A concept to help generate ideas:

Where will you eat your meals? Since you won't be using the dining room, will you have a table & chairs in the flex space or will you & your guests always use the island?

Your aisles at 42" are on the smaller side. I'd reduce the size of the island to give you 48" of clearance.

I would always choose a true venting hood over recirculating.

@Mark Bischak, Architect That was actually one of our initial designs. Out concern is that it would lead to poor flow, as in order for someone not cooking to get something from the fridge they would have to travel entirely through the working area (or go around the long way through the hall and dining room. We would also be limited on cabinet space if we don't have any cabinets on that wall, though we could possibly make do with base cabinets only. We also aren't so sure about the sink on the island. We have that now and it basically ends up meaning the island is so full of stuff that you can't do anything on it.

Separately, is there a reason for the flipped orientation of the bathroom? Is it just plumbing to the island or is there something I am missing?

@Linda We will likely eat most of them on the island, though we are planning on having an expandable table in the flex area if we need more seating. We currently have a dining room and literally never use it except for Thanksgiving/Christmas, so we'd rather repurpose it to a play area. If we do go with a microwave hood, we would have it vent to the exterior, it'd just be lower power and have lower coverage than a true hood, which may be fine for induction cooking. Not sure though.

Does the north wall just look at the side of your neighbors house or will you have garden there?

@sheloveslayouts Likely just the neighbors house and maybe some children's play structures if we can fit them. There is only going to be about 20-ft to the next lot from that edge of the house, and as it is north facing most of it will be shaded by our house so a garden isn't going to get much light.

I wouldn't want my oven that far from the fridge and stove, but I also wouldn't want a microwave over my stove and would rather have a proper range hood. Additionally, I think the waste drawer is better near the sink, but putting it in the island isn't necessarily wrong either.

Get a local architect that has experience in kitchen design. Too many unknowns to make any comments constructive, suggestions are shots into the dark. The person that will come up with your solution will ask you, "What is your favorite meal to cook?" and how many cooks are normally in the kitchen.

Layout 1. Marks deletes a lot of storage space you might regret.

How high will the oven be in Layout 1? Appliance specs might require minimum 24” between dishwasher and wall oven if the oven falls below counter height. Might want to check.

Hemlock - How much less storage space does my layout have?

Would you be open to a peninsula instead of an island? Something like this gets the microwave closer to the fridge and takes the beverage center out of the prep area. You pick up more storage with drawers in the island. I’d put the waste pullout at the end of the peninsula. You would lose some island seating though.

I don't think the 11'6" dimension lends itself very well to an island. I agree with the suggestions above for a peninsula. If you're a person with an island dream you can call it an attached island instead. :-)

I like placing the fridge as close to the living space as possible to help keep traffic out of the cooking area. Placing the fridge on the PR wall rather than the exterior wall keeps it from being a dominant feature from the front hall as well as the flex and family rooms.

Adding a window on the north wall above the sink for nice, diffuse light as well as a view toward the play area seems like a nice feature.

I thought maybe a compromise on the oven stack would be an under counter oven across from the 36" cooktop and maybe the microwave in the pantry.

North Wall Elevation

I think it’s too tight with the island. you have to walk by range to sink to prep - not the end of the world but with only 42” it’s going to be tight with someone at the range, or opening oven, or trash. and hard to walk around with the stools there in a narrow space (not sure about your house but no one pushes in chairs at mine!). i like shelovelayouts version above. there’s room for 2 cooks, people to grab things from fridge, and hang at the countertop without getting in anyones way. lots of people here bash the undercounter wall oven but we have one and it’s great. i with we had room for a double oven but it just wasn’t possible. but but being able to pull things out from oven and set on counter above it is just so easy.

I'd like to see the entire floorplan. I'm not happy with the powder room location.

In option 2, can you move the range a little towards the sink and then have space for a microwave shelf between the range and the fridge? I have this and the layout works well for us. Then you'd have space for a range hood.

Agree with dan1888--the powder room appearing to open directly into another main room is the first thing I notice. If it can't be relocated, could it open towards the pantry? Possibly with a pocket door between that short hall and the room below it?