Walking all the way around the corner to the pantry would be a non-starter for me. It wouldn't bother me to have the door to the pantry interrrupt the counter run, and it's an improvement to not have the entrance to the kitchen from the both mud room AND the pantry interrupt the counter run as it had been plotted on the first drawing. As a thought experiment think about the pathways food takes within your kitchen from storage position(s) to prep (often a sink) and almost always to a counter or stove to plating and delivery to table. And then the reverse when leftovers and dirty dishes return for more action at the end of the meal. In general the fewer times the food has to back track over where it's been in a previous stage, the better. Not to mention a less convoluted pathway for the cooks makes for easier meal prep. An example: in your latest drawing: you have your main clean-up sink in almost the farthest away point it can get from your dining room. Since most people like the convenience of storing the dishes near the DW that means that your dishes will have to cross a long way to go to the DR. And your DW is on the side of the sink that's almost within the main prep cooking aisle so your kids, if they're tasked with setting the table or belatedly emptying the DW, will be in the action area. Just moving the DW to the other side of the sink would be an improvement. (Or consider repositioning the sink.) I know most people first think about the look and features they want to achieve for their kitchen and then try to arrange the cooking elements within that vision. I am always plumping here to start by thinking of the food pathways, and the human pathways while doing the cooking, as a first step. Once you've got that down, then you can work out the visuals. I think even something like starting from the idea that you want an island with seating or an island cooking position is a step too far down the line until you have the pathway thing worked out. I'm not saying discard any attractive features at the start, but just don't start the plan focused on the features. A kitchen is primarily a room for storing, preparing, cooking and delivering your food to your family. Get that right and the rest is much easier. Where does your food come into the house: most likely the garage. It goes to fridge and pantry and maybe the cabs near the stove. Then it's collected from the storage places and taken to the sink or a counter and prepped and/or cooked. I think it would be fine to have the entry to pantry near the fridge, breaking through that counter run. A prep sink will separate the clean-up operations from the veggie washing and icky chicken-hands type of usage. But I'm not sure having the prep sink at the clean-up sink end of the island is best since that places it opposite the stove position. I'd consider moving it more towards the other end so you have a kind of zigzag between the fridge/pantry to island prep sink and back across to the range. Don't have the range and prep sink opposite each other unless you have really wide aisles (48-60"). Otherwise someone standing at the prep sink will be in danger of having their heels stepped on by someone at the stove who wants to step back a tad in order to peek in the broiler. (I confess that in my own plan I do have the island prep sink closer to the range than the ideal zigzag I am proposing. I pondered it a long time and decided I can live with it as we are an older two-adult, basically one-cook family; and my range is 48" long so I have lots of sideways room to stand aside, and my island is only 27" wide so another cook can actually use the sink for prep from the opposite side of the island.) Lots of people find it imperative to have the fridge on the DR edge of the kitchen so they can easily fetch stuff from the fridge during meals, so your present position of it may be a very good one. Moving the prep sink towards the DR will break up your island prep space somewhat so you may want to play around to get the best place for it. Moving it farther away from the main sink may add to your plumbing costs. Another option to play around is shifting the location of the range slightly to off-set the prep sink and range from each other. Meanwhile think about the next step when the food is being cooked - where are your pots stored and how did they get back there from the dishwashing operation? And then, where are the plates stored? Don't hesitate to have cabs in the island that don't all line up and face in the same direction. For instance, you could have a cab on the clean-up end of the island that opened toward the sink counter run, not toward the stove. You might consider even moving the clean up sink farther towards the bottom of the drawing and putting the DW opposite the end of the island with a dish cab opening towards it from the end of the island. That would make convenient storage for your dishes; convenient to unload - just open the DW and the drawers in that cab and transfer the stuff. It would also make for a convenient place from which to grab the plates when the food is ready to be dished. As I mentioned above the current position of the DW is a problem since it kind of herds the action into, not away from, the cooking aisle which should remain free of temptations for non-cooking people to enter it for any reason. When you think you have a good food-pathway driven plan then spend some time thinking through your present cooking activities and see how often, and where, the cooks cross paths during meal prep - those are potential collision spaces, perhaps some can be eliminated by further tweaking. Even though I am the only cook, I drew my own pathways on rough sketches so I could see how often I backtracked and find improved storage points and efficiencies for many of our commonest meals. At the earliest stages of kitchen design only the immutables like structural supports and unmoveable door and window positions should be givens - everything else should be on the table as you think about the food paths, IMO. You'll have less trouble getting to a good plan that's as fully populated with the most important-to-you features as possible because you'll be placing them within the best functional plan you can come up with. When you can't place any more, you're done! HTH L

