The L with an island is a better functional shape but you will only have 36” aisles. Old homes sometimes mean sacrifices but that is tight! I would move the fridge to the right so at least the doors can open further. I also don’t see a 48” range in a kitchen that small. 30” is just fine, you will appreciate the extra counter space. Yes the 48” is more wow.

100 pounds of sugar doesn't fit in a 5 lb sack. Compromises have to be made, and that needs to start with your 50K appliance wishlist.

@Minardi I'm not tied to the large range and we certainly don't have a $50k appliance budget. We received the plans from the prior owners who had to move abruptly close to family before their renovation. We are crowdsourcing ideas before we go back to the architect with our tweaks.

Get a 36” wide fridge/ freezer, put a deep pantry to the right. Center a 30” range on the far wall, no need to align with the island. More important for that back wall to look balanced. I also enlarged the laundry closet to simplify the kitchen.

@HALLETT & Co. Thank you! Great idea with the pantry! So you don't think it's an issue to not have a door going to the hallway? I've edited the post to include a pic of the entire floor plan.

@Buehl Thank you so much for your feedback. I've added the entire floor plan of the existing conditions so you can see where that hallway leads.

There is an eight inch drop from the level with the kitchen/formal dining area side of the house to the informal dining area and playroom side of the house. That was an addition that was added in 1960.

The driveway is off the existing playroom/informal dining room so groceries come in that way. This is just a really awkward house to work with, but we love the lot and the neighborhood so we are here to stay. The informal dining room is too small to make a formal dining area (for 6 or 8). We can comfortably seat 4 at our breakfast table. I agree with you that 3 dining areas are overkill.

Here is an example of a smaller island that we could put in to accommodate the space issues.

If we eliminate the island, do you recommend a moveable island/workspace like this island?

Would you widen the entry from the formal dining room to kitchen or leave as is?

A friend who is a contractor for very high end historic homes said "I would move the kitchen to the playroom/informal dining lower level area of the house" and blow out the existing cabinets/built-ins. That level of project seems so expensive, but maybe we should reconsider given we plan to stay here 15+ years.

It seems that backing up a bit, expanding your focus beyond just kitchen details, would be appropriate:

- I'm reading you are using schematic plans from the previous owner. Do you feel you need to continue with those as is, their needs and their conceptualization of what this house can offer from their viewpoint?

- The main goal of "provide a more functional space for entertaining and living with kids," seems weak in these designs. Where is the focus of public entertaining and private daily living, is it towards the formal Living/Dining Rooms, or informal Breakfast/Playroom, or both? Should the Kitchen be focused one way or the other, or be a transition between them? Is a connection to outdoor living (patio, bbq, backyard play) a large part of either public/private living?

- Is the Master and Guest Room expansion still happening?

- What other needs do you have? Is adding a W/D close to the Master critical? Is not having a Mudroom/drop space at the rear daily entry unimportant? Where exactly is that daily entry?

Talk to your friend about raising the ceiling in the two lower rooms. He can look at the rafters or truss structure. Maybe vaulting the ceilings would be possible. Then. . .you can bring the floor in the informal dining room up to the level of the main house. Change the doors and possibly windows if necessary. The playroom and full bath can be left at the lower level unless you want that added expense. If you can fit that expense into your long-term plans, the space problems and design compromises are greatly reduced by adding the office and informal dining room to the hopper.

It looks like that formal dining room-kitchen wall might be load-bearing. What would be the added cost for a new beam?

@bpath it is load bearing and the contractor said he could put a LVL beam in- cost wasn't significant.

@3onthetree Thank you for such a substantive response. I definitely have things to think about here. Below are my answers to your questions.

- I'm reading you are using schematic plans from the previous owner. Do you feel you need to continue with those as is, their needs and their conceptualization of what this house can offer from their viewpoint? The prior owners were our age with the same number of children. Aside from that, we just saw the plans as a "cost effective" way to expand the blueprint of the house by adding a bedroom/bath and expanding the primary bath in order to make the house roomier for us. We decided to tackle a kitchen renovation in the process since the house will already be under construction.

