DH vetoed switching the kitchen and dining room, which I kind of expected. I do like stainless, but we've bought all new white appliances (except the fridge) so they'll be staying for a while. We need to get a new fridge next year, and I hate cleaning the textured finish all the white ones seem to have, so I might look at stainless steel for that. My problem with designing a kitchen is that I like so much. That, and I have champagne tastes and a beer budget, but I think that's a problem for a lot of people. I love the kitchen and building a house forums, but they can drive you crazy with all the fantastic stuff everywhere. Since our house was built in '68, the peninsula has that typical half-circle bookcase under it. Well, it did; the shelves were broken so I pulled it out. But the counter is still there. I wonder if when the counter is gone (I think it overhangs about a foot) if the space will feel much bigger. I would still like to make the doorway into the dining room bigger, I think. We're also going to add some sort of counter space behind the back door, whether it's from a built-in or from extending the cabinets next to it. Here's something I drew up really quick. The screened porch is 10x12, the deck is 5 1/2x 14 (so not really big enough for much, but we could fit a table at the far end, which is why the stairs are more toward the middle). The stairs start with that large landing, then go down to the next landing and turn. I doubt they's need that much considering the height, but I did it that way anyway. The gap will have a railing, and underneath will be storage. The blue area is concrete; DH wants a place to play basketball and the kids want a place to ride bikes and scooters. The brown circle is the locust tree, the large white circle is a patio table, the small blue circle is a fire pit and the white rectangle is a potting shed. The line at the rear of the garage is the current fence; on the other side it's at the front of the house. I've also cut off the rounded end of the peninsula, widened the dining room doorway to 5' (might go down to 4'), moved the storage to the corner behind the door and extended the fridge to 36".

Your cabinets are quite beautiful. Overall, the existing kitchen has very nice finishes. The main thing that I see about your dream kitchen is light, light, and more light -- and more space. You could have the cabinets painted a white or pale color, a shade that compliments the counters, but I would be reluctant to cover that beautiful finish (and I have painted cabinets). I don't think knocking down the wall will really give you either, although a wider entry into the kitchen would be a plus. Also, I don't see what new appliances would do for your goal. I would at the least shorten the island to allow more movement in the main kitchen area. Perhaps it could be removed entirely and partly re-used to create a short peninsula at the breakfast nook end, which would save some storage. If you want more "flow" from the family room, even if you knock down the wall, you have a bottleneck with the island and narrow aisles -- if you are hoping to have guests in the kitchen, I think you will need to completely re-design the layout. We have had some talented amateurs here in the past who will help with innovative ideas, so you should consider starting a thread with your house plan. Be sure to look at the "read me first" topic. The floor is beautiful too but I think, with the cabs, adds to the "closed in" feeling. If you make any change to the island or wall, you will have to do some patching in of flooring -- so maybe just changing to something lighter would be a good move. Likewise, the counters are beautiful, but add to the almost monotone feeling. Keep them if you paint the cabs, change to a light/white if you don't. Can you enlarge the window? or add one?

