You need to consult an Architect and Kitchen Designer. Many of your issues will require structural changes and a large budget. If you don’t have the funds to deal with that, maybe live in this house doing only cosmetic changes and then sell it and move on.

Replacing windows is a big money losing investment for instance. Lots of other red flags in your plans as well.

Thanks, my husband built houses and is an engineer so he knows any structural issues- he's just not a designer. The windows do need to be replaced as does the old T1-11 siding. Because they need to be replaced we thought we could move or change the windows on the east wall. That way we could fix the blind corner issue, possibly with a corner drawer and moving the sink over. We plan to be in this house for a while. We got a deal when we bought it and can put money into it without losing our shirts. We've been here a few years and are/will live with it until time to remodel. But we do need a plan so when we do the windows this summer we know what to do. I do like the U shaped kitchen, it would be more functional larger, like we drew on the plans.

Hire a designer. You’ll get the double fee for an engineer being involved, so keep him as far away from that interaction as possible if you want someone good to work with. Only the unwary and inexperienced will take a job from an engineer. They have an industry wide immediate red flag response for micromanaging details that do not need to be micromanaged. The project will take twice as long as any other project if he has involvement at a high level.

Since you said you don't eat in the kitchen I would remove that railing piece and make it a knee wall and wrap cabinets around there.. you could add a space for a couple of stools just in case you want to have a seat. I would also move the sink to the other window. This will give you a much better prep counter.

Thanks for the suggestion, Debbie. We thought about adding cabinents in that spot. I'm hesitant to do an L because it would leave an awkward size area that is too bug to feel natural and too small for an island. The sink there might make a long trek to the fridge too.

Originally we had planned to widen the inner part of the U and extend the counter past the cabinents on the north side of the peninsula to have stools there. Prep can be done on the peninsula. that does leave a bit of a space on the NE corner under the window. We thought about extending the counter to the wall there to make an L shape for seating.

Thoughts? We are good with moving windows. It's tricky figuring out a good fit.

Picture is of a quick mock up I made before I figured out the program. I quickly realized the uppers wouldn't work since. haha.

Any other Ideas?

The distance to the sink from the fridge if I moved it like suggested would be around 9.5 feet. Sink to stove around 8' and stove to fridge 6'. The empty space in the kitchen would be about 7'3" by 13'. It seems a little too big but also too small to do anything useful in that open space. Our original idea would be about 8' to fridge from sink, 3' from sink to stove and 6' from stove to fridge. Thanks again.

My house is so similar to the one I grew up in, just for kicks I looked it up and found some old mls pics from 2009. (My parents sold in 2007) My parents redid the kitchen in 1990ish and there was a tiny island where that (??? what did they do???) mess is. I think moving the sink could work for us seeing this. The soffet was white...that color looks awful. haha. Fun walk down memory lane.

My kitchen without anything in it.

Hire a Kitchen Designer.

You could do this in the middle...

or if you redid the windows from 2 into one larger one, maybe something like this?

How about something like this? The bar area would have a counter extending for the stools, the cabinets would be shallower and turned so they could be used as storage for the family room. I took out the 1 window. should we center the big window or leave it where it is? I really like the cabinents in this pic but we aren't sure where to find similar ones. is it a light stained walnut veneer?

Thanks again Debbi for taking the time to comment, I appreciate your advice. I think now that I've been thinking it over the U would be too awkward. We have a large family and my oldest is already adult sized at almost 14.

I'll attach another empty kitchen floor plan with measurement and notes if anyone else has any ideas.

Newest design idea. Thoughts? This drawing should be fairly accurately to scale. 1"=2ft or 1 square is about 6 inches.

We removed the 2nd window, centered remaining larger window and added uppers on either side of the window.

Thats looks pretty good... I would try to do a lazy susan in that corner by the stove though. A 38" blind base will only have an 8" opening ( if doing framed cabinets ) . A 36" susan would give you much better storage.

If you are doing all the ordering of this on your own, you must account for fillers and proper clearances when turning corners.

Get with a kitchen designer you like so you can see this in 3d..

That's great advice, thanks Debbie!

