We are looking for advice on our kitchen layout. The current kitchen is tight but does have space for a dining table large enough for our family of four. The island is necessary for counter space but does not allow for large enough aisles. The refrigerator in its current spot creates a bottleneck at the rooms main entrance and is a bit of an eyesore as the side of it is the first thing you see and is visible from the front door. Traffic (aka running children) also goes through the already narrow aisle between the sink/range and island from the main entrance to the kids’ art room (eventual dining room as kids outgrow it). Exterior door leads to deck but isn’t a main entrance to the house and there is a secondary door to the deck from the play/living room that is used more frequently.

We need the cooking area to be out of the traffic flow from the main entrance into the dining space so we are looking to move it to the window side of the room. We would like to take out the wall into the art room/dining room and use that as the main eating area. The flooring changes at that wall from tile to hardwood and we do not want to replace the flooring so the cabinets aesthetically need to stay within the current kitchen space. The house is a ranch with full basement so we have access above and below for electric and plumbing. The windows are currently below counter height but we are willing to replace them. There’s also the weird angled transition to the bump-out if we ran counters along the adjacent wall and because of window height the countertop can’t just run into the angled wall.

Our ideas:

Kitchen 1:

+Large island, more counter space, wider aisles

+Clean up sink out of cooking area, easily accessible for washing hands and getting drinking water, surrounding cabinets to hold tableware close to dining area

+Prep sink in island

-Weird angle from cabinet run adjacent to the bump-out

-Dead space between island and windows

Kitchen 2:

+Window seat (shown as bench in plan but would run entire width of bump-out) that disguises the weird angle and will be made comfortable so I can drink my coffee looking out the window like I do at our current table

-Smaller island than kitchen 1

Kitchen 3:

+More counter space in cooking area

+Prep area between stove and sink facing window

-Have to replace windows and move baseboard heaters

-Plumbing in exterior wall creates potential for pipes to freeze

-If tableware stored near dining area, would be far from sink and dishwasher

-Have to walk around island and behind stools to get from sink to dining area

We welcome any feedback and suggestions! Thank you!