Why not have the peninsula on the living room side?

Can you provide a layout of your current kitchen?

One of my first thoughts was - can this door be moved so the sink side could end at the wall instead of leaving the dead space between the counter and door.

No uppers on that window wall. Fridge much closer to the sink . It would be great to have a to scale floor plan with nothing in it , showing every window, doorway where those lead named every measurement clearly marked and posted here in jpeg in a comment . Then you will get new layouts with no need for us to constantly have go back to the post only new ideas

What about potentially glass door uppers? I really could use the storage.
I’ll

Layout of the current kitchen attached. @Jennifer Hogan that door cannot be moved unfortunately as it goes to the basement.

Forgot the attachment.

Can you remove the wall between the kitchen and dining room?

Most of the time you can move basement doors. You should be able to move the door and have it open to a landing that leads to the stairs instead of being directly above the stairs.

I could remove the wall. I would lose that storage. Half the kitchen wall is external (bump out) so I will only be able to expand the usable space by a bit

This is certainly a more functional kitchen overall. However the loss of the seating is potentially a deal breaker for us

It can be tweaked for a bigger table. I would definitely be thinking in the direction of finding room for a kitchen table rather than forcing a peninsula.

What about a fun banquette against the wall where @Lorraine Leroux has the table?

Here is a picture of the space. There isn’t enough room for a table on that wall.

would you consider something like this:

Back side upper cabinets fridge and stove

Sink in island

Hallway tall pantry storage

I didn't double check measurements, but you will want 48" between the two counters and 5' between the edge of the counter and the basement door. Looks like you might be able to do a 48" island which gives you more room on the eating side and less likely to be splashing sink water onto the food.

Have you posted before under another username? I swear I've seen a thread, with the same parameters you have here, maybe a new purchase at the time and you were trying to figure out what to do.

I did have another account and I have posted under it several years ago so yes. But I lost it/it used a different email that I don’t have anymore. We are starting work Jul 6th and I am having a bit of cold feet. It is a very expensive renovation and I really want to make sure it will work well/we get a great layout. This will probably be our forever home so we will have to live with the choices for a long time.

Jennifer this is a very interesting suggestion. We’d move the door to the hallway side by the cabinets..

The reason I bring it up is IIRC we coaxed a full floor plan out of you. Also, there were multiple "corridors" of circulation next to each other (the path to Living next to Powder with a path on other side of wall from Dining). It was a very inefficient layout from the wants you desired at that time.

The brain is a strange one, I remember this house from a couple sketches but can't remember where I put my reading glasses (spoiler: they're on top my head).

I fully get it!!! I am oddly touched that you remembered!! The full house floor plan? Yes many different pathways. I ultimately chose against an island layout based on those conversations as I realized that the home pathways of front to back and different rooms are important. Came to terms that we do not have enough space for an island and for the kitchen to still feel breezy at the same time. I am starting to wonder if we just live with this or we skip the seating.

Not a pro but this would make me crazy- I’d really want to see if i could get that door relocated if I was spending all the money and time on the reno

Lala girl, We could relocate the door if we eliminated the powder room. There is a staircase behind the door going down and another one going up, which then turns. We have the powder room nestled under that staircase. However, we would then need to find another spot for the powder room. Not sure how much that would add…

It appears that right now, the only exterior item on the left wall is a door - no windows. Is that correct? Which means you're adding the windows and moving the exterior door - also correct?

Correct

Could you please post a sketch of the entire floor the Kitchen is on? (It was mentioned above that you eventually posted one on your previous thread under a different username.)

Also, do you have pictures of the current Kitchen - all walls?

Regarding your old post - if you have the URL, you should be able to get to the thread. While you won't be able to update the starting/original post in that thread, you should be able to read and post to that thread.

This means if you no longer have the full-floor sketch, you can copy it from your old post and then re-post it here.

If there's more info that we could use, posting the URL here would let us see that info.

Oh, and your layout is missing measurements along the Powder Room/Basement door wall.

Each square is one foot in my kitchen floor plan. That wall is 92 inches or so. I went back and searched old photos and found this drawing.
I think I feel defeated at this point with our current layout. Hopefully, the final result is not something that we regret, especially since I am spending more on inset cabinets.

Have you considered swapping the kitchen and dining room locations?

I have. It completely changes the scope and budget. Maybe I need to accept the imperfect solution with our wishlist. Making the cabinets glassfront helps.

How old are your kids? Where do they eat breakfast now? What about that situation isn't working for you?