- The main goal of "provide a more functional space for entertaining and living with kids," seems weak in these designs. Where is the focus of public entertaining and private daily living, is it towards the formal Living/Dining Rooms, or informal Breakfast/Playroom, or both? Should the Kitchen be focused one way or the other, or be a transition between them? Is a connection to outdoor living (patio, bbq, backyard play) a large part of either public/private living?

Private daily living happens in the informal dining room (breakfast and dinner together) and playroom (where we have our only tv currently). For public entertaining, we eat in the formal dining room (6%) or outside on the patio (40%). When bugs and weather aren't bad, we open the double doors from the playroom to the patio. Prior to dinner, guests squeeze in and out of the doorframe from the kitchen to the formal dining room to grab drinks or just huddle in kitchen open space or stand awkwardly in the informal dining room. We usually sit in the formal living room and catch up for a bit before or after dinner.

- Is the Master and Guest Room expansion still happening? Yes- that's the primary goal here, but those spaces are more straightforward and will be less visible to guests so I'm focusing on kitchen/living area design.

- What other needs do you have? Is adding a W/D close to the Master critical? Is not having a Mudroom/drop space at the rear daily entry unimportant? Where exactly is that daily entry?

Needs are office for us to work from home (minimally). Closet space for belongings (we have a little more than the family that lived here in 1939) and I need to be able to take a bath. those are the needs haha. We love to cook, we love to read and we don't really watch much TV. We love to travel and backpack so we keep all of our luggage and camping gear in the attic (which is large, 8 ft at peak.

Daily entry is through the double doors in the playroom. We step in on a mat and then we are in the playroom. We could add doors between the informal dining room and playroom to make an enclosed mudroom/playroom. I don't care about the location of the W/D closet. I'm sure it would be nice to have a washer in the bedroom area of the house, but I don't mind the steps (the W/D is currently off the playroom).

What about a peninsula instead?

Or what if you re worked the office / informal dining area? Make the office smaller, move the door, add that space to the informal dining to make it the dining room, change the french doors to slider then make the old kitchen dining into one large kitchen??

Don't have exact dimensions so it is hard to say what will truly fit and I would move the appliances around - just trying to show the possibility. You would lose the built ins in the office. But if you don't work from home, how big of an office do you really need?

Just some initial thoughts!

I think it's important to decide what you want to keep - you have 2 dining spaces. Are you planning on using both of them? Are you using the office as an office or something else? Are you using the play room as a play room? Do you want to convert any of these spaces into something else now or in the future? Are you OK losing any of these spaces?

You have a lot of space and a lot of potential to renovate. You could move the kitchen entirely out of this space, which might help. You could use the entire width of the house in the location it's in now to create a new kitchen, similar to what Debbi shows. You could do a peninsula, but I would do it opposite of what Debbi shows so the kitchen isnt' a walkway (put the peninsula off the top wall). That would require switching the range & fridge, though.

All of this depends on your budget and what you want out of the house, and it's not limited to the renovation the previous owners had in mind. Answer those questions first, and things will become clearer.

But, no to the current plan. There's not enough room for an island, especially in a kitchen that's also a hallway.

"There is an eight inch drop from the level with the kitchen/formal dining area side of the house to the informal dining area and playroom side of the house"

Is the level change in the floor (i.e., 8" lower than the Kitchen) or the ceiling (i.e., the ceiling is 8" lower)?

Edited to Add: Never mind. I see on one of the layouts that it's an 8" step down. I wonder if the floor could be raised?

Would you be willing to change the wall that's shared with the Living Room? Move it into the Living Room to line up with the hall wall and do the same on the other side so the walls match? It looks like you eliminated the walls altogether in one of the layouts. I'm not sure I'd do that if you want to maintain a semblance of a "formal" Dining Room. Although, eliminating the wall b/w the Kitchen and Dining Room is pretty much removing any formal feel that Dining Room might have anyway.

I don't see stairs - is there a basement or crawl space under any part of the home? Or, is it on a slab?

Rotated image

Is this what you meant @PPF.?