My first thoughts are the fake brick is too dominating, carpeting is a strange flooring in a kitchen, and the countertops being updated would go a long way. Your cabinets are actually gorgeous solid hardwood and a timeless raised panel - unless you for some reason hate them I'd keep them and focus your efforts elsewhere. I'd definitely re-work the space to get your cooktop integrated into the other kitchen space; it being in satellite orbit isn't functional or aesthetic. And I do think the island is over-scale for the space. First, you need to ponder how you want to use the space. For example, what is your household use of the kitchen (single adult, empty nesters, family with teens, starting family with little ones, etc.), type of use (three meals prepared from scratch, organic gardener, or a lot of take out and re-heat meals on the go, etc.) How you want to use the space will tell you a lot of what you need IN the space. And the best place for a lot of feedback, and really great feedback from experts would be to move this over to the kitchens forum, I agree! It's a nice home and looks to be good quality bones, so you have a good starting point!

Jillius- the living room is 14' x 15'. The dining room includes the original, original kitchen space so it is a bit elongated, but not nearly so long in relation to the living room as I have it drawn! The combined kitchen and dining room would be larger than the living room, but we would be opening up the smaller archway between the two so I think it will look okay. We stretch out our table for large gatherings frequently so we need the space there. The room at the back of the house is our office/laundry/sewing room. The previous owners used it for a type of family room but I don't want it for that. It is awkwardly large for what we are using it for but there isn't much else to do with it. Someday I would like a large craft/laundry table there and some built in cabinetry but for now....It would make a nice sized kitchen, but is too out of the loop. The front bedroom does have a door to the foyer and one to the hall by the bathroom. It doesn't serve much purpose but my daughter loves to have two doors on her room:) Some day we will use it for a guest room. Thanks for your input!

I would make the island one level with an overhang for stool seating if the walkway to the stairs is spacious enough...photos can be deceiving. How much space is there from the end of the island to the non-stair wall? If the to-stair walkway is too narrow, you might be able to have counter seating on the side of the island if the space is there. If you like the existing perimeter counter, it could stay and the island counter could be something complimentary so it becomes a feature. Is the over-the-range microwave vented to the outside? If it is, it would be less expensive to replace it with an under cabinet hood. I do not see the space for the microwave in the island as it is. How old are the cabs, factory painted finish or painted on site? If you could match the paint, then you have more options. What is the wall measurement from the window to the corner where the hutch is? Again depending on measurements, you could add a snack, microwave, coffee station where the hutch is and/or entend the island cabinetry for a microwave cabinet. The cab style should be fairly straight froward to duplicate. What colors do you like? You have a very nice space to work with!

