Here's our latest and greatest that draws on several of your great ideas. This is way better than what we were going to do! We would love your thoughts on optimizing cabinet and appliance layout in this space! Some decisions we have made: We are going to shrink the first floor laundry room and stub in for a second floor laundry for next year's second story remodel. At that time, the smaller laundry would convert to a pantry. We are opening the wall into the DR ad using that space for the kitchen. We are not adding windows on the left wall of the kitchen (would only see the side of our neighbor’s home, north side of home so we would get no direct sunlight) but will invest a little more in lighting to compensate. We will partially wall off between current DR and LR and use either french pocket doors or barn sliders for office separation. We don't want to block off any of the current windows along the back of the house and will do a little window shuffling to fit best use (the boring details - swap multiuse and DR windows so multi use stays current height but 1' narrower to center, DR 1' shorter to fit over cabinets). We aren't going to make any changes to the FR layout or the first floor half bath. We have spent a bit of time looking at appliances and are sticking with what we had previously picked - 36" induction cooktop, wall oven/MW combo. Not (yet) replacing our fridge or DW. We’ll have space for small to large dining table in the multi-use area for us or future owners if desired (current plan shows 1 table in two different configurations). Here's the current plan - We'll probably shorten the island 6" to give 48" to cooktop and 45" to 1/2 bath corner. Also, my original measures post with DR was off by 5", corrected here.

"Not practical for us" I just finished a similar for a family w/ five kids. A reno w/ add, that should have been a total tear down. They moved out, went three doors up the street to a dump of a rental, (ill maintained for decades ) in a beautiful neighborhood surrounded by golf courses. Only advantage was kids remained in same schools, same friends etc. Reno took months longer than a new build would have taken. Displaced to another location was annoying, and necessary and was barely tolerable nearing the end........which stillll isn't the end as we still have workers in and out of the new home. The point here? You can't even attempt to live in this through any reasonable reno. It will take 50% longer than you think, cost 50% more than you think. It will be 50% as beautiful, and 50% as functional as what would have been possible with a tear. Both situations, tear or reno need an architect. A start to finish plan for a new build needs minimum six months of planning. So bet me now ? You may come to find that a delay, a pared down wish list, a new build AND a place to go for 15 to 18 months makes a lot more sense - by a whole lot more than 50% : )

Even with that change, you won't have enough room for seating at the island if you want to keep the cabinets on the refrigerator wall too. Do you need the island seating with the kitchen table right next to it? The easiest way would be to put cabinets or shelves where the knee space is instead. If you really want the island seating, you'll need to reduce the cabinets on the wall there to 12" or so, which will give you a 53" aisle--still very tight (and less than is recommended) for seating, with a not terribly useful depth for the pantry cabinets. It seems like a big cost when the kitchen table is right there.

you already have a backsplash integrated into your countertop. Can you have the 'curb' knocked off? then tile how ever you like. How about just paining the whole wall a darker color? get a statement light fixture? the subway tile looks boring, a verticle tile would be more of a statement. you only need two floating shelves, I suggest a woodtone to add interest. if you are worried about symmetry, you won't be happy with the results.