Get the pendants. They will "dress it up". I have a similar layout with a light over the dining area table with pendants over the island and a ceiling fan between the kitchen /dining area and family/living room. The ceiling between the two areas is vaulted so the fan is very high up and isn't in the same line of vision as the lights. It works for me.

Get pendants. It will draw the eye to the island and will provide additional task lighting. I include decorative lighting over islands or peninsulas whenever I can, even if there are a sufficient number of recessed lights in the kitchen. Put them on a dimmer so that you can control the amount of light required.

Get that cooktop OFF of the island, and then you can use it for prep, with pendants. As is, there is insufficient prep room, and you only have visual room for the expensive island hood that will be needed.

Put the fridge and the wall oven both on the sink run, and put the cooktop on that back wall, as a great focal point.

I second Sophies' recommendation. The kitchen will be so functional with that update. I know it is your current design but once you make the change to function, you will be surprised at the odd things you did in your kitchen when it was not functional. I also agree with Stan that in an island with a cooktop, I would use a recessed or semi recessed fixture that is closed for easy cleaning and maintenance.

Good luck!

Wow I like your kitchen as it is! Love the black and white.

Moving the cooktop may cost her pantry and cabinet storage. There is 24" of prep space on the right side and it looks like it's at least close to that on the left. I'd also suggest she look at a downdraft hood, subject to the type of cooktop she is considering. Check out the Miele DA6480 and DA6490. Recessed lights DO make cleaning easier, but pendants add a nice touch and can be installed 32" or a little higher, depending on the style. Try to get pendants that have some kind of glass covering the bottom of the shade for an extra measure of safety.

You don't currently have an island hood. Are you going to get one? Downdraft ventilation is by all reports pretty bad. If you do an island rangehood, I would probably forego the pendants, and use a combination of cans with the rangehood light.

It's not clear how much of a remodel you are doing, but if you are replacing all the cabinets, I would seriously consider changing the layout. It does not look ideal from a work flow perspective (rule of thumb is ice-water-stone-fire, with an expectation that most of your prep will be done between the sink and the range).

I love pendants just because they add some pizzaz to the kitchen. I am not against the cooktop on the island. You have had it and it if it has worked for you in the past, go for it. I have had my cooktop on the island and a downdraft vent. It was fine.

Thanks everyone. @missindie - I liked our kitchen too. It was original to the house so there when we bought it. Unfortunately, our 5-year-old dishwasher leaked resulting in mold behind the cabinets so the entire long wall of cabinets had to go. Given that the kitchen was 23-years old, it seemed time to redo it all.

We are getting all new cabinets, but we are not moving the cooktop off the island. Doing so would have not only required redoing the floor (which is in the kitchen and family room), but trenching our slab to move the utilities. I have 25" of prep space to the left of my cooktop and 41" of space to the right of the cooktop.

But @Sophie Wheeler - I like your ideas. My neighbor with the exact same floorpan did exactly what you suggested.

We have had and will continue to have downdraft ventilation. While I know a vent is ideal, I am a vegetarian and have never had any troubles with grease, etc. I spend a lot of time chopping fresh fruit and using my crockpot and I have a lot of room for those prep activities to the left of my sink.

@TinaKlucsik -- The pendant in your picture is very pretty. Do you know what the name of it is? I like the idea of glass covering the bottom of the pendant -- mostly because I don't prefer looking at light bulbs.

My thought is the pendants need to be small because there will be the light fixture over the table and chunky pendants with the light fixture will be too busy but I am not sure how big they need to be so they don't look too small for the island. (Island top is 103x44.5.) Thanks for all your thoughts.

15" of emergency landing space next to the cooktop only leaves 12" of prep space, which is hugely inadequate.

30" of uninterrupted space is the NKBA rule.

Except when combining functions. Then you take the larger of the two spaces and add 12". Combining a prep space and an emergency landing space needs at least 42" to the side of the cooktop.

Why enshrine dysfunction simply because someone adapted to a poor design? A redo is all about the ability to IMPROVE the functionality.

You would not need to trench the slab for a darn thing. The island has electrical. Moving the cooktop would only involve running an electrical line to that rear wall. Not difficult. And venting from a wall location straight to the exterior is not that hard. Up, back, or sideways are both tons easier than down.

@Sophie Wheeler -- Thank you for taking the time to offer your advice on how to better improve the flow of the kitchen. It is very kind of you to help others.

Our cabinets are already ordered so it is too late to change layout. In any event, I think with all choices there are trade offs. When my neighbor redid her kitchen and implemented the design you suggested, she lost her pantry --as Tina Klucsik suggested would happen. She now uses a closet under the stairs as her pantry. I prefer my pantry in the kitchen.

In the 12 years I have lived in this house, I never once thought I wish I had more prep space. Actually, I think I have only had three complaints about my kitchen. 1) I hate the shutters over the windows by the kitchen table -- I like bright, wide open windows. I was always afraid to take them down because we have shutters everywhere in the house. (They were here when we moved in.) I have decided to go crazy and remove them. 2) I hate the clutter on the kitchen island. So I studied what exactly gets put on the kitchen island and designed storage options to accommodate that. Fingers crossed. And 3) I wished we had a couple of seats at the end of the island. So we are adding that.

I know we can sometimes be surprised with things we didn't know we needed. When we bought the house, the folks who lived here before left the granite top kitchen table -- it is so heavy it was too expensive to move to the East Coast. I kind of thought the granite top kitchen table was a little strange (never having had one before), but now I can't imagine having anything different because it is so unbelievably durable and everything just cleans right up. (Finger paint, spilled easter egg dye -- you name it!) Also, it doesn't get scratched and it doesn't get water rings.

That is a long way of saying I really appreciate folks sharing their wisdom and introducing reluctant remodelers to new ideas.

dmunspark,

This is academic and I am writing this more for a future reader of this thread. Changing the design to what Sophie recommends would not result in the loss of your pantry. The only thing you could lose in the design is one wall cabinet. Moving the cooktop to the wall is a simple operation and you don't need to rerun the gas line in the slab since that is an exterior wall. Another option since you are a veggie tale is to go Induction which is electric and should be easy to run once the existing cabinets are removed. The orientation of your island can stay the same so flooring would not be an issue. With keeping the Pantry wall, you can use some cabinets between the pantry and add the microwave in that space. Lots of options that should not require cabinet changes. I know the forum is late to the remodel process for you. One positive is that your kitchen has the required isle clearances of 48".

Good luck!

The pendant style is Cody Mini-Stem Pendant, from House of Antique Hardware. Good luck on your renovation.

I'd put a couple of pendants over the seating side and canned over the cooktop and prep section. In my current kitchen I obsessed about can light placements and trying to get them uniform. Once we starting living there I realized that the canned lights aren't really noticeable and I should have added a few more and not worry about them lining up.