Your current plan would work GREAT if you had a basement rec room or a above garage bonus room. If you don't, you will grow out of your house when your kids are school age/early teen years, IMHO. If you are planning to move to a bigger house when the kids are older, then this would not be a long term house for you so disregard what I say. liriodendron is also referring to the same issues that I am raising. I am writing it in a slightly different way... Since you do not have a basement, it is essential that you have a room where someone can go to be either noisy or quiet. It does not matter how it is used. Either way, you need a room which allows the person to be separated for noise, if needed. reasons: 1. One kid plays a musical instrument for school, where to practice? Where does the other kid do homework? where does the adult read the paper/book, watch the news? 2. Kids are playing on the Xbox (or the new thing yet to come).. where does the other kid/adult go? Are you and your wife willing to hear the endless noise while making dinner, doing the extra work that you brought home? I guess you can force your kid to wear the head phone or you go to your bedroom with the laptop... You can use the kids bedroom/adult bedroom for some of these functions. But it does not work that great if you make their bedrooms into communal rooms. For example, you can't really put the Xbox in a kid's bedroom. (many families do and you maybe one of those.) Since you do NOT have a basement, if this was my house, I would close off one of the rooms and get rid of one of the eating tables. The closed-off room with a door will be used as either a quite room or a noisy room, however way it works best for your family. At different phases of your life, it maybe used differently. Either way, you have the option of a room that has walls/door. Personally, I like enclosing the noise producing elements so that everyone else can have peace and quiet. Because of this, I would close off the media. In your current space, if someone is watching TV, then everyone else has to go to their bedrooms to be able to have a bit of quiet. Not everyone wants to watch the same show or play the same game. In your minds' eye, try to live in this house when your kids are 3(preschool), 10(school age), 15(teenager), 20(coming back and forth from college). You are designing your house first. Then the kitchen fits in that house.

Okay, so here is what I would do if this were my house. I threw in something you didn't ask for (and don't have room for in your budget), but it is a real improvement, so you might consider it for the future. 1) To give you the open layout and specifically the sight lines from the kitchen to the family room, I removed the wall between the current living and the current family and the wall between the current kitchen and both those rooms. It's my best guess that the wall between the current kitchen and the other two is load-bearing because you have a long skinny house. If I'm right, I'd suggest flanking the kitchen island with support columns like this: I actually think you should consider doing that anyway if you don't need the columns for support. Having a little visual separation from the other two rooms would be nice and help the banquette belong to the kitchen a little more. 2) I moved the kitchen, dining, and living spaces all around this space, but I think this layout is really the best. You want easy access from the garage to the kitchen for when you're bringing in groceries. It's best if the dining room (the neatest/most formal room of these three) is the first thing you see when you come in the front entrance, and while a fireplace is a luxury in any room, it's the nicest in a room where you can cozy up on a couch with a hot mug of something. The handy thing about keeping a similar layout to what you have now is that it keeps the kitchen where you already have it, so all the plumbing is already there. 3) I used up the current dining room space by giving you a direct walkway from the garage into the kitchen, and I gave you a large combination mud room/pantry. I didn't know where the window was in the current dining room, so I didn't suggest a layout for that, but it should be easy enough to create two separate zones in the space. 4) Because the window in the current dining room would be blocked whenever the new pantry is closed, you might consider skylights above the kitchen. 5) And now for the bonus suggestion. When I started this for you, I was immediately struck by what a long trek it is from the bedrooms (where laundry is created) to the laundry. Lots of doorways, lots of obstacles. I was also struck by the odd location of the half bath. Your guests would be walking through another room by very utilitarian/messy stuff to use the bathroom. If this were my house, I'd be sending my guests down the other way to the full bath instead, so really that half bath is only useful to a person doing laundry. I was separately struck by how your smallest bedroom's need for a closet was the only thing standing in the way of a nice, straight hallway with way more storage. And then I got to thinking that the smallest bedroom was really a perfect size and location for a laundry room (which wouldn't need that closet, so the hall could straighten out). The smallest bedroom even already has a wall full of pipes because of the adjacent bathroom! The current laundry room is bigger, making it a better size for a bedroom and a nice location for a guest bedroom (more private, doesn't need easy access to laundry). And since the half bath is already there, it's already plumbed. Add a shower, and bam, you've got a really nice guest suite. Even after removing the square footage for the full bath and walk-in closet, that room is 12' x 13' (compared to the smallest bedroom's 10 x 10), which fits a Cal King. You could get one of those super-deluxe full-height air mattresses and keep it in the walk-in closet when you don't have guests and use the room as a home gym or other activity room if you have a hobby. As I said, though, your budget is tight for just what you had in mind, so the laundry switcheroo would be for another day if you like the idea.

I would put the fridge on the corner by the dining area. If there is not quite enough space to the left of the window trim, a stub wall could be built out (red block) to match the bump-in on the other side of the dining room. Then center the sink between the windows, with the DW to the right. You might be able to run the drain under the toe-kick, which is what one GW member did (link at end). The range would stay in m/l the same area. I drew the island at 50" (depth of two 24" base cabinets plus 1" overhang on each side) to accommodate two seats on the short side, and two seats on that end. The work aisle would be reduced to 48". You could make the island all one level, and no one would be seated directly across from the cooktop. (I don't care for a cooktop in an island, especially an island with seating, but I also understand not wanting to move the 220v line on a slab.) You now have two work zones--an efficient prep and cooking zone, and a separate clean-up/dish storage zone, so that helpers can load or unload the DW, or gather dishes to set the table, without interfering with prep tasks. That leaves the wall at the top, which could house a wall oven (more expense if a 220v line is installed, and more expense if using a separate cooktop), and/or a tall pantry, or a coffee/snacks center for the living area, or a combination of those options. Mathteachr toe-kick drain line

If you put the pantry entrance where the deep cupboards are it would flow better...I find that if the kids have a zone that is pantry/fridge/microwave then they are not getting underfoot in the really active areas. Then you could put either a piece of furniture or cupboards on the wall where the pantry door is presently. The location of the wall ovens seems a really long way from the pantry and fridge and impinging on the breakfast area....and are not the prettiest thing to look at coming into the kitchen. But if not there, then where? If you moved the pantry door, you might have room next to it for wall ovens and a small landing space and then the pantry door...but then the ovens are opening in the main traffic pattern....with 5 kids traipsing through, what could possibly go wrong? I would forego island sink, unless you really have your heart set on it...it’s really close to the sink across the aisle, and I really like having an unencumbered prep space on the island. I would also swap DW and trash area on that sink so That you have room to manouver when the DW door is open. Is the butler’s pantry function that of a bar? To service both the family room and dining room?