Here is the other kitchen layout.

Or this is a third I am considering.

Thanks for any feedback or advice!

I like the first one.

I agree, I like the first one but I'm also not an expert on the flow of kitchens like some on here.

I am curious why an extra bedroom downstairs in the second two plans and not the first...is that something you are wanting?

Could you share the name or provide a link for your first floor plan; it's one I would like to show my parents who are looking for one with a hearth room. Thanks!

I agree, I like the first one but I'm also not an expert on the flow of kitchens like some on here.

I am curious why an extra bedroom downstairs in the second two plans and not the first...is that something you are wanting?

Could you share the name or provide a link for your first floor plan; it's one I would like to show my parents who are looking for one with a hearth room. Thanks!

There are enough differences between the three floor plans that it's difficult for me to isolate the relative benefits and drawbacks of each kitchen layout, because I keep looking at how the hallway/lack of hallway affects the flow of the rooms around the kitchen. Moreover, the benefits/drawbacks depend greatly on your family: whether you have kids, how your family tends to live/work/spend time in your house, whether you intend to be here for 40 years or 20 or 10...

A few things that jump out at me:
- The hallway might reduce a certain type of traffic through the kitchen, but it guarantees that anyone who wants a drink or something from the fridge will have to walk into the kitchen, into the work space, to grab that drink: that would drive me nuts. I'd rather have the fridge where someone could grab something without needing to walk into the middle of the kitchen. (I'm picturing teenagers having friends over and moving in a horde from the family room to the kitchen and congregating around the fridge trying to pick drinks while I'm trying to cook something!)
- In the first layout, the fridge *is* a little far from where you'd likely be prepping food, but whether that's inconvenient might depend on your style of cooking. Over the past few years, I've moved from getting stuff out of the fridge as I need it to "staging" everything that I'll need before I start. It looks like you have GREAT prep space on the island and so you would have the room to "stage" ingredients on the island - unless you have a family who tends to use the island as a landing surface for everything and anything (we no longer have an island, but we had trouble with this when we did!).
- In the third layout, the location of the pantry seems inconvenient: one needs to walk around the L, turn left, turn right, grab something, turn left, turn right, walk around the L - and then repeat when you need to put it back! Again, how inconvenient this is depends on your style of cooking. For me, stuff in my pantry tends to be heavier than stuff in my fridge (e.g., sugar/flour in glass jars) and the distance in your drawing would be too far for me. In addition, I often want to grab something like flour/sugar/extra can of tomato sauce *really* quickly, when cooking is almost done but needs a little adjustment, and that walk is not conducive to grabbing a little sugar to add to a sauce that's about to overcook.
- The amount of traffic through that hallway will greatly depend on whether that second bedroom is there. If it's not, the only traffic would be to/from the garage, half bath, and maybe stairs-to-laundry room.

I think in all of them I'd want the fridge at the top end of the cab run by the stairway. Closer to sink, brkfst nook and keeping room.

didn't see a fridge in #3