@mama goose_gw zn6OH Thank you for your thoughtful feedback. I was definitely considering the dishwasher swap, with dishes in drawers instead of upper cabinets. There's two reasons I'm hesitant. 1) I have never been a big fan of dishes in drawers. Getting dishes is a frequent activity, so having to bend down each time seems like it could get painful on the back. I could be totally wrong on this. 2) Our typical routine for weeknight dinner involves brining clean plates to the stove for loading and then taking to the island to eat. Setting the table for more "formal" dinners usually involves using the "good" dishes, which are stored elsewhere anyways. (The plan doesn't show it, but there are uppers on either side of stove and dishes are planned to be on the left.) Trash drawers are going to go under both main and prep sink. There is definitely room to make the island wider than the standard 4 feet and hence move it a little closer to stove. My concern there is that it would require a seam in the counter material (quartzite). Maybe a skilled installer could make that almost disappear. I'm just wondering how much that would bother me. I should have provided more context on the bank of floor-to-ceiling cabinets. The design is below. The middle section is indented with a counter ledge and has the microwave and coffee/breakfast stations behind the appliance garages. This is why the fridge can move to one of the two ends, but not the middle. If I'm adding the island prep sink, then I'm actually happy with the fridge at the end because it means I can just pivot to pull things from fridge and put on island. I had originally wanted to keep the island completely appliance free, but now realize the prep sink there is a must given the rest of the configuration.

Thank you everyone for your time and great feedback. Let me try to answer some of your questions and clarify a few things… The kitchen and current dining space combined is 11’5” deep by 23’8” wide. Our budget is around 20K and we could and are willing to do some plumbing or move a gas line for our oven/stove. We recently replaced our dishwasher and oven/stove. Our fridge is still fine but could be replaced if necessary (but we don’t want to spend 6-10K on a new counterdepth fridge). So the budget would be primarily for cabinets, countertops, any plumbing or gas line work, etc. We are one of the largest houses in the neighborhood so we aren’t wanting to spend a ton on the kitchen and overprice the house for the area, but for the size of our house our current kitchen is not working (we only have one drawer for silverware and then a small 12” drawer for utensils…it’s just not very user friendly or functional) and needs redone. We tinkered with flipping the current kitchen and dining space but run into some problems. 1) The large 72” wide picture window in the dining space is only 29” up from the floor, so it would be below the cabinet and countertop. The smaller 36”x36” above the current sink would likely need to be altered to fit the space more appropriately. We have stucco so it is a lot more involved and costly to change window sizes or placement leaving us pretty much stuck with the present windows. 2) We have soffits above our current kitchen cabinets that we were hoping to be able to open up but we realized the one along the top wall over the sink is filled with plumbing from our 2nd floor main bathroom as well as HVAC. Too costly to move for our budget so it would have to stay and look out of place all alone over there without cabinets or something else to help camouflage it. The one along the shorter wall can be taken out and we plan to do so in order to have taller cabinets on that wall. There was a wall between the kitchen and current dining room that we took out (only a small 30” deep stud wall remains next to the fridge). We have a standard fridge and would like to try to decrease the amount of space it takes and projects from the wall. We realized there is a double wall on the right wall in-between the kitchen and bathroom. We have decided to move the fridge there because we can recess it back 3-4” making it appear closer to a counterdepth fridge. Our current “living room” acts more like a family room for us, but we also just refinished our basement in the last year and that area serves more as our present family room. Since it is a large room, it would be a bit awkward to put our kitchen table there and have some extra space in the living room that leaves us wondering how it would be used. Our current “family room” with the fireplace is a room we don’t use because our fireplace isn’t functioning. It is merely a room we walk through in order to access our backyard and why we thought taking some space from the room for a mudroom might be a good option. Our current kitchen table is large (40x72) with a bench and 4 tall/high back chairs. It takes up a lot of space in the current “dining room” space and why we were tinkering with a smaller table for the kitchen and moving the larger table to a new dining room in the back. However, it does make sense that we would likely no longer use that second table and would be a wasted space. @emilyam819 Yes, we will be removing the small stud wall by the current fridge to allow more freedom in the design. Please see note above about the wall removal and possible fridge relocation. @latifolia Our current dining area is the left part of the open space in front of the large picture window. We are considering putting a smaller table there so we can still have a place to eat yet have more room for cabinets and then moving our large kitchen table to the back room with the fireplace. It currently is an unused space as the fireplace is nonfunctional and why we are considering making a mudroom back there as well. But we understand dining rooms often go unused so maybe that area is better served as a den or office space like you suggested.Our laundry room is in the basement as we have a laundry chute and don’t have the room to put it on the 1st or 2nd floors. @Cherie “Too bad you can't remove the walls.”—I know, right!?! It’s so frustrating! But we have sulked about it too long and need to accept it and move on, but it is such a bummer in our books!

A few key measurements are missing -- all doors/doorways/windows/walls should have measurement labels (with trim included in the door/doorway/window measurements). Post an updated version with all the measurements -and- a sketch of the entire floor the Kitchen is on. Here's an excerpt from the "New to Kitchens? Read Me First!" thread: Please post a fully-measured layout of the space under consideration and a sketch of the entire floor. By "fully-measured", we mean a layout with the widths of each wall/window/door/doorway and the distances between each wall/window/door/doorway labeled. See a sample below. If something cannot be moved or changed, label it precisely on your layout (see post in sample) and tell us why it cannot be moved/changed -- we may have some ideas for you. The sketch of the entire floor lets us see how the Kitchen relates to the rest of the home. It doesn't have to be to-scale, but it should accurately show how the rooms relate to each other and should include all interior & exterior doors. In addition, it will help us see how traffic flows in, around, and through the Kitchen. Label the front entry and family entry. The family entry is usually a garage or side entry, but it might not be. It's helpful to know which door you use to bring in groceries. Regardless of how you draw it up (by hand, computer, etc.), please be sure all measurements are labeled. Other questions... Tell us about you and your family and how you plan to use your Kitchen. All-adults? Empty Nesters? Children (now or in the future)? Aging in place? What appliances (& their sizes) do you plan to have? Where are you flexible? Can walls/windows/doors/doorways change (move, change size, add, delete)? Do you have a basement under the Kitchen or are you on a slab?

You're getting permits for the rebuild. Ralk to your building department about getting your permits to include the old unpermitted space. It'll become permitted. You need to post something readable and larger.