Welcome to the Kitchens Forum Kat!

I can see what you mean about the "bowling alley" effect. It's one of the reasons we didn't fully remove the walls b/w our Kitchen & Dining Room and our Kitchen & Family Room when we remodeled. So, how to address your issues.

Think about a few things such as maybe putting in partial walls (*gasp* yes, I know that's bucking the current fad of everything open to everything else...but you are seeing that it's not always the best answer).

However, I suspect that's not going to fly, so we need more information.

First, have you seen the "New to Kitchens? Read Me First!" thread? It has a lot of information from asking for layout help to Kitchen Design Best Practices/Guidelines and beyond. (Ignore the spam we recently got on the thread, I'm trying to get it deleted.)

Regarding your layout, you may have to post it in a "Comment", for some reason some people have trouble posting everything in their original post.

That said, the layout you linked to doesn't have the information we need. We need a fully-measured layout that labels each wall/window/door/doorway and the distances b/w each wall/window/door/doorway.

An excerpt from the "Featured Answer" in the Read Me thread:

Please post a fully-measured layout of the space under consideration and a sketch of the entire floor. Both can be either hand-drawn, computer generated, or drawn up with computer/app tools.

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. (Note: Computer generated layouts often lack key measurements and, sometimes, measure to/from things like the middle of a wall or the middle of a window. Neither are useful. Measure each item and the distances between each item.)

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)?
• 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?

Lining the bikes up at the front of the house is the best we can do. There is no wall space to mount 3 bikes let alone near the front door. They’re not going anywhere, so my main concern is the living room layout. Would a pull down projector screen in front of the closets look too tacky? We don’t watch tv all that much and seems like this would lend itself to the best couch placement..?

As to Buehl’s questions:

Right now 4 young adults live in the house. Potentially there could be up to 6 adults in a shared living/roommate setup if we leave and rent out the 3 rooms we occupy.

We have a 5 burner gas stove, fridge and dishwasher as appliances.

We are open to adding doorways. We are not prepared to spend huge sums of money on altering windows (though would love to blow out the back south facing wall and put in huge windows overlooking the garden).

We have a finished basement under the ground floor.

I would vote to swap the LR and DR so that you walk into the LR first. I realize that makes TV placement tricky. It could serve as a room divider, either between the entry and LR or the LR and DR (i.e., float it, don't put it against the wall). Or get rid of it altogether (move into a spare room) if you really don't watch it much. We put our TV in the den at the back of the house, not in the public areas.

Removing that island seems like a killer for resale. If no one is cooking, could just have people going around both sides, like a traffic circle.

If we were to keep the island:

Could we add open seating at the near end...take out the wine fridge that’s below it (we barely drink so not necessary) and cut the side and about 2 feet of the back panel so that there are just two post supports. Does anyone have experience with this? My main concern is enough support for the heavy countertop slab on that end.

Other thought is to physically extend the island with some other material but I’m concerned that might look strange. Thoughts?

If you follow weedyacres suggestion and swap the LR and DR, do you still need the extra island seating? The DR being closer is the seating to talk to whoever’s cooking, easy to get snacks off the island, etc.

Exactly, if we flip we’d have plenty of seating. when We first moved in we actually had it that way but felt like we were shouting across the house in kitchen to anyone in the Living room. There are pros and cons to both

Could add a wooden flip top (ie. a piece of wood with a hinge to the end. But it would look weird and get in the way of the fridge access when it’s up which is annoying.

I too would swap the dining and living area. I would mount the tv on the wall between the windows and float the couch, facing the tv, to make a walkway behind it. It would be great to ditch the island and instead have a peninsula with seating.