I would make it storage area.

It will bea great place for your son to do homework when he is a little older. You can answer questions and quiz him on spelling while preparing dinner.

I think you should think about two things,

1) what would you store there and do you have room to store it elsewhere or not

2) with the depth if that island, would anyone sitting there feel like they were too distant from the action and lean somewhere closer? Might be a good time to break out the cardboard and mock it up. I have no idea, might be an ideal depth.

Hopefully one of those will provide your answer for you.

If you do make it storage, I'd be concerned about using glass at that level. It's not a great height for display and what about your toddler (and his friends) running their toys into them?

Linelle, that's a good point. It would certainly be tempered glass, but I would like something to make the island seem a bit lighter.

As to what I would store here, my mother keeps giving me cool pottery from the 70s, and I have lots and lots of serving dishes. Her downsizing turns out to be my up-sizing (and yes, I do get rid of a lot of it). In my little house, there is never too much storage space!

I suppose I can also do the overhang and if we never use it, just retrofit some cabinets under there. I'm doing Barker RTA, so that wouldn't be too hard.

You could make the back of the island be a bookshelf. Display decorative items and/or for your cookbooks.

We have a kitchen/great room like this and currently have almost the same kitchen layout as you. There is never enough storage--we had to convert the linen closet in an adjacent hall to a pantry--so I think going for the storage is the only real option. Let the kid color/study at the table. It's right there anyway.

Looking at the layout, if it were my house, I would make it storage...it looks like you may not have much of it. Of course, maybe you don't have a lot of stuff either. Me? I have a LOT of stuff. It also doesn't look like you have a pantry and if that's the case, you really don't have much storage.

Since it's an open concept floor plan, DS can sit at the table when he gets older to do homework and visitors can also sit at the table or lean around the island.

Have you started to figure out where your things are going to go? If you haven't done that yet, it may help give you a really good idea of what you should do with the space.

It really depends on how you and your family would use the space. Personally, I really like counter seating for a variety of reasons and would opt for two stools. I like having somewhere to sit if I want to do some prep work if I just do not want to stand or I'll be doing some repetitive task. When I have a small number of friends over and we might be puttering around in the kitchen, I like a place for them to perch and be somewhat involved, but not in the way of cooking (or in danger of hot pans, etc). Finally, if I had kids (which I don't), I would like to have counter seating. I grew up sitting at a counter doing homework, drawing, etc while my parents worked in the kitchen. Admittedly your table area can probably serve the last purpose just as well, but it's just a personal preference of mine to have counter seating for that.

Personally, I have an island kind of like that without seating and regularly find myself (and I'm pretty sure others) wishing there was a place to sit!

Immediately my friends and family gather around my island and everyone sits there until chairs are full...then they stand. So I would definitely go for seating.

I wouldn't put glass fronted cabs underneath for safety reasons.