Thanks Junco! Yes, those windows are there now. I was thinking about suggesting that they be moved, depending on the expense. There's no "view" out of them so they are pretty much only useful for the light they provide. (Though somehow when it comes to sinks I would prefer a bad view of a fence over no window.) I believe the idea is that the new exterior doors (to the backyard) would be French doors.

What is the dining room used for now? If they are going to put a header in to make the cabinets along the dining room wall open into the dining room, why not open that wall up so that the kitchen and dining room spaces are more connected? They might have room for an island in there if they remove the table from the kitchen scene. This would give them a lot more space for the kitchen to function.

Another option for the location of the range is to center it under the smaller window on the top wall. This will give them more prep space between the sink and the stove. You can look for pictures on Houzz, Pinterest, Google, etc. of ranges under windows. They'll want to check local codes for this type of thing, but it can be done. There may be stipulations about whether or not it is an operable window, fireproof molding, etc.

Nobody says sinks have to be perfectly centered under kitchen windows. (Well, maybe some do, until they realize otherwise. ; )) If the range slides farther to the right, then the sink can also slide a little farther to the right, far enough that a 2' counter can be placed on the wall between the dining room and the kitchen perpendicular to the sink-range run.

One more thing, is there a fridge in particular your friends are planning around? The fridge n their drawing looks rather skinny. It would be wise for them to leave room for a 36" fridge opening so that they do not need to get a custom fridge.

Thanks Laughable! Right now the dining room is already open
to the living room and is used primarily as an adjunct to the living room. I
think opening the whole thing up would be a bigger project than they want, and
also it’s a Craftsman home with all the dining room built-ins you would expect
in a 1924 home and they would like to retain those as well as the current room layout.
(The architect’s proposal was to open up the back of the current dining room
built-ins to allow access from the kitchen.) I’ll suggest pushing the range
over as a possibility to give them more prep, which I think they would need.
Agree with you on sinks under windows. The sink window is pretty big and I don’t
know if it’s necessary for the sink to be smack dab in the middle of it.

I noticed that the fridge seemed small, especially compared
to the range. I’ll have to ask if that’s their current fridge or what. The range
in the plan is probably their current vintage range (see pic), which I think is
pretty wide.

I did some more thinking last night and came up with the
idea of creating a U-shape kitchen via a peninsula with attached bench seating on
the other side. Anyone have any thoughts as to whether this kind of a scheme
might work? Is there enough room in here for this kind of layout? Inspiration
pic follows.

St. Francis Woods Residence · More Info

Wow, sounds like a great house! The range looks to be a 40" one so that is very good to know for planning purposes.

Doing a banquette abutting the peninsula is an interesting idea. Here are some of the numbers you'll need to see if it works or not. They need 24" of space for the bench to include a slope on the back of the bench for comfortable seating. Then they'll also need at least 36" for seating on the patio door side to leave room for a person to sit in a chair and another person to squeeze by behind them to get in and out. Finally, the table can overhang the bench by 3-4 inches (?) I'm sketchy on that number so hopefully someone else will chime in on it.

You'd need to shorten the peninsula or make the pantry shallower in order to make the walkway between the two large enough for people to pass through comfortably. I'd want at least 42" to 48" between the two so that 2 people could scoot through in opposite directions without banging into each other, especially since one of those people could be carrying hot food or drink through there.

Is the patio door out really necessary? Is there a deck or other feature that they need or want to get to out there, or is it mainly for light? If it could be eliminated, they'd gain a lot in terms of cabinet and counter space. The big window on the top wall could be made to go lower and the banquette could be built in front of it. This would give them a nice U shaped kitchen.

You might get more responses if you put the drawing to scale on graph paper with a thin sharpie marker. It's so nice of you to be doing this for your friends! : )

Thanks so much Laughable! Those figures will be very useful
in figuring out whether this plan might actually be feasible. I’ll pass all this
along to him for his review.

The patio door is the only way they can get to their
backyard from inside the house, so they do kinda need it. It may not need to be
big French doors though.

I’ll see if I can put it down on graph paper this weekend and
repost. We’re glad to help out our friends and after our remodel last year I
must say that it’s a lot more fun and less stressful to work on someone else’s
kitchen!