I live in a home from the 70's. My kitchen space is different, but many of my neighbors have similar to yours. In my area, that island is usually a skinny 2 ft. island with no seating. While the extra counter space is nice, it often creates a barrier and makes it hard for two people in the kitchen. That said, I have an island in my kitchen, but it is an L shaped kitchen, so the island has seating and is not a barrier. If you want seating at the island / a bigger island, you will need to reduce the cabinetry on the fridge wall. The fridge will have to go there as I don't see another place. (Mine is a cabinet away from the sink on the sink wall, but I don't think you have the space). You may be able to do the fridge with a small cabinet next to it with a bit of counter for a landing space when removing items from the fridge. I would also put the microwave there - either a countertop one - if you are short like me - or in a microwave cabinet. That allows you to put in a true vent over the range. You could skip the other cabinets on the fridge wall on the other side of the doorway. The counter here is too far away to be useful in prep - unless you plan a coffee station or similar. You could replace it with a piece of furniture (like a hutch, pie-safe), a closet or coffee station made of furniture rather than matching cabinetry.

Part of these decisions require you to evaluate how much space and storage you need. My kitchen is smaller, but I fortunately have some extra storage in my laundry room - just a few steps away - and I live close to the grocery store and have time to go grocery shopping during the week. If I had your space, I would be very tempted to lose some of the cabinets around the window - and spend more $ making the window larger - probably not budget friendly advice. I just love the kitchens I see with less uppers and more windows. Sometimes that is not practical though.

We are in the process of a kitchen remodel and my kitchen is very similar to yours. We are doing the demo ourselves (currently on week 3). I reveived 3 quotes for cabinets...all right around $13k. We ended up going through Cabinets to Go after seeing my cousins new kitchen with cabinets from them. they look great and seem to be good quality. Since we saved so much on the cabinets themselves, we hired someone to install them. Even with that, we saved more that half the price of the original quotes!

I would definitely think about Ikea. Below is a picture of a similar layout (had to guess the various dimensions). But it's all drawers in the lowers and the cost of the cabinets/drawer units (no appliances or counters etc) is ~$7500.

Some thoughts:

-what goes in the space by the two windows? Are they high enough off the ground that a counter could run under them?

- I would avoid having the micro back over the range - you have that counter area to the left of the fridge - you could have a little snack/micro area there instead (and then install a proper hood for the range!)

Aisle width: distance from cab to cab or counter to counter in a walkway. It is the size (width) of the walkways around your island.

Let your husband know that the microwave exhaust fans are not very good at venting. A dedicated vent works much better. You also don't want to crowd the cooking area - both in the way the microwave itself crowds the range and in people using the microwave while someone is cooking. Many don't have another place for a microwave, but you do. If you really don't want it over the range, let him know its the place of last resort to the pros. I am not a pro, but I've been on this forum long enough to know what they think about the venting of over the range microwaves:)

One option is to be sure to remove the micro if you tile the backsplash and then put it back. Then when it breaks down you can get a hood later. Another is to be sure to reserve enough tile to fill in the area later if you choose to change out to a hood at a later date.