Without labels and dimensions, it's hard to evaluate either plan. Since one has seating and the other doesn't, how important is that to you?

What is the existing kitchen like, and what are your goals for the remodel?

Labels: fridge, range, sink, DW, what's behind the door to the right, and what's at the bottom?

Dimensions: length of walls, windows, doors.

A sketch showing how the kitchen relates to the rest of the house would be really helpful.

I agree that more information would help. My first thought is to please get the refrigerator out of a corner. Check the specs to see how much room you need on each side to open the doors fully - enough to pull the drawers all the way out for cleaning.

This is the current layout.

Goals:

• Fix door collisions: fridge and pantry, and door to garage currently collide.
• Add work stations. Currently above dishwasher is the only truly useable space.
• Widen entryway from kitchen to dinning.
• Vibe wise, I’m wanting it to feel more like a kitchen and less like just a hallway to the garage.
• Keep a reasonable budget

Thanks for your input!

if you could move the entry to/from dining to the far right on that wall youd have a direct walkway from garage..... as you come in..turn left to get to living zone....and also eliminates the view into the smallish kitchen from living room completely. then i might think about a U shape kitchen with the wrapping of 3 sides a possibility . I would not do either of the two plans shown until I explored repositioning of that opening in/out of kitchen .

If you don't need seating in the kitchen, an economical solution is to remove the little pantry in the corner and slide the fridge into that space, giving you more counter space between stove and fridge. Then build a pantry/utility unit in the lower right corner and center a wider opening to the dining room. I don't know if reversing the garage door helps much. It would be more helpful to shift the garage door down on the plan, but I'm not sure if that's worth it either.