Really nice home and property. You could simply remove any central vac system and invest in a Roomba -- that could get rid of one something along one wall and let you square room 1. https://www.google.com/search?q=Roomba&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj1l-Ll87bnAhXJSt8KHZjVD0QQsxh6BAgPECs&biw=1366&bih=628#spf=1580785213419 For heating purposes in a large old two story home, being able to close off the stairwell should be the primary concern since heat rises. From personal experience ... if you have a wood stove, you'd be better much served putting it in a larger room or in a room open to multiple rooms. NOT in a small room such as room 3. If you have a wood heater, you could put it either in or in front of your fireplace (with triple wall metal stove pipe lining the chimney for safety). If you don't want to make room 3 your new Foyer/Entry ... but if you want the room 2&3 side of the house to be your front of the house ... another way to use the rooms is worth considering: You have a tiny bathroom very close to the kitchen/eating area. Budget permitting, the best use of room three could well be closing it off from room 2 and creating a new full bath in room 3. That would enable you to square the informal dining room and move the bathroom farther away from the kitchen and dining area. Once you've moved the bathroom, you could recreate the space between kitchen and informal dining with a pass thru kitchen cabinet "wall" that you can walk all the way around. https://www.bhg.com/home-improvement/remodeling/architectural-details/home-design-ideas-room-dividers/?slide=slide_2bf3e1c7-021a-4262-9de6-fd5daf3777a7#slide_2bf3e1c7-021a-4262-9de6-fd5daf3777a7 Keeping only one interior door to enter room 2 from room 3 means you could use room 2 as a bonus room -- usable as a bedroom or as you choose. It also means you can keep that one door to room 2 closed and not fully heat it all the time. You could keep as is or alter or (if not load bearing) remove the wall between dining and informal living room to create a single elongated rectangle shaped "great room" -- kitchen, dining, family room. If you created a pony wall between dining wall and informal living, your wood heater in the fireplace could heat the entire great room area. You could keep as many posts as needed for support in that pony wall and, with a solid back on the informal living room room side, you can put any furnishings you choose by it with the back to the pony wall. You could alter the porch beside room 2 between the window to room 2 and the door to room 1 to create a wider porch there that wraps around the side of room 1 several feet. You could even enclose that area and create a new foyer and make the rest of the porch on the right side of room 2 your front porch. Then in that back corner off the kitchen at a right angle to room 3, remove the shallow/narrow open porch and create a square deck or patio there with a rail around it and steps exiting on the left side toward what would be the back of your home. You might also consider a "green wall" -- row of shrubs -- all across the yard so guests are led to the new foyer on the right side of the home.

@acm I hadn’t thought about into the sunroom then out the side. That would be easiest, but would mean two bends. I’ll have to look into that. For wall cab plans, If you can make out my very hastily (not to scale) drawing. We have one hanging cabinet planned between our front door and window and an easy reach corner wall cabinet (the kind that wraps around corner, not angled) in the corner next to the range. The picture with the MW on the metal shelf is where that first wall cabinet would be and I agree that is the best spot. I’ve liked it there. It’s very accessible, you have a place to set things when you take them out. Its close to my cooking area but not right in it. This morning I told DH we absolutely could not hang a MW under the corner cabinet. It’s such a bad spot. You can’t actually get in front of things in that corner. I can’t imagine trying to pull hot things out of a MW from to the left or right of it. That does sound dangerous. He has agreed to put it in the wall cabinet that corresponds to where I have it now, but only if it can be inside the cabinet. The cabinets are shaker but he is definitely throwing in some craftsman elements and he really wants to try to get that uniform look that you see in craftsman furniture. This has been really hard because our space is odd and in order to make it work symmetry has had to go out the window. He is wanting to try to make the uppers as uniform as possible. I’ve done lots of sketching trying to figure out how things will work. Here is one when I was trying to imagine how to make the microwave not look completely out of place there above the range ending at the window. I just could not do that to my satisfaction. A hood will not only be more functional but it will look so much nicer in that spot. Here I adjusted a drawing to make the wall cabinet have an open shelf for the MW. He doesn’t like how that it would make our only two wall cabinets no longer match in style, which I get. I’m not super excited about the idea of having to open a door to use the microwave, but I’ll do if I have to. I’ll work on him some more first and see if I can get him to come around to either an open shelf or a built in. GE does have a smallish MW that can be built in or hung and would fit on that shelf and we decided to make them slightly deeper to accommodate a MW more easily. Since our prep areas are under the windows the deeper cabinets won’t affect us. I could hang it under the cabinet but then I’d have to move my coffee pots and I really like them there. @kaseki I hadn't thought to try that, though the MW is currently in a box. I was going to call GE however since its been decided to put the MW in the wall cabinet, no need to figure it out I’ll just sell the MW. Thanks for the tip about wind direction. I’ll keep that in mind.