@Aglitter Thank you for all your thoughtful comments and discussion. I know that some people like to upgrade just based on a whim. (I have an ex-MIL that was like that... folks on her street called it the "Bob & Lil" show, because the uproar within the family for her drop-of-the-hat choices was like a sit-com. I'm very aware that every modification or upgrade I make needs to make sense. There are things that I'd "like" to do or have done - but since they are not necessary, they aren't getting done. I'd love to get this old paneling, which was painted over, off the walls... it's in the kitchen, and part of the entry area, and part of the living room, and in part of two bedrooms. And in some cases, which walls have paneling doesn't make any sense I can see. Four walls in the living room, and one has brick, another has painted paneling, and the other two are regular drywall. Kitchen has two walls of paneling. Dining room, none. It's annoying... but something I'm not going to bother changing, not unless I hit the lottery (fat chance, since I don't play), or unless it's part of a hopefully-far-in-the-future sale agreement, because it's merely annoying. It's not dangerous, not a hazard, not necessary. Fence? Yep, I have dogs, both of whom would (and have) happily try to hunt down deer. Luckily, before the fence went up, I had a firm grip on their leashes whenever we went out. Prior to the fence going up, deer sometimes slept on our patio, right outside the kitchen. I've seen them sleeping even by the front door too. Shed? Yep, needed a place for yard equipment. Bathrooms? When both started leaking into the room below, damaging the subfloor, etc., and every contractor said they couldn't fix/find the leaks without destroying the ceramic tile and walls around the tub in the one bathroom, and the 30"x30" stall shower in the other bathroom - it was time to bite the bullet. Everything was going to be ripped apart anyhow and need to be re-tiled, so that was the right time to redesign those bathrooms. I didn't have access to a HELOC for that; I found three credit cards offering long-term 0% interest on purchases, and kicked off the project that way. And paid off every card before interest would have kicked in. For the oil-to-gas conversion - it was time. Heating with oil is usually about 2.5x more expensive than gas, at least around here. We'd had to have the oil furnace repaired for various problems each year during the past few years. Annual cleaning/maintenance is more expensive for oil furnaces to. And my central AC unit's stated efficiency was so low that it's not even legal anymore to sell AC units with that low of a SEER....and I'm sure that over a couple of decades, the actual efficiency wasn't getting any better than the SEER advertised in the sales literature. But honestly, what kicked my butt into gear was one particular morning... I always have the oil company notify me before coming to my house, because the oil fill valve is in my backyard, behind the fence line. Meaning they are supposed to call me to ensure that I don't have my dogs in the yard - that's to protect both the oil guy (since my dogs are both rescues, territorial, and not fond of strange men wandering around on their turf) as well as my dogs, because I can guarantee you that if they are in the yard and the oil guy were to come in - he's not going to bother trying to shut the fence gate while running back to his truck. Anyhow, one early morning I woke up, was going to let my dogs out in the yard, but instead decided to heat up some tea first. So I go into my kitchen, wearing a thin set of PJs... and find a strange guy staring at me through the window of the kitchen door from my backyard. Turns out the oil company didn't have enough people to get oil out, hired some sub-contractors, didn't give them the instructions about where the oil fill valves are nor about contacting customers before wandering around their houses and getting the early morning thin-PJ peep shows.... and frankly, I was furious. I very easily could have decided to let the dogs out before making that cup of tea, and that would have been a disaster. Everyone thinks the pit bull I have is the big danger; she's so old, her teeth are pretty worn down and she takes 7 pills a day to combat congestive heart failure. If she latched on to an intruder, her teeth would barely break the skin, it would likely be just bruises. It's the little guy people have to worry about - he's older, but he has all his teeth, they are still sharp, and the little bugger is fast and agile - a mix of Chihuahua, Jack Russell, and Miniature Pinscher. He's nimble, can jump, does agility, and can climb ladders. Small at 18 pounds, but mighty, and when he perceives danger - he won't hesitate to draw blood. Doesn't matter if it's a stray raccoon in the yard, a stag, or an menacing adult human. The heart of a Malinois... in the body of a itsy-bitsy ankle-biter mutt. But a love bug otherwise, especially with children. Anyhow... that near-event with the oil company's sub-contractor was enough for me to call the local gas company, discover that they were running a rebate program so that I wouldn't have to pay a cent for them to install a gas line to my house from the street, and from there, I was off to find the most appropriate HVAC system for my house. I used the HELOC to help pay for that, and expect to repay that by spring (before kicking off the kitchen for certain). Driveway resurfacing was done because the grass had grown in on both sides of the driveway by 14-16 inches, and the grass was working on breaking up even more of the driveway. Rather than wait for the grass to completely destroy the driveway over the next few years, I had it widened back to the original width, dug down, and then resurfaced. I'd been using a driveway crack filler for the past few years to try to slow the damage down, but it was time. My point is - there are some people who will renovate just for the sake of renovating. I won't commit to any kitchen work until the HVAC conversion is paid off, that's for certain. Doing research to make the most of the possible budget (the HELOC is for $50k, but I want to keep my limit at $45k to allow for unexpected issues) is part of how I operate on big-ticket purchases. Even the best-laid plans can go wrong - but if there's no plan at all, it's asking for disaster. I met with a GC last night - the one who did my bathrooms. He confirmed which walls are load bearing and which aren't. I showed him possible plans - one for expanding the kitchen, the other keeping the kitchen in the same footprint. He confirmed that the subfloor of the kitchen was at the same height as the rest of the house - there's multiple layers of flooring in the kitchen now. His opinion? It would be foolish to replace the existing kitchen with the same or similar layout. He suggested I consider doing the expanded layout in stages to help keep the budget in line. Stage 1: Demolition of the existing wall, removal of the paneling, flooring, doing all of the planned electrical and plumbing, the perimeter cabinetry of the "L", replace the one window over the current kitchen sink (we could feel the draft from several feet away), create the pantry/closet, create the second entry into the room. Hold off on installing a central island and use a table instead while getting used to having the perimeter cabinetry. Stage 2: Do the 6' "butler's pantry/china cabinet" where the bench is, assuming I still want it. (Yeah, I will). Keep using a table, and be prepared to move it around to figure out the best traffic flow around it in the kitchen. If it is the type with leaves, try living with it both ways - shrunk without the leaves, and expanded, with the leaf or leaves. Stage 3: Add in either the island I want, or keep the table. He doesn't particularly like islands; and once they are in... they are "in" - not easy to move or change out. He doesn't think I'll need the storage space that under-island cabinetry would provide either. His point is that if I opt in the future for the island, it won't matter if there's a slight difference between the granite for that vs. the perimeter cabinetry - and I might even want a contrasting surface at that point. And likewise, if there's a subtle shading difference in the cabinet paint/stain for island cabinets - it won't really be noticeable since it's separate from the perimeter cabinetry. His suggestions make sense; although I would then incur a templating charge for each phase for the countertop, it might make sense as well to stage some of the work given the budget. He knows (from experience) that I won't automatically agree with him on every suggestion. For example, during the bathroom renovation, I replaced the old tub with a cast-iron whirlpool bath. Heavy as anything, he and his team has to carry it up the stairs to get it in. He was certain that I wouldn't get much use out of it, saying that everyone he knows who gets a whirlpool tub uses it for a month or two, then the novelty wears off and it's a waste to have upgraded to that point. Except.... I use it. A lot. It helps with joint and muscle pain from psoriatic arthritis. If time allows, I could spend hours in that tub. Anyhow.... he thinks that we can get it done within the budget, as long as I'm not going crazy with some of the finishes. For example, it might be cheaper to subway tile a backsplash, vs. running the granite up the wall as a full backsplash. He agreed the plumbing costs would be relatively minimal, but electrical work might be a bit more. So we're going to work on pulling together project sub-budgets, like x-amount for flooring, etc. as part of the planning phase.