Thank you for all responses/advice. Very helpful/useful. Excavation is supposed to start this week (that's how early we are in the build, no dirt has been dug yet). Cabinets have not been ordered yet (but need to decide/order soon). I do not like the idea of having the kitchen in the front of the house (where the dining room currently is), irregardless if a wall separates it from the entry foyer. What is most important to me is an open concept between the kitchen and great room. Moving the kitchen to the front of the house is not an option. Additionally, I do like the idea of having a more "formal" dining room, rather than a common eating area shared with the great room. I spent anywhere from 1-3 hours in the kitchen daily between cooking/near the stove, prepping, and washing dishes by the sink. I want to see the great room and converse with whomever is in there. Having said that, I don't like any plans with spending majority of time staring/looking at the staircase, either regular staircase or stairs down to the basement. I've asked before - can't move the porch or add bay windows to the front of the house. :)

I definitely appreciate everybody's input and advice, so, thought I'd come back and give you all a little update. There are some issues with changing the layout, specifically moving the range to the interior wall. The venting is going to be problematic, because of location of the garage doors and also some HVAC equipment in the path. Would involve a rather long, inefficient run with multiple turns to avoid these things. HVAC guy basically said, Please don't move it there. Not only that, but the small wall that Karenseb suggested to remove - is part of a larger load-bearing wall. I have a healthy mid-range kitchen budget but these changes could be a real budget buster. Especially as we don't know what other surprises are lurking once demo begins. With that in mind, and my husband's wish to have the range and hood as a focal point centered between the windows, aesthetically nicer than staring at a fridge from the island seating, as well as simpler ventilation, any other suggestions? Should we keep dishwasher to the right as it is now? I plan to move the sink further down the run, ending at the right end of window instead of centered, to increase counter space on right side of range. For the few times a year I would cook a large spread of food for entertaining, I do have a butcher block island on wheels that can be rolled over to serve as surplus counter. Plus the big island directly behind. Other changes - we are leaning towards forgetting the separate oven and going with the aga range (plus my trusty Breville smart oven). I think then we would just make the beverage center section all countertop, space for Breville, and center the bar sink on that run. I asked my kitchen designer to draw up an L shaped window seat, into the alcove, maybe shelves or small upper above. As we can have lots of pantry space, with affordable shelving instead of cabinets, in the current hallway/future walk through pantry.

I live in a 1930s house and love houses of that vintage. My house has its original galley kitchen in which everyone needs to walk through to get from the main section of the house to the family room (which was converted from the original sunroom). It doesn't work for me. There is an aisle of 6 ft. which is one step too wide to work comfortably and I don't like having a gaggle of kids back and forth in my way while I'm working on dinner. I appreciate that your architect is trying to stay on budget, preserve the concept of rooms, and replicate original details to make the house work for today. Since you love the openness of the current family room, I actually think you will appreciate having the kitchen in that part of the house. My sister who has a much more modern aesthetic than I do, has a setup like that, and I can see why it works well - in fact, I'm working on a remodel in which I will blow out the wall between my kitchen and family room. Just get a deep single bowl sink to keep your dishes out of sight in addition to the other kitchen suggestions mentioned here. Another suggestion would be to incorporate the bar and coat closet to be your mudroom area. Think about increasing the opening between the foyer and dining room to 5 ft, so that if you are hosting a larger party you can use that space for an dining table extension. I've had 10 kitchens in my adult life (and cooked quite a bit in my mom's and two sisters'). Some had walk in pantries and others did not and I prefer the ones with the pantries. Even if you don't use it as a pantry, you will appreciate the extra storage in a 1930s house.

Oh, I had never thought about a crate as part of the banquette--can't fit it under the seat but might be able to build it into the end! We need roughly 24" w x 24" h x 36" l so I'll play around with it. (We also need to actually adopt said dog to be sure that will be the right size, but are looking to do that in the next few weeks.) I am also laughing at the placement of the dog bowls in this old photo, because our old dog was huge and there is no way he would ever have been able to get back there to eat from those bowls since gracefulness was not one of his strengths--this must have been a staging photo when we first finished the kitchen. The back door is the primary entrance most of the time. I'd love for it to be wider than the current 32" for that reason, though. We have room to move or extend the doorway up to 48" from where the opening begins now given constraints outside. So that could look like a 48" french door (looked at those and didn't love them) or more likely a 36" door, either moved over or with a 12" sidelite adjacent to it. If we moved it over as far as it can go, it would leave about 36" clear from the wall to the door. (There is 24" clear now, but with the door swing the cabinet has to be set back a bit from that--even with the 21" d cabinet we have to use a hinge restrictor. There is also the possibility of reversing the door swing, but at least with the current design, that's not ideal.) Any door changes do turn this into a much more involved project since we'd be widening or moving the framing in a load-bearing wall (vs. just making the windows smaller, which we could do pretty easily/relatively inexpensively). @Fori I have played with the peninsula a bit but hadn't thought about having part of it narrower--that might actually make it more feasible. Will look at that again too. I also have this last option pinned to combine a stacked washer/dryer with a banquette. It looks lovely in the photo, but I feel like in our real life it would end with the table covered with laundry most of the time, so not sure it's a great fit for us. But it would allow for a 56" bench with a 30" x 30" table, or maybe a slightly bigger table up against the window. If we did this, I wouldn't enclose the machines, but would just do panels on the sides (or maybe even just freestanding).