What about something like this? It puts the Prep Zone on the peninsula and the range nearby. The range is protected and still against a wall for (1) less expensive, easier, and more effective venting and (2) far enough away from visitors that they won't get splattered by grease or have steam/smoke/odors in their face. You also have 42"+ of workspace b/w the prep sink & range for prepping...a good amount of space. You also have some space on the other side of the prep sink for setting things down and reducing the chances of pushing things off onto the floor. The prep sink will also provide a place for hand washing without having to go deep into the kitchen. It does close off the kitchen more, but it also provides more separation of zones. The only real drawback I see is that you will prepping in the only entrance to the kitchen...but perhaps a 49" aisle will be enough...I don't know if it will be for you, only you can answer that. It does, however, give you your "inclusion" with others for 80% of your work...prepping + cooking. You might consider either glass doored upper cabinets or no cabinets b/w the refrigerator & sink to reduce the "cave" issue. With glass doored cabinets (or none) plus the large window plus good lighting, I don't think the corner near the refrigerator will be much of a "dark cave". Layout #4: Layout #4 w/Zones: Notice how well separated the zones are and no zone-crossing. This layout would allow up to 4 people to work comfortably in the kitchen...Cleanup in front of the main sink, Prepping at peninsula, Cooking at the corner range, and Prepping or MW cooking b/w the range & main sink. BTW...that MW could be mounted on a shelf below upper cabinets on that run if you prefer that setup.

Walking all the way around the corner to the pantry would be a non-starter for me. It wouldn't bother me to have the door to the pantry interrrupt the counter run, and it's an improvement to not have the entrance to the kitchen from the both mud room AND the pantry interrupt the counter run as it had been plotted on the first drawing. As a thought experiment think about the pathways food takes within your kitchen from storage position(s) to prep (often a sink) and almost always to a counter or stove to plating and delivery to table. And then the reverse when leftovers and dirty dishes return for more action at the end of the meal. In general the fewer times the food has to back track over where it's been in a previous stage, the better. Not to mention a less convoluted pathway for the cooks makes for easier meal prep. An example: in your latest drawing: you have your main clean-up sink in almost the farthest away point it can get from your dining room. Since most people like the convenience of storing the dishes near the DW that means that your dishes will have to cross a long way to go to the DR. And your DW is on the side of the sink that's almost within the main prep cooking aisle so your kids, if they're tasked with setting the table or belatedly emptying the DW, will be in the action area. Just moving the DW to the other side of the sink would be an improvement. (Or consider repositioning the sink.) I know most people first think about the look and features they want to achieve for their kitchen and then try to arrange the cooking elements within that vision. I am always plumping here to start by thinking of the food pathways, and the human pathways while doing the cooking, as a first step. Once you've got that down, then you can work out the visuals. I think even something like starting from the idea that you want an island with seating or an island cooking position is a step too far down the line until you have the pathway thing worked out. I'm not saying discard any attractive features at the start, but just don't start the plan focused on the features. A kitchen is primarily a room for storing, preparing, cooking and delivering your food to your family. Get that right and the rest is much easier. Where does your food come into the house: most likely the garage. It goes to fridge and pantry and maybe the cabs near the stove. Then it's collected from the storage places and taken to the sink or a counter and prepped and/or cooked. I think it would be fine to have the entry to pantry near the fridge, breaking through that counter run. A prep sink will separate the clean-up operations from the veggie washing and icky chicken-hands type of usage. But I'm not sure having the prep sink at the clean-up sink end of the island is best since that places it opposite the stove position. I'd consider moving it more towards the other end so you have a kind of zigzag between the fridge/pantry to island prep sink and back across to the range. Don't have the range and prep sink opposite each other unless you have really wide aisles (48-60"). Otherwise someone standing at the prep sink will be in danger of having their heels stepped on by someone at the stove who wants to step back a tad in order to peek in the broiler. (I confess that in my own plan I do have the island prep sink closer to the range than the ideal zigzag I am proposing. I pondered it a long time and decided I can live with it as we are an older two-adult, basically one-cook family; and my range is 48" long so I have lots of sideways room to stand aside, and my island is only 27" wide so another cook can actually use the sink for prep from the opposite side of the island.) Lots of people find it imperative to have the fridge on the DR edge of the kitchen so they can easily fetch stuff from the fridge during meals, so your present position of it may be a very good one. Moving the prep sink towards the DR will break up your island prep space somewhat so you may want to play around to get the best place for it. Moving it farther away from the main sink may add to your plumbing costs. Another option to play around is shifting the location of the range slightly to off-set the prep sink and range from each other. Meanwhile think about the next step when the food is being cooked - where are your pots stored and how did they get back there from the dishwashing operation? And then, where are the plates stored? Don't hesitate to have cabs in the island that don't all line up and face in the same direction. For instance, you could have a cab on the clean-up end of the island that opened toward the sink counter run, not toward the stove. You might consider even moving the clean up sink farther towards the bottom of the drawing and putting the DW opposite the end of the island with a dish cab opening towards it from the end of the island. That would make convenient storage for your dishes; convenient to unload - just open the DW and the drawers in that cab and transfer the stuff. It would also make for a convenient place from which to grab the plates when the food is ready to be dished. As I mentioned above the current position of the DW is a problem since it kind of herds the action into, not away from, the cooking aisle which should remain free of temptations for non-cooking people to enter it for any reason. When you think you have a good food-pathway driven plan then spend some time thinking through your present cooking activities and see how often, and where, the cooks cross paths during meal prep - those are potential collision spaces, perhaps some can be eliminated by further tweaking. Even though I am the only cook, I drew my own pathways on rough sketches so I could see how often I backtracked and find improved storage points and efficiencies for many of our commonest meals. At the earliest stages of kitchen design only the immutables like structural supports and unmoveable door and window positions should be givens - everything else should be on the table as you think about the food paths, IMO. You'll have less trouble getting to a good plan that's as fully populated with the most important-to-you features as possible because you'll be placing them within the best functional plan you can come up with. When you can't place any more, you're done! HTH L