I'm toying with the idea of opening up the wall to the dining room, but that leaves the question of where to put the stove. The dining room is 2 feet shallower than the kitchen. It would be nice to have the area open for serving food. I could move the stove to the W wall with the fridge (But not the N or S wall with it open) pantry, fridge, 18" uppers/ lowers, stove, 18" uppers/lowers, hopefully that leaves room for a small broom closet on the end. Not sure if this would create traffic flow issues when cooking having the stove there. I haven't drawn it out yet but I did make a mock up. There is a slider to the deck on the E wall behind the table. W behind the table is open to the living room.

if we left the wall, perhaps something like this?

I think the stove is too far of a walk across the room from the sink. What if you shift the window to the left and try to get the sink and stove on that outside wall? You can always do a serving counter for the dining room that is shallower than a 24" cabinet as well... How often do you come into the kitchen through that doorway( dining room)... maybe have the peninsula off the opposite side..

My kids (14-3) like to run in a circle through the two openings into the kitchen. We use the dining room opening to bring food from the kitchen to the table and it is the way they come sit at the table.most often. the stairs to the family room, outside, garage, basement are somewhat across from this opening. most often they are coming from that direction and notr around the kitchen through the Living Room or from the bedrooms, front door. Are you saying have the peninsula come from the a W wall where the fridge is? I will take a look at moving the stove to the E wall. Thanks again for your input Debi. Do you like it better with that wall more open?

I was thinking of it coming from the other side but not if it is a major traffic pattern . I do happen to like it more open - but that is just my taste - do you lose too much in doing that?

Debbi (I'll get that right, eventually. sorry for the typos.) I like it open too. It's about 8'4" from counter to counter now E-W. which is about 3.5 steps for me, less for my husband. If we move the stove to the E wall it seems like it might push the dishwasher too far to the N and interfere with using the overhang to the family room as a breakfast bar. it would also reduce prep space between sink and stove. We always serve buffet style and it's nice having the peninsula so the food doesn't clutter up the table, that's why I was thinking having that between the kitchen and the dining room would be ideal.

I was just thinking - right now you have 2 windows and were going to one large one... what if you moved it to the right and did a corner sink and the peninsula and did the stove towards the left? So many options...

I'm going to wait for everyone to complain about a corner sink.. I had one once and loved it - not sure what the issue is!

Debbi people so have their opinions on here don't they? haha. My husband likes this incarnation the best. He really doesn't want to open the wall up. I think it would look odd adding uppers to the stove wall but maybe not.

Thats fine - I would still try to , if possible, widen that door to the dining room . It really would be nice to have a bigger opening there. For the range do a lazy susan in the corner 36" +30"range+15 cab + a few inches =83 - 84" You have 87 so thats 3 then on the right of the door you said you have about 32" of wall - that could go down to 28 or 29" - you would be amazed the difference 6 or 7 inches makes on an opening!

I like this plan!

Awesome! We are planning on making it wider, and will hopefully find a custom guy when we get to this project (next year) so we can get a better corner cabinet. We will have more room on the other side too because the fridge will move down and the cabinets won't stick out as far. I know we can get at least a 35" opening.

I feel better about it too. Thanks again for your help! I'm a planner and I feel less stressed about it all when I know we have our ducks in a row even if it's not the project we are working on now. Hubby just wants me to pick a paint color. Haha.

New question. Haha. Hubby wants more upper cabinets by stove, how would you do that and keep it balanced? There is that soffet on sink wall ... I think it will look weird but maybe someone can work some magic and make it look right?

That is super helpful, thank you so much!

I think a 24" pie open door would work.

The soffet will be 12" high by 24" deep and the length of the room. A 24 " corner cabinet with the pie door might make the most sense, then it could still be 2 24" uppers to the left of the window and 2 24" on the right and fill the 24" space on the stove wall that is short. Then 12", hood, 15". A similar opening cabinet to this one. Does that seem to work?

