That 3 ft wide dining table is going to feel really tight in a 9 ft wide room.

We use our dining room quite infrequently, so I'm not overly concerned about it. We also have a large informal dining space that's mostly cut off from this pic. And when we used it growing up it didn't feel particularly tight from my recollection. There was even a curio cabiet and hutch against the wall. Will definitley keep that in mind though. Thanks.

Island will be way to big and the aisles way to narrow judging just be eye. The rest of the dimensions are really needed.

That's much too much and too spread out.

I should have clarified that the island is nowhere near to scale. It's just a placeholder.

@Minardi Too much what? Space? Appliances? Too spread out for what? I'm asking for ideas for a layout. Nothing has been placed.

Showing an accurate as built plan for the entire floor would be helpful, along with a full plan showing your proposed changes.

What happens in the prep kitchen?

Do you need 2 dining rooms?

Maybe the space needs to be reimagined, not just updated.

Updated with counter lengths

None of that works, or actually is to scale with the house you own. You're trying for something it isn't.

A center hall Colonial is a simple and efficient home. That is neither simple nor efficient. It's a rats nest of small rooms with duplicative or questionable purposes. 2 places to prepare food and 4 places to eat it just screams obesity epidemic.

I would highly suggest that you buy yourself a copy of The Not So Big House, and internalize it's premise of multi functional spaces.

The only real change here from the original design is to expand the size of the kitchen towards the front of the house and to add a pantry/prep kitchen. It’s more of a pantry than a prep kitchen, but may have small appliances in it.. I view the informal dining area no different than people having an eaten kitchen and a formal dining room. The only room that’s being added is the pantry and there will not be any actual food prep going on there outside of my kids heating up some pizza rolls if we decide that’s where the microwave is going to go.

My father had already added the informal dining area, and there is a family room on the other side of that.

*Eat in kitchen

@Minardi can you please specify what the “what” you’re talking abou that doesn’t work? Are you talking about the dimensions? Are you talking about the layout? Which appliances I want in that space? Which part?

The pantry should get an airfryer/toaster oven. We don't have a micro or use a full-sized oven anymore.

Regarding the appliances, I like the fridge at the end of the short L where it is, then round the corner and put the sink, then at least 4 feet of uninterrupted counter, then the stove. If you want to make that one a smaller prep sink, and keep the big sink & cleanup zone over on the wall facing the sunroom, it could work. Think about workflow and where dirty dishes are brought in and where cleaned dishes go. Don't walk too much for daily jobs, but put less frequent ones into the pantry/prep kitchen. I think the house needs more thought than you have considered so far.

There is info lacking, but I can tell you that an L kitchen with island, in a space 12'5" deep, may possible but not like you are imagining. Consider the space requirements from side to side: 25" deep counters/cabs on the right hand long wall, 42-48" aisle between that and the island, and high traffic walkway to the left of the island needs to be 42-48" NOT including the room seating would require. That leaves 39" for the island depth including all countertop overhang, if you skimp on both aisle sizes at 42". Chairs at the island + major walkway is not comfortable with less than 50" between wall and island IMO, which makes for a 30" island, at which point you would do better to just make it a worktable with chairs.

All that to say, I think you need to choose either a narrow worktable island with chairs (low on storage) or a smallish traditional storage-heavy island without chairs. Your space is telling you there's not room for both functions.

Here is the sort of thing you could do, shallow 15" cabinets on one side, and a recess for a couple chairs on the other side. This one's sold by Anthropologie but is slightly deeper than your space allows.

@Julie Thank you for your thoughtful and comprehensive explanation why what we’ve envisioned won’t work. I do hear you about the width of the kitchen.

I’m quite lost in this process. We did this with an architect, but haven’t gone to a kitchen designer yet. The architect assured us there was room for an island, but it sounds like maybe there isn’t, which is rather disappointing and may require us to revisit these plans.

You need to revisit many details. For instance the pantry door should move down to align with the aisle then it can be a U. As noted above the island is bloated and will never work as drawn. 42” is a minimum. Maybe a 36” wide island will work with a 42” aisle along the sink and a 48 where you have stools. But that is still tight. So many small areas and duplicates. Can you post what you are working with?

https://media.nkba.org/uploads/2022/05/Kitchen-Planning-Guidelines.pdf

since the kitchen is also a major thoroughfare through the house, any pinch point in the walkways is going to be noticed multiple times a day.

The vasr majority of architects are not good at kitchen design. Whenever you see their kitchen design coming with a double sink, this shows lack of knowledge. Maybe 5% of kitchens use a double sink because dishwashers made them obsolete years ago.

Agree it would be helpful to see what ’s existing -

The entire floor plan would be helpful for feedback on alternate layouts. The current layout seems cramped and has a lot of floor space dedicated to eating (island, formal dining, informal dining).

Have you considered putting the kitchen/kitchen prep in the area currently marked kitchen/dining room/office/study space?

Then put the dining room into the area currently marked informal dining/kitchen prep? Since you use the dining room infrequently, could you make it dual use dining and study space? Pocket doors, if feasible, will help close it off for work, as needed.

Or perhaps the sunroom (if four-season) could be repurposed for dining/breakfast room and/or study space?

Yes, and can we see the whole floor? There may be other good solutions like moving the kitchen into the dining space perhaps?

I couldn't find a clean copy of the floor plan as is, so I superimposed two floor plans to hopefully show a decent representation of the current floorplan. Some words may be backwards as I used a floorplan I found online for a neighboring house that is mirrored to ours. The portion in color is the original house, the b/w portion is an addition that was added in 2005. We are a family of four with 12 and 14 year olds.

Our desires are:

1. Bigger kitchen to add more storage and include an island, 36" range, 48" fridge, wall speed oven. We're open to moving the kitchen, but slightly concerned about the added expense of doing so. Of note, there is a two-step step down from the informal dining to the family room.
2. Walk-in pantry
3. Both formal and informal dining areas. We are ok to lose the formal living room.
4. Move laundry upstairs to allow for a mudroom
5. Convert 1/2 bath to 3/4 bath with zero-entry shower to plan for aging in place.
6. First floor office
7. Dedicated space separate from the office for both kids to do their homework
8. No changes to the sunroom