Of these layouts, i like option B the best.

But keep in mind that a 1 cook household only needs a 36" walkway, comfortable walkway would be 42". With that I would would drop both walkways (range and fridge) down to 42". This will allow the sink (straight) section of your island to be increased to 7' of work space.

Instead of doing a 12" overhang behind the sink i would be more inclined to add bookcases/wine racks. With your other seating options, no one will want to sink behind the sink.

Option A but move the sink to under the window. It keeps the flow of work to fridge, sink and then cook top. Why are you having such a large island?

I would make the island much smaller and have a kitchen table for the bay area. Remember, this is what you will see when you walk in the front door. Do you want to see the end of an island or a seating area?

In option B, I see a problem with the double oven next to the fridge - you take a pan of cookies or roasting pan out of the oven - where do you set it? There's no counter space nearby except the corner of the island - and you could potentially have folks sitting/standing right there.

B for me, but you need the counter space where you're considering the double oven. Put it over in the corner by itself, if you even need it. Never a good idea to put fridge and oven together - not energy efficient to put a heating appliance by a cooling appliance. If you need 2 of anything, it would be a sink. I'd rather have the main sink and DW at the window and a prep sink in the island.

What room will be facing the kitchen on the left hand side. On this graph paper your 48” looks more like 6’ and A and B island is a little obtrusive I would turn the island but not as peninsula also what would you place at the bay window area

I like your existing appliance layout the best.

Meant to add that the best fridge placement will depend on what route your family takes most frequently to get items from the fridge while you're cooking. If they come from the LR, then fridge placement in Plan A is best. If they come from the basement, FR or DR, then fridge placement in Plan B keeps traffic from crossing through the cook zone to get to the fridge.

Since you're entertaining structural and window changes....

I reduced the size of the bay window span by a 1/3 and increased the size of the window over the sink to match the new size.

That freed up room to put the fridge on the exterior wall with the DW between sink (same location so no plumbing changes) with a narrow cab between DW and frdge.

I changed the kitchen entry so that there's room to move the DO away from the DR wall and next to the cook top.

The new entry, traffic pattern and pantry would look something like this:

If you decide to stick with a range and sell the new DO set (putting the $$ towards kitchen remodel), here's a potential lay-out to consider:

The above plans will cost more than my tweak to your Plan A or your plan B with my island tweak.

Before you decide to spend the $$$, you should determine if your neighborhood's home values will support a more extensive remodel and how much of the remodeling costs you'll recoup when you sell. The rule of thumb for a kitchen remodel is to spend 5% to 15% of your home's value. You need to figure out the right decision for yourselves, your neighborhood and your priorities.

I opted to keep my old car, now 18 yrs old, so that we could afford to change our lay-out. We also intend to stay put until we can't manage the stairs anymore so we remodeled to please ourselves instead of worrying about recouping more of the costs when we sell. We figured that by the time we sell, the new owners will want to update the kitchen anyway. But we still stayed within the 15% suggested budget (home values are high here although not nearly as bad as other regions). Only one other neighbor has done a major remodel; the rest have only made cosmetic changes.

lisa_a...that new entry from the garage is interesting and something I will have to visualize when I get home. Since the area near our garage/laundry is the coldest part of our house, it might keep the kitchen area a bit warmer. I will take a look at all your suggestions this evening after I can consider them.

I truly appreciate the time you have put into your responses to help me. :)

You're welcome! It's a huge expenditure so taking the time to plan it well pays off in the long run.

I just realized that I forgot to post my tweak to your Plan B. Here it is.

I think I prefer this one over my tweaked version of your Plan A. The fridge isn't the dominant feature when you walk into the kitchen, plus it no longer blocks the bay window's light, and you get a deeper island and a more generous seating overhang.

You have more counter next to your range, plus it's across the aisle from the sink, instead of perpendicular to it.

I didn't spec cab sizes on the perimeter but I'm pretty sure you can make it work with Ikea cabs sizes. You don't have to do Ikea doors; there are a few companies that will make doors and drawer fronts for Ikea cabs, giving you more finish options. Here's a kitchen that has Ikea cab boxes with door and drawer fronts in rift sawn white oak from Scherrs, About 80% done... many many pics... reveal Doesn't look like an Ikea kitchen, does it?

If I were you, I'd sell the DO, use the profit towards your kitchen remodel and put a MW drawer next to the fridge.

