Also, not sure if it's relevant, but we have 8ft ceilings.

You are right: put the gas stove on a wall. Are you working with a professional kitchen designer now or exploring ideas first?

We are working with an architect and wondering if I need a kitchen designer as well.

Closer up.

You use kitchen at least 2 times a day, so worth cost of kitchen layout designer so you don’t make a costly mistake on most important room in your house. Your architect may have someone in mind.

If you have a breakfast room, you don't need counter seating on your island, if you really want an island. Counter-height seats are not very comfortable, and when they are in use they are in the way except in the largest kitchens.

Skip the island and add more cabinetry....you don't have nearly enough.

You may be better doing a galley style kitchen and putting the stove on the same wall as the sink, and moving the fridge to the pantry wall. I have seen where cabinetry doors are made to look like the rest of the cabinets, but open into the pantry.
Another option would be to put in a double wall oven on the fridge wall and just do a cooktop on the sink wall.

I agree with jhmarie. Also want to point out - your “formal” dining room is entered from your mud room, and your breakfast room is visible from your front entry. Not really problem, but the opposite of more traditional layouts.

If it were my house (which it isn’t) I would do one the following:


1. Eliminate either the island seating or the breakfast room.

2. Make the kitchen and breakfast room into the formal dining room, and put the kitchen where the dining room is now (open to the living area).

Yes, you still need a kitchen designer to work with the architect.

The draft floor plan looks like you might be working with existing bearing walls. How much of the structural walls are pre-flood and which are new? Is the master bath/closet combination a repeat or all new placement?

Architects in my experience are terrible kitchen designers and often they have a KD on staff for exactly that reason.

Hire a professional. This looks problematic.

Thank y'all so much for the advice! I really appreciate it. The architect labeled the rooms as he saw them but we planned to use them differently. We see the "dining room" as a breakfast room and the "breakfast room" as a sitting area with a tv off of the kitchen.

The master bathroom was remodeled prior to the flood. Currently there is a bathroom where the "pantry" is and those walls are load bearing walls

Original floor plan.

With proposed layout, I think pantry is too far from fridge and too far from kitchen door, and cooktop should go on an exterior wall and not an island, and you may have foot traffic interfering with your prep area, and a U layout would be more efficient than the proposed galley layout. Do you park by front door or by laundry room entrance? If you enter through the laundry room with groceries, then I would consider putting U layout kitchen in room marked DR so it is near entrance and is part of the great room. If you come in through the front entry with groceries, then I would keep kitchen where it is but place appliances along the short walls to create a U and move pantry and fridge closest to front door.