipped plan, without peninsula. I put a tall, shallow cabinet beside the entry. The space between the corner of the tall cabinet and the corner of the pantry should be 36":

Thanks for these great ideas! I didn't think I would have room for a cook top and a wall oven. Love the idea of the prep sink and I had a similar idea about the angle walled pantry.

You do walk up a few stairs coming in from the back door to the kitchen level. New mudroom and powder room will be located on the other side of the N wall so that cannot be altered.

Speaking of consistent style, sena posted this pic on another thread. I love this style--thanks, sena!

I like this inspiration photo

Retro Minneapolis Kitchen · More Info

I am leaning more towards using a range as it is cheaper and I can't see myself needing 2 ovens at once.

That's a pretty picture! If you put the sink at the end with a large
window, you won't have space for a 36" sink and a DW. You can go down to
a 30" sink, and fit the DW in, but with the door open you won't be able
to load dishes to cabinet in the corner. You could keep your dishes in
drawers beyond the open DW drawer.

Yes, looking at the picture I think that is where you would have to store dishes. It's probably okay.

I'm contemplating including the peninsula you had in the first draft as well. Do you think it's odd to be sitting in the dining room / at peninsula and staring at the fridge? Although I don't know where else it would go.

If you give up the wall oven and use a range, you can easily move the fridge into the new section. Then make the area where the fridge was drawn into a snack/coffee center with the MW, and a small sink. It would be perfect for making a quick breakfast or a sandwich. If you don't want to look at the MW from the DR, you could hide it with doors, which is what I did in my vintage style kitchen. Deep drawers below could store small appliances.

You could also put a wall oven beside the fridge in the following drawing (as in sena's illustration), with dish drawers below. You would have landing space for both the oven and fridge.

I realized that the sink in your inspiration pic is off-center, so I increased the sink to 33", and decreased the trash pull-out to 12". The faucet can be centered with the window, to help disguise the fact that the sink is a few inches off. I have a 33" apron sink and 12" trash. Love both! The sink hides a lot of dirty dishes, and the trash pull-out is sufficient for our family of 5. I keep a large metal trash can in the mudroom, where I empty the kitchen trash as needed, and we compost, so YMMV.

The corner by the DW could be voided, or you could have one of the pull-out storage units. You can check deedles' and arlosmom's kitchens for their corner cabinet solutions. Both are vintage style kitchens in older homes, and are two of my favorites.

deedles' kitchen reveal

images--hidden MWs

images--corner cabinet pull-outs

Any thoughts on the minimum size of the length of the peninsula? At what point does it become too small? And should it have a bar height ledge on the DR side?

If I make the opening on the N side of the opening at least 24" of original wall I should be able to fit in a small beverage station in the dining room. For some reason having beverage station in the DR really appeals to me.

I would not do bar height...the counter expanse of a counter-level peninsula has many plusses.

I agree with rantontoo. I was thinking the peninsula would be a good place to work with the kids--decorating cookies, or a craft project you don't want to move to clear the DR table. It was drawn at 36x63, to seat 5, with 48" between the seat on the end and the pantry. (Minimum NKBA recommended walkway behind seating is 44".) As the peninsula is drawn, you could add 2-3 inches to the depth of the pantry, and have enough space for the beverage fridge plus counter overhang.

If you don't need 5 seats, the island could be reduced to 36x48, and you could use an angled pantry as sena suggested, which would give you a nice counter for a beverage center. You could include a drip tray drain and filtered water dispenser, and a plumbed coffee maker, if one will fit above the fridge. The 36" walkway would work, because there is shoulder room over the peninsula.

I angled the drop zone counter to match the pantry angle--that might be a good pace for a pet's bowl.

The inset cabinetry would keep true to the age of your home.

I will post an updated drawing soon, but trying to get the fridge on the S wall so we don't have to see it from the dining room. We may be able to push that wall back another 0.5 -1 foot. Thanks mama goose for the idea of the peninsula. This has totally transformed my ideas for the space.