I much prefer Jillius' 2nd example of seating but honestly, I'm not a huge fan of sitting and eating at the counter as a regular habit. Why not consider just abutting a table against the island like this: [Industrial Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/industrial-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2113) by Chicago Architects & Building Designers Besch Design, Ltd. This would give you the flexibility to pull the table away from the island and turn it to seat 6 when needed. I would do a 60" long table so that the people seated closest to the island don't feel crowded up against it. Your island arrangement looks crowded to me. Here's another table against an island: [Contemporary Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2103) by Vancouver Design-Build Firms VictorEric

Oh Wow! Thank you! we got this house in August after a full year and a half of haggling with the bank over the short sale. We just loved the house. The house is solid and beautiful but needs some major cosmetic help. We've put about 40k into the outside, tearing down rotten barns, reseeding and fixing up the back yard where the 2 barns were (we kept the original barn which is in not too bad shape and used to house horses), replaced the roof, new boiler, and are currently redoing the front porch to look the same as the original. Luckily the widow of the original owners son, who grew up here, lives across the street and remembers how the house looked mostly. Here are some more pictures of the entire kitchen. I do want to keep the cabinets the same and getting a wood expert is a great idea. I hate to think of painting them. The dining room side has the original shellack (sp?) which has bubbled. My husband loves it, me not so much but I can deal. It's bubbly looking and darker in places. All of the wood on the windows and trim is kind of like that. I'm so glad that the 2nd owner (we're the 3rd) kept things as original as possible. The kitchen itself is not large, but the dining room is a good size. In the spring, we are going to re-shingle the house with cedar shingles and then paint them...no idea on color for that either but I think just plain cedar shingles would be weird looking. I will attach a pic of the house itself too. Our budget is not huge and part of that 40-50k we've spent has gone into gutters and some outside repairs, we'll be working on this house forever and would mainly like to do the bathrooms and kitchen first. The floor is a fake wood cheap linoleum and the island top is formica. The kitchen sink used to be on the wall with the windows but was moved to the island. When we do the outside in the spring, we are going to replace that window with either a picture window or some kind of bay window. I am also thinking about putting the sink back over there but don't know if that is doable and I kind of like it being in the island...THANK YOU ALL for ideas and help! We are totally lost and the one interior designer we brought in and paid wanted to paint the cabinets in 2 different colors or replace them entirely....not going to happen! When you enter the kitchen from the staircase, you have to go down 3 steps to enter the kitchen. Same with the foyer. The downstairs bathroom is also there facing the staircase. I don't know why all of that (bathroom and staircase) is raised like that but it was how it was built so there is a reason. And yes, I made my own window treatments....and they are sheets. I can't really sew either. I'm sort of waiting to see what we do with those windows before I get window treatments. The door by the stove goes to the basement and also has a tiny hallway that takes you to a door to the foyer. The other door opens to the pantry where the washer/dryer and shelves are. The third door by the windows is just a closet.

Assuming you want to keep the peninsula and clean-up sink in the current location, this rough plan gives you a walk-in pantry and fridge/freezer columns, but I couldn't fit side-by-side ovens. There is a MW on a shelf beside the fridge/freezer, with landing space below. The island has seating on two sides, with shared trash pull-out on the corner. Separate prep and clean-up zones allow a helper to load or unload the DW, or set the table, without interfering with prep and cooking. The base cabinet in the corner between the clean-up sink and cooktop opens toward the family room, so that space is not wasted. The optional cabinet above it can also open toward the FR, to stow a purse, phones/charger, bills, etc. The pantry has a sliding door, with optional sliders to close off the kitchen from the formal LR.

Carolina Kitchen and Bath - the trash is not next to the range. There is a cabinet between the range and the window. The trash is under the sink. The distance between the wall and island is supposedly 30 inches. As there are other doorways in our home that are this wide (and some smaller) this seemed OK to us. I think the distance from the front of the range to the kitchen island was 36 inches, but I will check.