Where is a good spot to end the island? We having plenty of unused space heading toward the family room, but I don't want it to be bigger than it should be.

If you’re planning on doing a structural I would move that bay window towards the inner kitchen get rid of the other window so you can create a galley kitchen.

Change the walkways to 42" inside of the kitchen. push the island over so that the end panel of the DW lines up with the cabinet on the back wall. Use as much of that space by the bay window as possible, otherwise it will fill empty.

Do you mean you want to know if you can make it longer? What type of counter do you plan to use?

120" is the length for the majority of quartz slabs (I think there's a few that might be "supersized" but I'm not familiar with the brands or choices).

You could probably find a longer slab of granite (we did for our perimeter) but it won't be more than about a foot longer than a slab of quartz. You can always have a seam on the island but a 10' island is really long already and, IMO, anything longer would be out of scale for the size of your kitchen.

I did another tweak to your Plan B that also moves the kitchen entry. This one would allow you to keep the DO and go with a cook top.

Oops, forgot to do a small tweak to the island shape, creating a larger diameter seating area to use up some of the empty space in front of the bay window. I still advise against adding a seat on the interior, especially if you go with a range. If someone climbs off the stool and backs up without looking while the range door is open....

The more I look at all these suggestions, the more I like the fridge on the right wall rather than by the bay window.

Here is the view from the front of our front door. We like that we can see outside into our backyard from here but more importantly, from our current kitchen table. We cannot replace the bay with a different type but equally sized, single window. (The maximum width in one window would be 72" rather than the 87" we currently have. Or we can move to a series of double hung windows which may be nice. (Excuse the mess.) What do you think?

Maybe I can sell the double oven and buy a counter-depth fridge (although I am concerned about whether or not it would be big enough). If I can find a way to add a 2nd under-the-counter fridge, I would feel more comfortable. We may need to keep our regular size fridge for a couple of years, so do I plan for the larger fridge or the counter depth?

As far as countertops go, we are looking at Dekton Danae or quartz. In the initial plan I posted (which everybody hated :-) ), I had solved that issue by using butcher block at one end since the Dekton we loved maxes out at 126". If we do a straight island, I may want a wood countertop at the end to avoid a seam in the countertop.

Ikea cabs: my only hesitation to use them is that we were going to use 36" uppers so we could have a tall cove molding above. Having the 40" uppers that Ikea sells will change that look we like.

Aesthetically, for the island, I don't know how far toward the family room is too far. From the pic above, you can see that we have space available and another 6' into the ugly brown carpet until be get to the back of our couch. But how long of an island can a plan like Plan B handle? To the middle of the bay? The left side of the bay?

BTW...I have been staring at the electrical tape on the plywood floor and the electrical boxes hanging from the window for 18 months, Its time it all goes away, along with the crappy flooring in both rooms!

Here’s the kitchen from the foyer view

This would be the view from the family room

I did a mock-up, using Paint, to show you the view from the hallway. It's rough but hopefully it's enough to help you visualize the changes.

I brought the LR's carpeted area towards the kitchen, close to the left side of the bay window.

I started out extending the LR wainscotting towards the window but if I took it to the window molding, it looked crowded. But it also didn't look right if I stopped it short of the window molding. I think it's a cleaner look without the wainscotting but you should also do mock-ups and decide which look you prefer. If you intend to redo the entire space - LR, nook and kitchen - with the same flooring, then I think the wainscotting should go because it adds an arbitrary demarcation.

You will need to redo your kitchen lighting, remove the table chandelier and add island pendants, all of which will require rewiring and ceiling repair. If your ceiling is flat (no texture), it's an easier/less expensive repair. If it has a brocade or knock down texture, the contractor may recommend floating the whole ceiling. Only the very most skilled of drywallers can do a repair of a textured ceiling without leaving behind any tell-tale sign of the repair.

If after the remodel is done, you feel that the bay window looks a bit empty, you can always add a shallow console table (15" - 18" deep so that it doesn't crowd the seating aisle and narrower than the window) under the bay window. Add a pair of candlestick lamps for additional lighting and store your cook books here.

"Maybe I can sell the double oven and buy a counter-depth fridge (although I am concerned about whether or not it would be big enough). If I can find a way to add a 2nd under-the-counter fridge, I would feel more comfortable. We may need to keep our regular size fridge for a couple of years, so do I plan for the larger fridge or the counter depth?"