A good friend of mine had a foursquare are redid her kitchen. Her floor plan is not the same - but she also wanted to keep the character of her home. She does have a large doorway between dining room and kitchen. The wall is not gone, but the two rooms flow into each other. Her cabinetry on the left hand wall is shortened in depth - not quiet as deep as regular lower cabinets and there are no appliances on that wall. I don't have any great ideas, but a large opening between the dining and kitchen would not mean taking a wall down but would allow the dining room to be used for all eating and the entire remodel space for a kitchen. You could consider the sink under the higher window and the range between windows as long as they are not too close together - you need space between to prep and work. If you want to go with a vintage look to flow with the rest of the home, you could have a sink base "cabinet" made to support an apron front sink and no back that could go in front of the low window It would have a curtain instead of doors, or possibly doors with radiator vent panels. I don't know if that is possible with the radiator - want to be safe. I would consider a "short apron" Kohler Whitehaven to get a more vintage look. The curtain allows access to the lower part of the window for cleaning. You could put the sink between the windows and do a curtained counter over the low window. Many have mentioned they like looking out of the window while they prep more than while they wash up. Curtained sink base: Radiator cover doors:

I don't care for the fridge stuck perpendicular on the end of that run. You're creating a cave with unusable space in the corner, top and bottom. Top could be an appliance garage, but you're not really gaining anything. I'd put the pantry to the right, then the fridge. As for the bump-out, I think it's too deep to put a whole row of cabinets in front of the bump-out. If you are raising the window anyway, how do you feel about setting the sink and DW into the bay, then having a diagonal counter for prep space between the sink and range? The trash pull-out could be set on the diagonal, too, with voided space behind the cabinet faces. You might even have space for a narrow slot for cutting boards beside the range. The sink is off-center to the window, so the faucet is centered to help disguise the asymmetry. A couple of other issues: With no upper cabinets adjacent to the range hood, it should be 6" wider than the cooktop, to provide a wider capture area for steam and grease. Secondly, the passage between the island and stub wall should be at least 36". I redrew the island a few inches narrower, with the 5th seat on the short side--8' will be sufficient for 4 seats. The aisle between the island and perimeter should be a minimum of 42", so setting the sink run back into the bay will help with that. You have extra space in front of the fridge run, so that counter could be made extra-deep to match the depth of a standard fridge box (30"). NKBA guidelines New to Kitchens? Read me first. Discussions--Extra-deep counters Discussions--all drawer bases Discussions--dishes in drawers

Jan, Thank you for clarifying your post. Yes to the pocket doors! I was even picturing doors with beautiful leaded glass or some sort of a stained glass insert that would match with the home’s era too. What are your thoughts as to the walking distance between the garage entrance and the new kitchen location for bringing in groceries? No big deal? Get your steps in? 👣 What about enlarging the mudroom so it would include a nice big walk-in pantry space as well and then slide the garage entrance closer towards the new kitchen space? Just a thought. JC, Sorry, I know I am getting ahead of myself. I am just having wishful thinking that you might be able to swing the kitchen moving to the FR idea. I know it might be a complete non starter. It would look mighty pretty, just sayin’! 😉 Rabbitt, I posted the PDF and I even think I posted a DWG of the home earlier on, so everything is dimensioned there in a lossless format See now this is kind of what I am talking about.…. ”DWG” and ”lossless format” Huh??? 😵‍💫 It similar to what I am trying to explain regarding your layout format. It is like you are speaking in a foreign language. A language in which only another professional architect (like yourself), a draftsmen, a GC, an ID, or someone familiar with your specific computer design program can understand. It is fine if your program does not have the ability to show the layout in a simple to read gridded format. I just figured it might have that ability since it seems like it is a very high tech fancy program you are using. BTW, while looking for your ”DWG”, I did find another good example of a layout format that is very simple and easy to read. This layout was posted earlier by Sena. See how there is a grid like graph paper? The different measurements we need are labeled in inches making it very easy to figure out that each box is equal to one foot. Sometimes the grids will show each box as 6”. So your program doesn’t do something like that, showing the grid and the walls, windows, doors, and isles being labeled like hers above? Ok, now as I am looking closer at your rendering, I see how the island you drew does not have a seating overhang. I didn’t catch that. Maybe my brain figured JC’s family had super short legs with enormous torsos to sit in a stool tucked underneath those little shallow drawers and wine cubbies??? Oh brother! 🤣 I don’t think it is a problem though. You could just make the overhang start after the island cabinets. I believe JC also said that the FR was a little bigger then you had it drawn. So with 16’, I am thinking there should be enough space for the seating for 5? I know she really was wanting the island seats.