Vegan Eggs I take yellow Mung beans prob 1 to 1/2 cup soak overnight Then rinse till water is clear. Drain then Receipe calls for non dairy milk but I just use filtered water and to 2 tsp of Garlic powder, onion powder,or less turmeric and paprika 3 TBS nutritional Yeast Blend all till nice kind of like thick cake batter I bo ught a handheld blender. Great I make soak ,blenderize and store all in the same glass bow.l I store glass bowl in Fridge with a lid and eat every other day with quinoa I make up ahead of time too. So delicious. I pour enough in my cast iron skillet like a "pancake. before I eat I sprinkle "curry powder" on top. YUM YUM the other day I added a prev baked slice into chunks potato to.. I also grab a handfull of either Romaine. or leaf lettuce while eating all. I keep my glass of water near by because it can sometimes be a bit dry. Also cooked rice is good too heated up in skillet after the Vegan egg is a bit firm or little crispy or browned. Just eggs makes it already but its expensive hard to find and I dont want the added preservatives and Plastic bottle, who knows what else. My fav breakfast... next dy I might eat oatmeal made up ahead of time in sep bowls and add quinia tthat I prev made togher with cinamon and if want sweetness add a little fruit preerves to concotion before eating.. just my 2 cents worth happy veganism I imabine you could sub yellow spit peas or any other beans.. Yrllow just makes iy look more like scrambled eggs. Nutrional yeast is getting harder to find nd more expensive too lately... So wish I bought even more last time I bought it in "bulk" from Health Food store back in Big city... I havent tried the tofu eggs yet prob just as good wityh the "spices"

Thank you all so much for your ideas! I think you managed to pin down just about every possibility. I've been taking the tape measure all over that area, and I think perhaps the 20 pounds of potatoes comment was right. Unfortunately, moving into the dining room doesn't really help, because it's the same length as the nook. I like the suggestion from @littlebug zone 5 Missouri to take out the peninsula, but because of the bump-out bay (2') and then the cabinets in the kitchen (2'), it wouldn't be wide enough for a table to fit lengthwise. I really like @grioux's suggestion to close off both the entrance door and outside door to the laundry room and the design by @laura_04 to put the W/D there with bifold doors and push back the bar area. I think this is my favorite idea...but I measured and the space just isn't there, unfortunately, with the exterior walls. That laundry wall is just barely 6 feet, with not even 3 feet of hallway, and only another 30 inches from the bar area, plus only 30 inches of depth from the laundry room. So the new spot for the table would measure roughly 11 feet wide by 10 feet deep. So that wouldn't be worth it, bummer. For the same reason, @Design Girl's good suggestion to move the laundry to the bar area wouldn't work because that wall is only 6' wide, so the table wouldn't fit even with the laundry room totally gone. I have to face facts and realize there's only two ways to expand that space: #1. Use a design like @laura_04's PLUS bump out the back of the house by 5 feet in both the bay area AND the laundry room, making the space both longer and wider and allowing some extra laundry functionality on that new wall. But as many people said, this just isn't an efficient use of money. It would cost a lot and be sort of weird if we ever sold the house, and we'd never get that money back compared to, say, updating the 1984-era kitchen. #2. Completely eliminate the pantry, laundry, and bar area. With all 3 gone, there would be enough room for the table lengthwise and to move traffic around it. But that's crazy too, because all that costly demo yields a space for the table about 14' lengthwise, which is only a foot of gain. Plus the cost of putting the pantry and laundry elsewhere. I ran all this by my DH and his solution: we can spin this out another year or two by moving my preschooler to the bench with the other 3 littlest kids. After that, we can turn the adjoining living room into a dining area, and since it's 25x13 we can put the leaf in and have the table be 9' long. Right now it's a library with a piano and fireplace and couches that my DH and I use to get away from the TV/kids. But 2 small club chairs next to the fire could work for that too. Leave it to a man to find a free solution, lol. (Kidding!) Here's my sketch, and thank you all for your help.

bbstx ~ . I grew up in a house with a planter box. Mom tried and tried to grow things in it to no avail. She finally gave up and put in fakes. ~ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I've been seeing where people are adding grow lights over those planters As an aside, I've have a large schefflera aka umbrella tree plant my parents were given as a 50th wedding anniversary gift 25yrs ago. It summers outside, but is a PITA finding a spot to overwinter as it's so big. I tried a new spot Last fall, I bought a 9watt LED growlight bulb and used it in a cheap clip-on utility fixture w/reflector. which I clipped/attached to a beam in my basement shining on the plant. A timer kept the light on 14hrs evenings/overnight . The plant wasn't near a window Not only did the plant survive it's growing new leaves. It also kept a Rosemary plant alive as well

Closing up that wall completely would give you a wall to put your couch on, so you would be facing tv and fireplace without looking sideways at it. You can always then put a chair, and a small table where the couch is now.