More details and answers to questions: Am I opposed to another downdraft? In it's current location in the island, where the ductwork is, yes I was. I wanted a second counter workspace in the triangle, which seems to mean a flat island. Put the table against the wall? Oops, it's not a wall, it's a railing to the sunken family room, with a view across to the fireplace. If there is extra budget for more carpentry, it may become a true half-wall, as sweeping the kitchen floor inevitably spills crumbs into the kids toy shelves. We thought about sliding the table over, and reversing the sliding door to open on the right. The only drawbacks to that were -- it definitely needs to be a wall, not a railing. We'd also need to reorganize the kids toy shelves -- they stack stuff on top of the shelves and we'd be eating right next to their junk if we can't make it all store lower and out of sight. We'd also have to move a heating vent, which would be in the way of having a mud mat at the new entrance location. The suggestion to not only slide but rotate the table -- I don't know if I want to sit down to dinner every day in a half-circle, facing into the family room, which is frequently a toy-strewn disaster area. I much prefer the seating arrangement shown for conversation. On the other hand, my hubby liked the idea, so we'll play around with it. The bat-wing island is interesting, though I don't know that I can have the same size that you describe, with cooktop plus all that storage. The room doesn't feel that big to me when I am in it. I will try to draw one and play around with the idea, though my current software is pretty clunky. When you say draw a straight line to start the new island -- where exactly? I really need to invest in some decent design software!

thank you all for your comments. Regarding the wall oven versus a standard range, I find a wall oven so much easier to use. Plus I have a gorgeous KitchenAid oven in the garage just waiting to be installed. :-) I agree that work tables look better without wheels and I probably would only have wheels if the clearance warrants moving the table. Thankfully I won't need to decide on the table until everything else is done. And by then I'll know exactly how much room I will have. Greenhaven, thanks for the excellent suggestion of getting a 30" cooktop and using a portable burner when needed. That's a perfect solution for me. As far as moving the powder room door, I can't see another place for it. There's a bedroom on the other side of the wall and the floor in the mudroom/office is 5 steps down so would necessitate widening the stairs ,and i am not sure that there is enough clearance for that, if following the building code. The way I'm envisioning the bath layout, the toilet should only ever be visible from the stairs coming into the kitchen. The sink would be visible when the door is open - would it look better if I use a nice bar sink instead of traditional bathroom sink?

To answer lazy_gardens question: we keep all our meat 'hardware' separate: utensils, glassware, plates, dishes, pots/pans, etc, sink and range. We share space for dry goods storage and in the refrigerator where our meat things take up only a half a shelf and only part of the time. Functionally the space to be reconfigured must function as pantry (including fridge) and a tiny kitchen. To answer Carrie B's question: in the overall floorplan image the top and bottom are the edges of the house. The right side (aka North Wall) is the garage, with a door from our dairy kitchen in the lower right corner. The doorway in the lower left corner leads to the dining room. The empty rectangle area in the upper left includes a stairway to the basement, which is accessed through the meat kitchen, and a recently redone bathroom which is accessed through another part of the house.

Here's an idea that's similar to ZSmith's (I hope I didn't violate any of your constraints): No windows need to change nor does the basement stairs doorway. It uses most of your existing cabinets but does require a few new ones: -- Unused existing cabinets to be returned: Two 24" bases -- New cabinets: Two 12" bases, One 30" base, One 36" Upper, and One 18" wide base hacked to be a sink base (I don't think IKEA has 18" sink bases) No cooktop or sink in the island Decent aisles all around 4 seats - one in the island ("mom perch") and three in the peninsula Prep Zone faces Sitting Room/Playroom on the far right (insead of wall, pantry, or DR) Follows Kitchen Workflow Refrigerator --> Prep Zone & prep sink --> Cooking Zone & cooktop --> Cleanup Zone (dirty dishes) or Serving Zone (DR) Provides you with a Tea/Coffee Center. Landing space for the refrigerator is the Peninsula or Tea/Coffee Center - the peninsula would be preferred for prepping a meal; the Tea/Coffee Center for someone preparing a snack. It's not clear what you are planning for the entire space - with the Powder Room removed, I think that space could be (left-to-right): Dining Room Kitchen Play Room - while kids are small. When they hit their teens (or earlier), it could be a Homework/Computer Station (trying to keep the kids in a public place for monitoring online usage), Sitting Room, or other space The Living Room & Foyer are unchanged - including those very nice doorways. . . Zone Map: .