Wow, exciting time for you guys. Perhaps you can rough out your layout of the kitchen on graph paper and upload it? or get a closer view of it? (so it's a little easier to read)

We have a 4yr old and a 2yr old...they have wood 'standing' boxes for kids on Craigslist. Don't know what they are called, but try searching the kids section, you'll find one. I have seen them at our friends' houses (we don't have enough space/money) If baking is a priority, that might be worth the money.

What are the isle spaces? For baking and cooking with the kiddos you'll need about 2 ft per person. Next to each other. Tighter will be hard to move around with elbows etc. More is better.

The dishwasher is going to be in the way when open for whomever cooks etc. Also I would prefer to have the dishwasher close to where the dishes will go when unloading.

Not enough aisle space and very awkward layout. And I would want a noise buffer between the family room and the master bedroom. Something like a closet or bathroom between them.

Thanks for posting, everyone!

rdolesh - I am going to look into those. My husband is semi-crafty and I have seen plans online on how to make them. Thanks for the idea!

lyfia- This is such a preliminary plan so I don't know exact isle spaces but thanks for the tip. I will make sure we have that since this is pretty much a clean slate, we can change things now while we are still in the planning stages. We try not to unload/load dishes while someone is cooking because we have that problem now. Where would you put it??

Hollysprings - when you say the layout is awkward, in what ways? I'm not trying to be dumb but this is our first attempt and it's hard to think of new designs when you get stuck on one you like, you know? What suggestions do you have?

I'll think about changing the closet to be a noise buffer, thanks for that tip.

My husband is going to sketch this up this weekend with better dimensions. We found this online and have been tweaking it to make it what we want so right now it really is a blank slate. I worry about the two "islands" - should we do away with one of them to make more space??

My first suggestion was to get rid of the double islands, but it looks like one of them actually serves as support with posts. It actually looks like a half wall divider of some sort - maybe with shelving on the bottom? You may be able to get rid of the posts if you get a good support beam overhead but it could be costly. We did a steel beam in our house to avoid a "post".

It really seems to me that the 'aisle' between the 2 islands would be wasted space.

Thanks, numbersjunkie! I wouldn't mind having some sort of open shelving there for cookbooks and decorative items. But otherwise that 2nd island is not doing much.