Try keeping your fridge less full, similar in capacity to a CD fridge and see how it works for you for a least a month. If you can manage using less space, then buy a CD fridge. If, however, you regularly fill up the fridge, don't downsize, at least not until you're empty nesters (*) so I wouldn't plan the lay-out based on a CD fridge at this point.

I don't think an under-counter fridge is a good solution for you. They are expensive (as are CD fridges) plus it would reduce your cabinet storage capacity, which isn't in abundant supply as it is.

(* DH and I are nearly empty nesters (DS2 soon to be 25, soon to be moving out) but we downsized to a CD fridge about 7 or 8 years ago and it's never been a problem for us. My brother and SIL are empty nesters, and have been for a few years but when they built their home, they super-sized their fridge/freezer capacity by going with a 36" all fridge and a 36" all freezer. They entertain regularly and host large family gatherings often; a CD fridge would never work for them.)

(I can't remember if I've suggested this or not so excuse me if I'm repeating myself.)

If you haven't done a kitchen item tally, do this asap. Group items by use and measure how wide a drawer or upper cabinet you'll need to store these items. I used painter's blue tape to mark drawer sizes on my counter and placed items within the lines to figure out drawer widths and storage plans. Once you do this, you will be able to determine drawer sizes, drawer lay-outs and how much storage you need. It takes time but it is incredibly helpful in making lay-out decisions.

My plan:

The final result:

This is in a 33" cabinet with 30" interior width and 20" interior depth. Your usable drawer space will depend on the cabinet line and style. My cabinets are face frame but they are built like frameless so my drawers are wider than they would be in another line of face-frame cabinets. (we used a local custom cab shop so I was able to request features such as drawer within a drawer. I did that for this and 3 other drawers in my kitchen. That helped me make use of every inch of storage capacity in my modestly-sized kitchen.)

This exercise also helped me determine that I could get by without upper cabinets on my cook top wall, which meant that I didn't have to center my hood between window and door, which meant that I could have a wider drawer base to the left of my cook top, which is what I needed for storage here. Whew, that's one heck of a long sentence but you can see how one thing relates to another and another and another. It seems daunting until you break it down. You likely will need to try several variations - at least I did - before you figure out the best storage plan.

Also, even if I've said this before, it bears repeating: in almost all cases, drawers are going to make the most of your cabinet storage. I would, hands down, save $$ elsewhere in my kitchen in order to upgrade to drawers any day of the week.

PS I pointed you to scrappy's marvelous kitchen storage. I'll try to find other past kitchen reveals that showed storage savvy and point you towards them. if you think it would help you to see my kitchen's organization - inside my drawers - let me know and I'll post a link for you.

1) We will be continuing the Brazilian Teak hardwood flooring into the kitchen. Here is what it looks like:

2) The wainscoting will be torn out and we will also be going with a higher baseboard and molding. All the current (ugly) lighting we have will be replaced with cans and pendants.

3) We will be using drawers everywhere we can. No more PITA reach-in cabinets on the floor!

4) I am bringing our window guy in this week to chat about options for removing the bay and replacing it with something more modern.

5) Claire, the galley concept is interesting. As I continue reviewing all the suggestions above, I will take a closer look at it.

6) Lisa, I like the suggestion to audit our kitchen stuff. I know half of it can go away.

More later, if my kids let me work for a while!

Sounds like your kids are pretty young they don’t like anything that takes mommy time away from them

Nope that is one thing kids doesn’t want to do is ask their dad unless dad is there most of the time.

How would it look if the refrigerator were visible from the front entrance? If we move the bay window to the right (replaced with something like this) and the fridge to the left, would that be awkward?

Do you mean like my Plan A above but with the fridge to the left of the clean-up sink? Won't that make it feel like your fridge is in your LR? How far right do you plan to move the bay window?Another option would be to replace the bay window with French doors that match the ones in the LR. You'd gain 19" of wall that you can use in the kitchen. The plan would be similar to Plans E & F that I posted above.

If you don't want another set of doors (no idea where your deck or patio is), you could do tall windows instead. Check your local codes regarding requirements for tempered glass first to avoid budget surprises. We spec'd our DR window at 19" above the floor to avoid the upcharge for tempered glass (18" and lower). We don't miss that 1" of glass one bit.

You could also move the window towards the LR, putting it in line with the hallway entry. That would give you a wider kitchen wall.

I had thought about having the fridge in view from the foyer it wouldn’t be a bad idea it would be closer to the family room also from the visual I sent you the fridge can be switched with the cabinet