The depends on how far that soffit comes down the wall... The corner cabinet needs 24" in each direction. Your schematics show the soffit running much closer to the corner than 24" in which case the corner cabinet won't work unless you cut it so whatever is in the soffit can pass through the side of the cabinet

We remodeled our kitchen last year. Our children are grown, so we obviously do not have some of the issues you have. We paid a small fee for a kitchen/bath designer to come and look at our layout and offer suggestions. I had in my mind what I would like to do, but it didn't work out. We have a long, and somewhat narrow kitchen/dining combo (10x27). The designer was fantastic. I had a peninsula, which I hated because there was no access to a dead corner, other than a belly crawl, and another dead corner that was just from a 1972 kitchen. I removed the peninsula, extended the length of my cabinets by 14", relocated my appliances (except for the sink), added a 36" corner cabinet with a wonderful lazy susan (that I said I would never do, BTW). I added all the bells and whistles (easy close drawers, double cutlery trays, pull out storage under my sink, heavy duty pot and pan drawers). I had a blank wall that could not be used for anything prior to the remodel due to space issues with the peninsula. I now have a 42" floor to ceiling pantry. I had to move my refrigerator over 3", and to fill the space, I have a 6" cabinet that holds all my cookie sheets, pizza pans, etc. I love my new design. I wanted an island but due to the width, by code, I could not have it. I have a folding cart that I used at Christmas when I hosted a breakfast for 30 people and it worked out nicely. Good luck!

Thanks for the encouragement, Tina! Debbi, the soffet runs the whole length of the kitchen from North to South walls. It is 24" across (deep? wide? haha.. from east to west) and it will be 12" down from the main part of the ceiling.

Right now the main part of the kitchen has a drop ceiling to the bottom of the soffet and the eat-in area has a vault, we plan to remove the vault and drop ceiling and make the ceiling 8 ft all the way across the space except for the soffet area that contains a beam, that will have to stay since it is load bearing so the 2 ft area closest to the window wall will be 7 feet from the floor.

The whole depth of 24" is a beam?? Did you look into the soffit to see???

If it is a true 24" deep then you could do the 24 x 24 corner... My picture was a 12" deep soffit x 12" high... wasn't sure what was in yours...

You really should open it and see what is inside and if the size can change or be beneficial in your plan...

The beam is closest to the room not the outside wall. The rest sounds hollow. We plan to open it up and see what else is in there (I don't think there is anything else) when we get closer to the project.

That being said, I would hold of on figuring out your uppers til you can truly see what you are working with....

Sounds like a plan!

Update- It's been 2 years and we are almost ready to start. We plan on doing a 6' × 3' window centered on sink (east) wall. I will attach pics of the outside. It will be a fixed middle with 18" slides on each side, clear no panes. The windows now are right against the fascia board so we thought making the window slightly smaller to the 3' height would give some breathing room.

Questions: How high off counter should the window be? Does the size seem okay or would changing it be better? We haven't bought it yet so it can be changed.

I'm adding the newest incarnation of the plan and this time it's more readable (hopefully!)

Question: SE corner the sink wall and range wall - is lazy Susan the best option? Could something else be more functional?

Range wall we are thinking of not doing uppers because of the box (24 deep, 12 high by 182 long) on sink wall and mismatch of space next to stove trying to get that 36" hood. Instead we would do 18" upper to counter in each corner of sink wall and 30" upper next to that. Thoughts?

Pantries- getting the pantries less deep than 24" is quite a bit more expensive so we were thinking of making the 24" depth work, I would have to make the walkthrough to the kitchen/dining room 35" (better than the 30.5" now) instead of 40". I can also widen the kitchen/entry/living room walkthrough but didn't change it on the plan. We can just sheetrock the openings and these won't need trim.

I'm unsure of what fillers I need exactly so those are most likely needing to be adjusted.

the north side has that area that is 12" offset from the sink wall and has the stairs to the family room at the nw corner. The area that is usable would be about 91" x 12" but the upstairs ceiling is 57.5" from the kitchen floor. - idea as of now is to do 3 30"×30" 2 door uppers facing family room and building a box under them to raise to level of counter and adding an additional 15" (or bigger? but then that would cut into usable space on sink wall more) of countertop to make a breakfast bar.

Question: Is this a good idea? Does doing a 18" full height door under the overlapping counter work? Or is a different solution better?

I would really appreciate any constructive thoughts/ideas. I'm open to changing anything that would make this kitchen function to the best of it's ability!

Thanks so much for the help!

PS. Please ignore the messy landscaping, it's a project for another day.

*best of ITS! Dumb phone.