It is always an adventure. We planned a family room addition and a kitchen renovation --- with a 3 year old and a 1 year old. It was a mess. The GC took out an exterior wall and put up a temporary wall that was plywood with insulation stapled to it. We set up a staging area in our living room that consisted of a fridge, table and a microwave. I put tons of canned goods on the table and many rubbermaid bins, toys underneath the table. There was very little room for the kids to play and it was stressful for me to be in the house because the baby would cry and I knew that was annoying for the workers. On the other hand, their hammering was a constant torture sound! I decided to take the kids and go visit my mom in FL for a few weeks so they could really crank it out and we'd come back to a finished project that had fallen way behind. Washing dishes in my bathroom, dealing with the constant dust,etc. made me wonder daily what I was thinking.... Anyway, we left for FL, came back and excitedly opened the door and discovered that the CG never set foot in my house when I wasn't there. GRRRR. I called him from my house(on my cell) and asked how it was going, to which he replied, "oh great." I was furious. That was the first of many problems we encountered with him. He was the worst and in the end our addition burned down the first time we turned our new gas fireplace on) and we had to start all over (when I was now 7 months pregnant. When I went into labor and was at the hospital, our roof was covered in tarps. My MIL called us at the hospital and wanted to know what to do because it was raining and the wind was blowing and the tarps were blowing off and it was raining all over our brand new beautiful cherry floors. Any way.... it can be painful, and expect inconvenience, but guess why I am on this forum now.... because I want to do it all again.... yes, we have waited 4 years. In the end, we enjoyed that kitchen and that new addition so much. I learned many many lessons --- the most important being TRUST YOUR GC, but it was all worth it. It was a product that I was so proud of every single day and we were so sad to leave that house because we had put our personal stamp on it! Good luck --- can't wait to hear about your finished product, I'm sure you will be so glad you did it.

Thanks much for all the comments - sorry the excel layout leaves a lot to be desired to understand the flow to the rest of the house and the exterior - which is pretty important. I'll try to lay something out - but basically, the backdoor comes in off the driveway which is at say elevation 0, then there is a first step down into the first part of back yard, about where the steps down are from the EIK that takes you down to -4...to a lower bluestone patio that goes into a walkout basement right below the butler pantry. Then, the backyard slopes down yet again another 4 get to -8 total to the right of the end of the house. I will draw up. What do you think right min. size is for a 4-top round EIK? In my "excel" lingo, the black rectangles are doorways and the orange are windows, so the thought was to create a floor to ceiling glassed in EIK, which is the best view of the backyard. (Top of plan is north, so is going to be south facing which is a concern). The door out of the EIK is the secondary access to the backyard - and the grill. Good point about the location of the refrigerator - thanks again for all comments...

I do not want yellow, so that's good advice. I'm after a wood floor with a bit of variation, both to camouflage a busy house and hide what is sure to be dents and scratches with a cat and a dog. The only other things I've got going on in the kitchen is the white beadboard ceiling -- walls and trim colour yet to be determined, and there's not a lot of that. I want to do the living room in something like a BM Stonington gray. My flooring store tells me Kentwood makes good hardwood, and I thought Coal Harbour (bottom photo) was promising, but lesser expensive options are two from Mannington that I like -- Mountain View Hickory Smoke (top photo) or Mayan Pepper (middle photo) which is actually shown against a lighter green, albeit the bathtub. I'm going a little nuts, because the paint store lady says I need to pick flooring before I pick a cabinet colour; other people feel it's the other way around ... and now I read the countertop should be picked first because they're the star of the show. And here all along I thought it was the cabinets, and everything else came from that!

Thanks everyone. I have spent some time analyzing my current situation and the proposed layouts that all of you so kindly offered. It seems that there are pros and cons to all scenarios and no clear cut best answer. 1. Keeping my current layout would provide the maximum amount of storage but I would still have a compromised prep area between the sink and range. I would take away the bar height and have a single level countertop for the whole configuration. 2. Sena's layout includes a 52" x 90" rectangular island instead of the L-shape and proposed moving the range to the corner. The benefit here is that I gain prep area between the sink and stove. I do lose some of my original storage with the range in the corner and the island change. 3. cpartist proposed moving the refrigerator to the far left top wall with dishwasher next to the fridge, sink next to the dishwasher, widened window and moving the stove to where the refrigerator currently is. I would have to use a counter-depth refrigerator if I don't want it sticking out so far and I'm not sure of the exact island dimension proposal but it was 39" x ??". I would definitely gain more prep space between the sink and stove but I feel like I would be losing a lot of island. I would also lose some storage in the refrigerator over having a refrigerator in my recessed area and the pantry would not be as deep. 4. mamagoose proposed using cpartist's idea for the appliances but turning the island 90 degrees. The reason I resisted seating on the dining room side was because we have our dining room table for seating and it feels like island seating in that area would be redundant. The island in this configuration though is 42" x 72". I do love the look of rectangular islands and I think they are timeless. I'm not sure the L-shaped island is as appealing as it once was to me but it does seem like I can get more storage that way. I gather that most of you feel that my current L was too big to begin with? I'm worried that my kitchen is going to come off appearing smaller than it truly is if the island is small and a lot of the storage is gone. So that is my dilemma right now. It is a lot to process and I thank you for all the valuable info. Am I correct that there is just not one best answer?