All about KITCHENS!

I know this is a recipe thread - and that's why I'm posting this topic here. It doesn't matter what the kitchen is like in a house where no one cooks. It's a VIR (Very Important Room) in a house where cooking is an everyday activity. It sometimes seems to me that designers and developers are of the non-cooking homo sapiens species.

Anyhow, after over 20 years of cooking in an inadequate kitchen, it looks like we *might* be able to move to a cooler climate sometime in the next 12 - 16 months. We're making a list of what our Ideal Home looks like and you'd better bet that the Kitchen is at the top of what's important to me! So I'm asking all you cooks:

1) What do you like least and best about your kitchen?
2) What would you have in your kitchen that you don't have now?
3) What size would it be?
4) What kind of floor would you have?
5) Do you think a kitchen works best if it's open or closed from the rest of the house?

Let's have fun. Use your imagination - and your experience - to come up with some good ideas. Number One on my list is this: There must be a place to sit and work IN the kitchen! (Don't have that now.)