This plan has a lot of wasted space. Consider coming up with a new design that meets your current and foreseeable future needs and fits your site.

A butler's pantry is a small service and storage room between a kitchen and a dining room.

The dashed lines in the bathroom indicate the space will not be easily used by anyone in a wheelchair.

@Mark Bischak, Architect Thank you so much for your input! We were looking for storage for dishware/serveware which will likely be the walk in pantry ( but you are right, would not be considered a butler's pantry). The shower will be a no threshold shower, so it can be utilized as floor space for a wheelchair user if needed. This is a similar layout to what is currently being used by a person in a wheelchair so this was drawn with that layout in mind.

Consider no walls on the hallway side of the dining room. That makes the room more easily expandable for large parties.

That is a big kitchen. You say the kids do crafts and homework in the kitchen, so , you may have made it oversized on purpose. I like the refrigerator outside the main work area.

Thank you so much for the input, @auntthelma! I very much like the idea of expanding the dining room if needed. We live in an open concept space now, and really loved the idea of walls in the new home for space separation! (long story short, our open concept house leaves little opportunity for some visual quiet).

We used our current kitchen (rougly 20' x 16' including powder room) as a starting point for dimensions for the new kitchen. We are finding it is hard to get an idea of how large spaces should be and have been measuring anywhere we are (our home, parents home) as reference!

Your current kitchen appears to be 14' x 10'

Your proposed kitchen appears to be 12' x 20'

Personally, I’d swap the locations of the kitchen and the nook, so that the kitchen is closer to the pantry and the dining room. More central to both. You’re not going to like going that far to the pantry while preparing meals.

I agree with flipping the kitchen. If you are truly using your pantry as a storage closet then call it that. You probably would want to arrange the shelves and space differently if you are using it for storage (for example you might not want the pocket door centered so you can have deeper shelving). If you are actually using it for food storage, it should be closer to your kitchen work zone. I also think that having dining spaces adjacent is a bit redundant so putting the nook on the other side keeps the dining spaces from being within sightlines of each other.

What is on the 6'-3" wall in the kitchen?

Also keep in mind that sinks centered in islands typically do not have sufficient prep space adjacent. I have a 10' island and my DW and sink are pushed all the way over. I can see that you are aiming for symmetry and it's absolutely meaningless for an island to be symmetrical at all. Your fridge is also a little far out of the kitchen for optimal function. You will also only get 4 seats at that island unless you plan on buying narrow stools. We only have 4 at our 10' island. I would ditch the U shaped kitchen for an L, and make your aisles bigger. Unless you are doing a built in fridge you want at least 48" but 54"-60" would be better there.

I like C9’s idea of swapping nook and kitchen. It also lets the nook become casual seating connected to the living room, when you entertain, instead of the island where you might be prepping food. (and a temporary landing pad for things coming in through the mudroom.)

I also see the closet under the stairs, and wonder if there is a way to access it better? If the closet moves over to where the door is, the door opens more into a foyer instead of straight view to the back of the house, and you can access more of the understairs space via a small door. And there is room for a small table under a window at the side, for nice light (stained glass or a higher window, if the view of the driveway and neighbors isn’t desirable.)

I like the flipping banquet and kitchen idea. i am lazy and do not like carrying things. not sure how big kids are but i know i prefer chair seating, so would keep options open for regular family meals. i would definitely nix the penninsula. it obstructs sight lines to banquet from anyone cooking and makes it hard to fit chairs in as they will block entry to banquet.

If the peninsula is counterheight, with no upper cupboards, it won’t block a sightline.

Flipping the banquette to the other end also gives it better access to the porch, but doesn’t really lessen the kitchen access to the porch.

I think the stair landing to the basement is under the stair landing to the upstairs, if I am reading the drawing properly.

Consider switching the living room with the dining room. Open up that wall as wide as you can (if a load bearing wall, now is the time to paln for a steel beam). The dining table will be closer to the kitchen and the porch. Easy to have supper on the porch in warm weather.

Then you could position a sectional with the back toward dining table.

For future need, take the first floor full bath and incorporate the 1/2 bath and bedroom closet with a door to the hall.

@c9pilot Thank you so much for your input! Your idea of swapping the kitchen and the nook would definitely solve the redundancy problem. Do you think it would work to swap the two spaces if the nook is only 9'6" wide? The plans were originally drawn up so that the island/range in the kitchen were in line with the fireplace (not drawn here) in the living room. We are thinking of keeping more readily used items in the kitchen and storing things like snacks, cases of water and backstock items in the pantry.

@anj_p Thank you for your thoughtful answer also! The 6'3" wall is were the coffee bar is drawn to go for now (although we are definitely not committed to this). I hadn't previously thought about how centering the sink in islands limits prep space but have seen that come up a few times ow in reading through the discussions! Would the counterspace adjacent to the range be considered adequate for prep? Island seating is not too much of a priority for us so we are ok with 3 seats at the island. By built in fridge do you mean counter depth? We currently have a 36" counter depth refrigerator which works ok for us, but we have talked about how it might be nicer to have a larger refrigerator!

Don't feel bad, I play an architect in my nightmares.

No I mean a built in like a Subzero. Counter depth fridges are not counter depth - they typically stick out from the counter as much as 6". You can plan for that by putting a recess into the wall to accommodate the extra depth but you will still need them to stick out a little so the doors can open. We have a recessed wall our kitchen for our fridge. Our full depth fridge still sticks out about 4"-5". You have to leave space behind the fridge so when you are designing your aisles you need to consider all of these dimensions. My aisle was 54"...and it's still a pinch point by the fridge.

As far as prep space, the place for prep is next to the sink. You CAN prep by the range but you probably won't. I have nearly 5' of prep space and I don't feel like it's too much. The NKBA recommends a minimum of 3'. Your scenario you would have barely that (and I would argue that on islands it should be more, as you have to leave some "shy" distance to the edge of the island so you're not knocking things off).

Not sure if anyones mentioned it but a pro of not centering sink is not having cook and clean up person bumping butts if 2 people are in kitchen at same time. in a kitchen of this size i would definitely do a clean up sink/dw on perimeter and prep sink on island. this lets 2 people work without being on top of eachother and i always have stuff on drying rack though so clean up on island wouldn’t work for me. you may be a tidier person than me though!

I often wonder about moving the entry around to the side on plans like this.

This would also open up the back of the house to the yard.

The front bedroom would be more private.

What's upstairs and down? Where will you park?

What does the exterior look like?