I'm sorry to be so confusing. The picture is of my current kitchen. We are doing a facelift for the current kitchen - basically to stave off the necessary gut job in a few years. I am asking myself a lot of questions - I want things to look good now... but if I have to buy something now (ie new sink) - I hope to repurpose it in the new kitchen. (new kitchen will have the arch in it -- already have a few arch windows in the house) The current kitchen is about 30 yrs old. Cabs were good in their day - but I've had to fix more than a few drawers and rehang cab doors. We just replaced the island countertop because the old tile one was in such bad shape. I'm also using the replacements as an opportunity to "try things on for size" before spending the big bucks on cabinetry and granite (or whatever). Dh made the island top bigger so I can see how narrower aisles feel. (so far, so good. DW open can be a problem, but doesn't outweigh the benefits of the larger counter surface) Another question I'm mulling over in my head is the counterdepth fridge I referred to in an earlier post. As popular as stainless appliances are, I have not been happy with mine. Nearly impossible to keep clean. Trying to decide if it is entirely the fault of the water/ice dispenser ... or if I can make a white fridge work in my future space. And then there is the french door (what I have) vs SxS dilemma. I miss having vertical access to the freezer. I tend to make a lot of partial ingredients ahead of time and store in freezer (already browned sausage for example). I don't like digging into the pull out freezer of the french door each time I'm grabbing my pre-prepped ingredients. Anyway. My head is spinning, trying to design 2 kitchens - the now kitchen and the later kitchen... and trying to make the more expensive decisions work for both. Dh's eyes begin to glaze over every time I try to talk out loud about it... This is my current kitchen's floorplan - dh's changes are NOT on the floorplan - drew it up last year when I first started thinking about this. We have since gotten a different scanner and I need to figure out how to scan in the new changes. The changes we've already made... island top is 36 inches wide -- makes the sink aisle 1.5 inches narrower than it was... and the walkway aisle 9 inches narrower. And the countertop on the left of the range is now 33 inches wide.

I think the space looks wider in your plan photo than it will in real life. I have a 36 in wide range hood and I have 6 inches of space on each side. My hood is bulkier looking many that I see on this forum so I definitely did not want it to look jammed in. As far as cleaning goes it is absolutely not a problem. I think it might actually be easier to clean with more space. My hand fits easily between the hood and cabinetry for wiping down the tile, the cabinets or the range hood itself. My cabinets were custom made so I could have made them any size to fit the space but I just thought 6 inches on each side was a nice spacing. So here is a shot of my hood with the 6 inches of room on each side. The picture is taken at a bit of an angle so the spacing doesn't look exactly the same on each side but it is. The right side of the hood is the true perspective.

We're doing all bead board drawers/doors and end panels. I think it will all look great, especially with the contrast between the perimeter and island cabinets. Ours are all cherry with a caramel stain (no pictures since we've just started some demo and waiting on permits). Go for it.

From a door function standpoint, leave 4" minimum from the corner. This gives you enough space so that the door can open 90 degrees without having the door lever hit the wall. 6" is also common too. You don't want to leave too much space or you are just wasting usable wall and floor space in your room. However, from a maintenance and aesthetic standpoint do head bpath's advice above. The trim should either leave at least 3/4" to 1" wall reveal from the corner or be right up against the adjacent wall. leaving a small space is going to result in an awkward strip of wall color and will be difficult to maintain going forward. In our current house we have a few of these conditions where it is tight between the casing and corner. The last owner wallpapered and we have had extreme difficulty getting old wallpaper out of these corners. In some cases the trim had to be taken off to get good paint and stain coverage on them too.