I'm offering the following as a devil's advocate. Both positions for your kitchen are viable choices with nice reasons to go each way. That's why you need to draw up all possibilities to consider. If the middle is right for you guys, this will end up reinforcing that decision. Versatility and size? That 15x30 room is looking very, very nice as it is, but the far end is prize square footage with all those exterior walls (light/views in up to 3 directions), and right now you plan to actually dine there very little--pretty but underused. If you put the kitchen down there, that addition would be used as intensively as it deserves to be. The living area for furniture placement would be the same, but it would be more strongly defined. Nevertheless the whole should still appear very spacious because it would still be part of a 15x30 room with kitchen on end and still be open to the north, which would extend additional living activities that direction, instead of east. The dining room might well end up used more for various activities in the middle of the house. In considering this alternative layout, how about a pretty door to the outside from a middle/dining room, French perhaps? And for that matter, are you sure you wouldn't have a door directly out from the kitchen? You have an entry in that end that looks as if it would need some reconfiguring too. Would it enter the middle/dining room? Last night I also thought of one other -- possible -- advantage to switching the kitchen and dining room: the step down. This could be a design asset for a dining room, setting it off as special as viewed from the living room. Since you don't plan to eat there a lot, even with young children you could have a nice rug under the table if you wanted it. You'd take that step mostly on the way back to the children's rooms--longer journeys. For the kitchen, you guys'd be making all the many, many little daily journeys between the living room and kitchen on a level floor. Morning sun in kids' hallway? Have sunshine everywhere and you eliminate the pleasure of entering a sunny room. A dim hallway is often a design asset because it makes the rooms opening off it all the more inviting. I can't see what that cabinet in the hall is, but with a little attention to attractiveness and interest, the hall looks pretty good to me. The only way I could imagine to improve it would be to extend it to come back around on itself -- children love to run in circles. :) As it is now, though, the hall enters a sunny middle room in the mornings, setting that room off really nicely, however it's used.

When I said 'public rooms' I meant the living room, dining area, family room -- kitchen -- space the family uses. A house with three or four bedrooms is *expected* by a buyer to have that space to accommodate a larger family. You may be fine without more garage space, but most buyers would not. My experience was buying a 1950's ranch on an acre lot in an established neighborhood. We thought we would remodel it. A friend who is a bank assessor pointed out to me the financial advantage of a teardown where land values are high. A builder would have erected a 5K sq ft house on this lot. Neighboring properties are on 1 - 5 acres and go to 12,000 sq ft. Some are historic. We only wanted a single story -- 2900 sq ft., but we built with a full-height attic that can be a second floor for some future buyer who wants the larger home. We built public rooms large enough for that larger family. Ours is one of the smallest interiors here, but we 'fit in' as seen from the road. Had we renovated, the process would have taken ages, with lots of 'surprises', while we lived in the mess. The new build took nine months. A remodeled old ranch would have been worth less than what we would have invested. The all-new house is worth more than we spent on the lot and the build -- because the LAND is so much of the value. We have spent nothing on major maintenance issues for 14 years because everything here ---plumbing, HVAC, wiring, roof, floors, appliances, fixtures, etc. -- was new in 2000. I'm looking at your property as a $500K lot with a basement and a chimney and a 1-car parking pad. Now...what will you do with that? LOL

For budget reasons, you probably should not move appliances very far. My first thought would be something like the following (hope it is legible). This maximizes counterspace, which may or may not be what you most desire. To maximize storage, the pantry is full-height, and around 15-18 inches deep. It would hold much more than just upper cabinets. You did not show a photo of your buffet window, but I am guessing that you might need to raise the window sill, which could be a big budget item.

It sounds like you are caught in the trend of the day-open concept. But tearing out walls just to tear out walls is not well thought out. Just the basics- kitchen ceiling and hall ceiling don’t match. The baseboard heat won’t have a wall. What you are proposing is very expensive. Visitors through what looks like the front door will be dumped right into your kitchen. I wish, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, you had bought a new house that met your need for open concept. I have a 200 year old house and I base everything we do to honor the house and the man who built it. Yes, we have central air, electricity, plumbing and a newly remodeled kitchen. But I did not block up the 200 year old cooking fireplace with the original crane, I didn’t change out a door for a window and a longer run of cabinets, I didn’t rip down the original plastered ceiling to vault the space. I want to respect the families who lived here by being a caretaker, not a demo man. The value of separation in a household has been demonstrated during this quarantine. DH can watch the whole series of Star Trek ( please just shoot me!) in the library while I work on my genealogy project and watch murder mysteries in the back parlor. When he is cooking (using every pot and pan we own), I can sit in relative quiet in the library and read until dinner is ready.