It's an idea I've been contemplating myself so I did a search on "island with dining table", this was probably closest to what you described. I plan to convert our (never used) dining room at the front of Calif. bungalow into a bedroom and enlarge current kitchen into adjacent informal dining area so this option would work well (if I can get H to agree that is!)

Wow...you’ve all given me so much to think about! Kate Partenio - I hadn’t even thought of garage fumes...definitely something we will consider going forward. Re: traffic through pantry/kitchen..this doesn’t bother us so much given we don’t have kids but worth thinking about for resale down the track. Oklouise - I love your sketch but upon redrawing it myself I realised that the kitchen bench will likely be the same size as it is now, as we would want it to be flush with bedroom 2. Also in your sketch (and in relation to marie4509’s suggestions) the pantry would have to be a straight line pantry rather than one that has a bench/shelving going across horizontally - unfortunately that space is just too narrow which is why we were thinking of it for the laundry. I don’t know about all of you but I feel like a straight line pantry still feels like just a pantry, rather than a full out butlers pantry! That all being said, we will consider moving the internal garage door to lead straight into the main hallway, rather than through the butlers. This would eliminate concerns of fumes to kitchen directly + problem of foot traffic through kitchen. It would also give us more counter space + storage in the butlers. I must say I’ve never been a fan of garage entry doors being visible to guests, but it seems this would be the only real solution. Looks like I’ll have to let go of my dream of a bigger bench :( Thanks all for your suggestions and sketches - what an amazing community I’ve walked into.

My suggestion for the whole kitchen, is to keep a bank of pantry cabinets next to the fridge, staring from the left a flat corner pantry that has "L" shaped shelving plus a pull out food pantry between it and the fridge. An under bench oven, the MW would be in the open shelf wall cabinet with kettle and toaster etc in the corner under the MW The sink, DW and rubbish bin in the Island which would have a taller panel as shown to cover any mess in that clean up space I've added a bench height table next to the island, this could be dropped to table height if wanted. I have continued the wall cabinets on the wall across both the kitchen and dining, I haven't sectioned the cabinets but they could be a combination of doors and open shelves. I have also extended floating lower cabinets at a depth of 400 across the dining space with the same bench top as used on the kitchen cabinets This will give you great storage to allow you tuck your appliances and food stuffs into when not in use,. You can also use a deep drawer to pop certain appliances into if that fits and suits how you use your kitchen You can also store a broom in the "L" shaped pantry with dust pan and brush fitted to the inside of the door, the "L" shaped shelving allows for this Click on the images to open them

big project - as siriuskey has questioned such an expansive reconfiguration and extension under and existing upper level is not going to be cheap, but sometimes it's the only way to achieve the project requirements, like here accommodating large living/entertaining areas...... There are always many different ways of achieving project needs. Without knowing the full context/space at the front and/or garage requirements hard to suggest specific options, but for example the garage could be repurposed for the extra space you're after without needing to go as agressively with changing existing structure and consider alternative / cheaper vehicle housing out the front i(f this is possible but depends on setbacks and the project priorities & budget limits). As a start suggest you get accurate sized furniture on the plan so you can see clearly how these spaces are going to work and flow - they may need to be bigger or smaller than you initially think - when designing resolve internal function and planning/flow/paths of movement etc first and then build in the structure, walls etc around the function (think "inside-out" rather than "ouside-in" - this way you'll get a much more balanced and more aligned outcome in regards to your goals/needs good luck PD www.pauldistefanodesign.com