have you read the thread about being 'new to kitchens' on p1? that thread will tell you the info you need to provide for those here to give you the best help for your kitchen. It should say something like 'read me' in the title. by buehl.

can the half bath entry be changed and toilet /sink be pivoted so at least the effect of having it so adjacent is minimized. If not, I guess i'd give it a vestibule ....or an area preceding the actual functional part of it...... you could make a section with some shelving/hooks/etc. This is kind of important in my mind before I'd proceed with a whole kitchen redo because bath opening directly into kitchen is atypical.....I'd be willing to use some square footage to buffer this in some way. There are things you can do, in all likelihood.

Here's a rough layout of the whole bottom floor.

Re - Bathroom - it's a really odd layout and we've considered moving the door so that it is opposite the window, or even to the other side - but then the entrance would be off the TV room, which might be even stranger....ideally, we'd take the whole thing out but it isn't an option for us financially to move it somewhere - at least for now. One day we'll do a little bump out addition and put the bathroom and a new laundry room there...I dream

Your plans for finishes sound fantastic. Can you switch the sink and
DW, so that the DW is not in the prep area between the sink and range?

Is
that your paneled fridge in one of the pics? You need to make sure that
the fridge door will open fully if it's against the wall, as drawn.

To
answer the question you asked, it appears you do have room for the
island, although the area between the corner of the island and the
pantry looks narrow. What size in the island, and how wide are the
aisles?

GardenWeb also has an Old House forum, if you'd like to cross post there:

GW--The Old House

Here is another possible layout - with moving the bathroom door to the otherside. We're struggling with

1- Fridge placement

2- Pantry. At the moment we are thinking that we will put a pantry in the space next to the back door. We don't want to do anything too wide so that we don't lose sightlines out to the garden. We want to keep the fridge out of the way too.

I can't read the dimensions.

Can you do this?

sena01 - thank you!! I think that would be a bit too tight. It's about 15 3 wide by 12'2. This is the latest, although I don't think we are going to do an island (instead we'll have a table there) and we are going to put the fridge next to the pantry and make it a 24" deep rather than the 15" that is there, and put the DW on the other side of the sink and the trash where the dw is currently shown.

Would love any comments

Is your upstairs bathroom directly above your main floor powder or somewhere else?

Upstairs bathroom is above TV room..but shares plumbing....

here's the view of the TV room into the kitchen. upstairs bathroom is above this. Behind the corner cabinet is the soil pipe from the upstairs bathroom in the corner of the room. We actually got an architect to come by to see what he thought of moving the door of the WC to this side and he thought no better - you would be able to see it from the front door. So in the kitchen it stays, I fear, even though it's weird.

and here's another attempt at a layout - fridge/pantry now at left, dw to right of sink> it's a 30" counter depth refrigerator...

When you have a group of guests over do they use the main level toilet or do they go upstairs for privacy?

I ask because if you're planning a new bathroom addition in the future, I wouldn't compromise on your kitchen. I'd consider eliminating that ill-placed powder room and open up the kitchen and TV room to the back yard.

Is there room across from the staircase for a 5x5 ish powder room?

Guests use both bathrooms. We entertain much more in the summer so are outside and the weird bathroom isn't an issue. There may just about be room across from stair for bathroom but I think all our budget is going to go on kitchen for now.