Kitchen Layout

Our main concern in remodeling our kitchen has been to get a layout that would best use the space. Shortly after moving in we did two things: we moved the back door out of the kitchen (to a sliding door in the dining room), and we put a second doorway in the wall between kitchen and dining. The first gave us more storage space (and will allow more counter-space in our new kitchen), and the second helped with traffic flow. Before, people would stand in the middle of the kitchen with no clue how to get out; the new door-hole (sounds weird) gave another escape into the rest of the house. Here's what I'm talking about:

We decided pretty early on in planning that we'd like to get rid of the wall between kitchen & dining. Mostly so I can see what Sam and Lukas are destroying in the house while I try to cook. But also, because it'd be much better for entertaining. Right now, anyone that wants to talk to me while I'm doing food prep has to stand right in the middle of the kitchen, and then I have to work my way around them as I cook. We were hoping for a way to make space so visitors/friends/little kids can chat with me while I'm working, without being in the way.

Obviously there are issues with the basement stairs being in the middle of the kitchen, but we aren't willing to do a *major* remodel - removing the wall is major enough for this house. We also have to take into account that both our kitchen and dining room are high traffic areas, and they're not huge (both are roughly the same size at 10x16' each).

Anyway, following are the plans we've seen so far...

Most designers/cabinet centers gave us this layout:

...which is fine, but didn't feel quite right for some reason.

I finally asked someone to draw us a U-shaped kitchen, just to see if it would work, and we ended up really liking it. This is how we planned to do it for quite some time.

I still like this layout a lot. I could probably be talked into it again if someone tried hard enough. I love the vast expanse of countertop this layout provides and, visually, I really like how much less cluttered it looks (compared to an island). Concerns, however: leaving walking space between the bar and back door as well as space for more than one person inside the U. Eric is a really good cook and likes to help a lot, especially when we have company over; we needed more prep space for each of us to stand. Which led us to the following:

The fridge and pantry will likely be reversed from what's shown in this picture, and I'm still not sure we will have the island countertop hang into the dining room... we might make the cabinet bigger and get rid of the overhang? I think it's a little weird to have seating for two on one side and just one on the end? TBD. So many decisions yet to happen. Here's to hoping it all works out...