Hi everyone, I wanted to ask for some help with a kitchen remodel. Anything goes for this remodel (moving appliances/walls. But the old kitchen is dated and gross, so I would like a full remodel. I read the Kitchen Planning FAQ. I think I want a warm, calm, soothing, light, subtle and maybe woody, mix of traditional/modern, simple kitchen.

There is one kitchen window and it is 70" x 24", and it is about 12" above the countertop. I do not plan to extend the size of the window (would have been nice to extend to countertop). The patio door is 80" height, 94" width. The dimensions on the original_floorplan is generally correct. The inner walls are 5" thick. The space between the patio door and the wall is 10". The ceiling height is 8 feet throughout the home. Plumbing and gas will be repositioned as needed. There is one door, which opens to the side of the house (like a small path along wall separating neighbor and my home). I reference north/south below, but in reality, the patio/kitchen windows are facing east.

I am the only person in the home for now. I am a novice cook, so I will not be doing anything too serious and chef-like. As for function of the kitchen, I am flexible, as I only use the kitchen for cooking at this time. I anticipate a dining table if it ever comes to that, and there is an area adjacent to the kitchen for that. I do not entertain often, and the kitchen does not be a place for hanging out. I think I'd like to have the sink be near a window because I still do dishes by hand.

For appliances, I will have standard depth/width refrigerator, a range (preferably with exhaust hood vented outside), a place for dishwasher plumbing. The range and dishwasher should be the common and standard sizes (I think 30" for range?). I was thinking of a wall cabinet with slot for microwave, otherwise it goes on the counter (uncertain about mounted microwave; microwave drawer seems expensive). I will have a rice cooker, a toaster oven. I was thinking of having cabinets stretch to the full ceiling height, though I am not sure if that is too tall or not.

As for materials, I do not have specific cabinet vendor yet, but I am thinking of full-overlay shaker cabinets design, flooring will be CORETec Originals some sort of wood apperance, and I am thinking of countertop will be a quartz (Cambria?) or solid surface like Corian.

I have attached a few images: one with a general floorplan (with inaccurate walls separating the dining room/living room, but you can see how the living room is separated); the second set of images is what the current kitchen layout looks like; a few variations I came up with after someone suggested a galley-style layout with an island. I think I will be removing the section of wall separating the dining room/living room, but not do a full open-concept.

This home (https://www.redfin.com/CA/Huntington-Beach/15832-Standish-Ln-92647/home/3745948) is similar layout as mine, and did a full open-concept layout.

There are a few design decisions that I cannot decide which is best. It involves the north short wall and the south short wall.

1. remove the north short wall

1a. turn it into a peninsula

1b. remove it completely (optionally extend cabinetry closer to patio door, I'm not sure how close it should get to the edge of the patio door)

2. south short wall

2a. leave the wall where it is

2b. move it to line up with cabinetry on north wall

3. add an island (hesitant to do this given the space)

I plan to add a countertop in the full wall cabinets of the south wall.

What do you think is the optimal option? I would really like to have a real exhaust hood above the range, to avoid smelling up the house with food. I also would like to retain the side door. I'm not sure what I would do with the additional empty wall space on the east wall if I use the galley-style.

Thank you for your help!

This is the whole house floorplan.

This is how the original kitchen is laid out.

This floorplan I moved the lower wall to make it even with the upper. The upper short wall is going to be removed. Someone suggested adding an island, so I plopped one in. I'm not too sure about the island at this time.

This is where I moved the south short wall, removed the upper short wall, and got the cabinets really close to the patio door. It is similar to how the Redfin house I linked to did their cabinets along this north wall.

This floorplan I moved the south short wall over. I also sort of removed the north short wall. In reality, I would open up the middle of the wall, so you can see into the dining room, and still have cabinets on the "wall" and stuff on the bottom. I think a wall would need to be retained, otherwise the back of the range is strangely exposed.

Original kitchen views

This is the second floorplan

The third floorplan option with an island