I'd consider moving the garage door to the lanai side of the wall. It's unnecessary to force more traffic through the kitchen. The door is a decent focal point, and you can either add more storage to that garage wall.

The images of T-shaped islands may look cool, but seriously how impractical; no one wants to sit in the interior corner of counter seating. If you're determined to have that shape I recommend just abutting a freestanding counter height table to a built-in rectangular island so you keep some flexibility in your space plan and don't sink a bunch of your budget into something you may dislike in a few years.

I think there's a better layout option to be discovered. Can you post the dimensions of the orange, yellow, green, and blue lines in the image?

Thanks! Appreciate your feedback

We are a family of 4 and wanting seating where we can sit across from each other and play card but do not want to put a table in front of the sliding doors to the lanai…

Moving the exterior door isn’t in the budget but appreciate the suggestion

Is anyone actually going to use this desk? Everyone I know is ripping out their old desk set ups in the kitchen because no one uses them anymore. I'd strongly prefer table in the nook area myself - the T islands always look odd to me. What is the owner's retreat? That looks like better office space to me. Are their doors to lanai from nook and family room?

Lharpie thanks for the feedback. I homeschool and my husband works from home. He uses the owners retreat as his office. I agree on the t island we just can’t fighure out another seating arrangement for 4 where we sit across from each other. We definitely don’t want a table in the nook area, it’s a pain walking around the chairs when going in and out the sliding doors to the pool.

This is the T island we saw and liked, ours would be on a much smaller scale but same layout. Not the same colors .

The T island you show above isn't an island because the seating portion is at table height. Table height allow adult size people to sit relaxed for longer periods with their feet on the floor wherever they want to move them. Do that for your setup and the function goes up. You won't need a desk for your kids. The new table will be fully usable for school activities and more. Each of those pantries on either side of your frig are a serious waste of money at $3000 for the pair. KD money maker. A 12" reach in shelved pantry is an easier to use choice at a fraction of the price. You can see what's stored. The 'desk' wall with no desk now can be a 12" reach-in pantry wall with maybe a bench and hooks/bins for a short space at the garage door. This mud space can be added to the mud space you show on the back wall. Both can be sized for one with a seat. It's not visible from the foyer. No pantry at frig allows a workzone counter space with the frig to one side. Move the sink down towards the frig for better prep. I'd use a 24" sinkbase and 24" sink with 21" interior width. Completely adequate and better appearance for an island. Dump the wall ovens and cooktop in favor of a 36" induction range from Bosch or Electrolux. All base cabs are wide 36" or more with drawers.

Is there much room under the stairs? Any chance your desk area could go there? If so, that might be effective as you can just close the door when things get a bit messy.

Thank you Norwood Architects. There isn’t enough room under the stairs for a desk.. just a small closet with a sloped ceiling. I wasn’t sure about the mud room on the wall you mentioned as you’d see it when you walked in the front door. Appreciate your feedback and ideas!

I homeschool two and my husband works from home in 1200 square feet plus a tiny carved out section in an unfinished basement, so I totally understand the space juggling you face.

How do you envision this desk in the kitchen working? Is it for your homeschool mom stuff or it it for your students to use?

How are the "living room" and "dining room" spaces presently used? I'm wondering if you have used either as a homeschool room.

One more thing... unless there are utilities in that lanai corner of the garage, I wouldn't dismiss moving the door as too expensive without getting bids. In our previous house I moved the kitchen to garage door by only about three feet and it made a huge improvement in kitchen function.

She loves layouts - I don’t have to keep the desk in the kitch and could utilize the front room across from the dining room, we have our yoga mats in there and use it for that but honestly not often. What would you recommend putting on that kitchen wall? I want to keep the entry to sliding doors open so a table there isn’t convenient.

A shallow 12" deep floor to ceiling pantry with doors is my suggestion. Doors can match your kitchen or not. IKEA is 15" deep. Several together.

How about a giant island with wrap around seating?

Thanks Chris, we want to be able to play cards so we’d to sit across from each other but I do like the look of this

Dan1888 do you think those instead of the desk area? that’s a great suggestion.

I puzzled over your kitchen and I was struck at just how big it is. I checked the dimensions you wrote several times to make sure. I seems like the allocation of space in your original layout is pretty inefficient.

Just for fun I did a rough layout showing what it might be like if your garage door moved and your kitchen and nook swapped places. This might be way out of budget. Also, there's no mudroom type situation near the garage. Basically I was trying to make your nook more of an extension of your family room to the left. (The little white circle is to represent a 40" round dining table.)

If you could add a window to the left side of the house I might look closer at a layout that places the clean up sink on the exterior wall, but I imagine it would be nice facing the foyer.

Again, posting this just for fun and throwing out ideas you may not have considered yet...

My friend did a built-in desk in her kitchen and regrets it.. wishing she’d have put in a coffee/ tea/bar instead. She never uses the desk. We did a built in desk with cabinet storage in our mud room. It’s a good area to keep the printer and other office type items, but we never use it as a desk. It’s more comfortable to sit at the kitchen counter or table or family room couch.

I would lean towards finding a table for the area that you are thinking of making a part of the island counter. Maybe more seating and probably more flexibility. What’s your table location like at present?

Thanks Chris, after reading the comments we are not going to add the desk . Appreciate everyone’s feedback. We are also not going to add the T shaped island.

We have a dining room but we never use it. We like gathering in the kitchen and need an area to sit together where we are not in a row. Our kiddos are younger so table height is a better option.

She loves layouts, thank you. How kind of you to draw the idea up for us. We can’t move the door without hiring an architect and getting HOA approval so it’s not in our budget. It’s a good sized kitchen just a bit odd with the doors

@hkennedy2

We can’t move the door without hiring an architect and getting HOA approval

Are you referring to the door into the garage? That's rather unusual. Are you positive?