I see your post is from a while back - did you purchase the piece or are you still debating?

I think a comfortable distance between the island and the counter is around 42". It seems that you have only 30" between your cook top and the counter. I might be a little too tight. The wall between the entrance and the kitchen could be 4' long instead of 6', you would then be able to move the island a foot which would give you more room between the cook top and the island. Could you switch the location of the toilet and vanity in your dad's bathroom so your enter facing a vanity instead of a toilet which is a lot nicer.

I drew a very crude sketch, definitely not to scale, of how I see your room working. Essentially, you could treat it as two separate seating areas, which makes for easier and more intimate conversation when entertaining a lot of people. Trying to have everyone facing each other in a large room just won't work, and makes for very awkward conversation. I find that at parties and get-togethers, people go off in smaller groups of two to four, then mingle and move around the room to chat with different people. So, to that end, you could establish two conversation areas that will each seat six to eight people. You can also have some of your dining room chairs upholstered and comfortable enough to carry into the entertaining area to create extra seating here. In the far corner by the window, I placed a chair and ottoman, so that is seating for two, and before the get-together, you could place a couple of your dining room chairs over there to create a other small grouping for four. You should still have enough open area in this large space for some people to stand and move around, which a lot of people prefer to do at a party (I know I do!). The bright yellow sofa is a modern take on the old ?English sofa, which in think is the perfect foil to your ultra-modern sectional. The yellow is a bright, cheery - and unexpected - color, but works nicely with white and just says "fun" to me! The small blue tub chair(s) would be placed at an angle facing your white sectional, so you would establish a color,scheme of white, blue and yellow. To this, you could add black, Gray and darker blues through your accessories and artwork. The little blue ceramic drum stool adds a touch of the exotic (and more fun) and is easy to move around as a small side table to set drinks on.

Hi! I'm so glad I came across your floor plan, got pretty excited and ideas started flooding. Firstly, I'm uploading a draft of a floor plan I made as a rough copy (with a pencil and a paper), so kindly excuse the imperfections. (please refer to the picture I've posted along with this.) Secondly, as you mentioned, you would want to include the balcony in your seating area, I recommend you to break the wall and instead use French windows to allow the light within and it'll also feel very open. Then, about the kitchen, as you said you wouldn't want a large dining area, you could take that space for an open kitchen, where the counter also serves as the dining space from the outside. And since, the kitchen would be made towards the direction of the arrow pointed (refer to the pic) we get ample space to make a Pooja room. And to give an enclosed feel to the living room I chose and L shaped couch for it. I would suggest you to go for a mounted TV on a rotatable stand on the wall so that its accessible from anywhere across the room. Having done that, we are still left with some space (marked with a circle in the pic ) which could be used to put some more seats for the living room OR... (THIS IS MY FAV PART IN A HOUSE!) you could also use that space to mount a swing from the top. There were few more probabilities to do this house, but I genuinely found this one to be the best, coz I'm a huge fan of open spaces, and it's a good layout a lot of things could be done with it. All the best.