I added some very rough concepts I have been playing around with and some photos of the current kitchen and adjoining family room.

I'm just thinking how beautiful to have all that luscious space and a pool!

Here's my favorite layout to date...
{{gwi:1949518}}

The aisle between the cooktop/sink run and the island reads as 36"(Not including countertop overhangs which will take about 3" total. The range will probably be closer to 27" anyway so that area is reduced to 33". That is really too narrow, especially when there appears to be some room to shift it down.

Hi, Rexroat. What a terrific house! One thing that strikes me about your plan for your forever house so far, though, is that the area you plan to live in could no doubt fit into your old condo. I already hear the emptiness echoing from the front. Truly, it looks as if you wouldn't be using most of that other space for the foreseeable future, aside from an occasional social gathering, and in that shadowy future only after substantial changes from what is planned now. I'd suggest you look at that entire floor as a living home--repurpose it for family life you want to create there and fit the kitchen into that whole picture.

Starting with, for instance, the perennially dusted, seldom used "formal" dining room. How about making that a family dining room instead, used daily as the children come along? Strengthen the kitchen connection, but keep it nice enough for dinner parties. Build in storage that can someday be study centers for your children, hold a TV if you love to be able to keep an eye on it now and then. Choose a table handsome enough for fine china but tough enough for children to bang their spoons on and do craft projects. Some comfortable upholstered chairs you and friends could settle into for a whole evening if desired.

That dead-end living room! First thing I'd do is cut a door directly across from the kitchen and create a circular traffic flow so your kids can run and ride and play right through there, as well as everywhere else. Guests will circulate, and especially you too. If you did nothing else, the room would be enormously more livable for that little change. For now, it might just be used for nice, but eventually you'd love having that space--IF you loved the space.

Probably more would need to be done. Not just decorating, but probably mainly in terms of landscaping, as in changing the feeling of the front rooms as they relate to the street. There are real behavioral reasons why so many front rooms sit gathering dust, but the underlying causes, once understood, are usually easily fixable. (Except for my friend Judy's case, whose family and 3 fish tanks lived in bedroom #4 for decades because she won't allow her living room to be messed up.)

And when the day comes that your children head for the street, they and their friends would know the front of your bright spacious house is alive and you're often there, not always hidden far in the back where you can't watch over them.

Not the suggestions you asked for, but sincere ones. :)

palimpsest- I actually moved the range to the right so it would be more in line with where I'd be prepping on the island and I could do an easy turn around. Do you think the range is more functional moved a bit to the left of the island?

Rosie- You're right - that was more than was on my radar. :)
BUT you bring up really valid points. And I think at the very least the additional opening to the living room is a great idea! If you have any other tangible suggestions on making the front rooms more 'live-able' that would be great!

Thanks!!