It seems like the eat-in kitchen is driving ALL the decisions here, and I'm not convinced it is worth sacrificing an efficient layout. I really like what Lorraine suggested, but with 12"-deep pantry cabinets where the fridge is now.

FYI, our last house had the DW on the wall adjacent to the sink, and it was not a problem at all - so much a non-issue that when we remodeled the kitchen, we maintained that configuration. While a DW next to the sink is great, it is another thing that is not worth sacrificing a lot of other great things.

Iva, the choppy feeling you are getting feedback on is real. Peninsulas solve the eat-in problem but they almost always create a traffic flow issue, especially when the kitchen is being used by more than one person at a time.

A few things worth thinking through before you finalize anything. Where does the primary cook stand relative to the peninsula? If someone is sitting at the peninsula while someone else is cooking, are they in each other's way? That is the friction point most plans do not catch on paper.

Also, your sink placement will have a significant impact on how the workflow feels. In a layout like this, it is one of the decisions that are easy to get wrong and hard to fix later.

I do complimentary 30-minute Zoom kitchen layout reviews for situations exactly like this. No obligation, no salesy talk, just a second set of eyes from someone who has been doing this for 40 years. If that would be helpful, feel free to email me at dino@rachiele.com or give me a call at 407-880-6903.

To answer a few of the questions.
Kids range from early teenage years to toddler. They have breakfast at my make shift peninsula which is using a movable island set up almost exactly like the drawing, abutting the sink cabinet. It works great for getting the kids going in the morning. I only have 2 stools today.
What I do not like - The limited counter space in my kitchen, how far the range is from the sink. The fridge sits by itself super imposing as soon as you walk in and closes the space out. How dark the kitchen is, but we are adding a skylight to help with that. My counter-space by the range is only 24 inches and that feels too tight because I also have utensils, knives and oils out on the counters which leaves almost no space for prep. Better storage, more functional counter-space is going to be key for us.
On centering the design around eat in kitchen. When people come over, they gravitate to our make shift peninsula. Naturally. I agree if we didn’t have the eat in space, we would continue those cabinets to the wall and gain extra counter space/move the range on that wall potentially.
I almost went backwards because of the same misgivings. My husband thought I was losing my mind to sacrifice something that since putting it in has been such a life enhancer.

@Iva

Iva, everything you just described points to the same root cause - the layout is working against you rather than for you. The distance between the range and sink, the tight prep space, the imposing fridge - these are workflow problems, not just aesthetic ones. And with toddlers through teenagers in the mix, the demands on that kitchen are real.

The good news is that your instinct to keep the peninsula is right. Your husband's reaction says it all. The goal is to keep what is working and fix what is not.

I would love to spend 30 minutes with you and your husband on a Zoom call going through this before anything gets finalized. No obligation at all. Feel free to email me at dino@rachiele.com or call 407-880-6903.

Thank you Rachiele. Will take a look and might take you up on that ask!

You have the kitchen crossing over the (old) addition. There are existing prominent, bulky "pilasters" shown with an arched opening. If a remodeled opening is to remain (or the existing arch with it's posts) with a beam below the ceiling, it will split the cabinets and feeling of spaces unceremoniously. Also, you state there will be a skylight added, assuming in the (old) addition portion.

Both of these should always be shown on drawings in whatever form they will take and considered how they affect the space.

Rachiele is trolling for business, something that is not done on this Forum.

Could you reconfigure the half bath and eliminate that hallway? Enter it on the stair side? That might give you a bit of extra room to add a banquette or a few cabinets around the fridge.

Or remove the peninsula and put the banquette on that wall ?

@Buehl My intent was to offer genuine expertise with no obligation nor expectation. I have been doing exactly that for years.

@Rachiele Custom Sinks My expertise is genuine, given for free, and still can be accomplished via communication in these threads without the guise of soliciting. Insinuating only you hold secret information or can only give that with a direct private call is not the intention of these discussion boards appropriately named houzz.com/discussions/. There are other venues for solicitation.

3onthetree, yes the pillars will be removed. I don’t know what they will find in the ceiling and whether there will be a beam issue between the old and the new. We do have a full gut job and there will need to be new electrical wiring, for now assuming that nothing will split the cabinets. Skylight is a last min addition for me.

Dee, we can reconfigure/move the bath. I think the budget would have to increase by another 20k or more if we are to do this work and redo the half bath. Already I feel like we are spending too much.
A banquette is a great solution. I wonder however if there would be a bough room. Right now the distance between the countertop edge and the wall is 36”. If we eliminate the overhang we will be 48”. That’s quite tight for banquette, isn’t it?

following along