Thanks for pointing out the missing aisle dimensions. I'll add them to the floor plan view. These are cabinet to cabinet - we are planning on 3/4" - 1" overhang Range wall to island - 52" Peninsula to island - 40" Both sides of island - 42" When I was taking those measurements I realized that I forgot to mention the current drawing shows the range wall lowers pulled out 3". The range will probably be the CC which is 25" to the back of the door and 27 3/8 to the front. Are there any heat issues if the cabinets come out past the door gasket? If we end up going this route I would rather see deeper cabinets and drawers rather than just pulling them out. It might be better to leave them at 24" deep and against the wall and gain 3" of cabinets on the sink and refrigerator walls. The island will probably be used for serving and sometimes prep when multiple people are using the kitchen. We have never had an island so we aren't sure how it will get used. We currently have a single slide-in 30" range with a OTR microwave and countertop toaster oven. When we entertain oven space is always an issue. Maybe we are overcorrecting with too many ovens. Another option we have considered is the range,steam and speed oven and maybe a warming drawer. With this option we would only need a 24" cabinet and gain 6" of space. I have read a lot of posts about blind corners and still don't know what is best for us. The layout shows 2 lazy susans and a LeMans style pullout at the peninsula. The peninsula might be a good spot to close in the corner and have access from the other side. We could use this to store infrequently used items. Thanks

Benjesbride, thanks for the words of encouragement! We are excited to see the possibilities and hope for a great outcome. If you want to tinker with the kitchen any more (I don't have a kitchen planner program - wish I did!), I'm curious about flipping your drawing around to have cabinets on the left wall instead of the right wall. You would still have an opening to the dining room which might push things too far away... but I'm wondering about keeping the large opening on the right wall so that here is more of a direct route to the kitchen for groceries etc from garage. Just a thought. But I don't know where the work triangle, etc would go. Thanks for all of the input!