I have a 27"- 28"ish wide closet for our Bosch (it's 23.5"). It was as wide as we could go. My only recommendation is that you confirm where the plug is on the stack unit you get before you do any electrical. Fiance wanted the plug low and now the cord is too short to plug in and getting the unit into place is really hard. You may want to give yourself a bit more room than we did. It will save you a lot of hassle. Many of the units by Bosch and Miele are only 24" to 26" wide, you would have to be more concerned about depth and door swing on a front loader. Even those fairly cheap stack able Thin Twins by Whirlpool/Kenmore/Maytag (whatever) are often 24" to 27" wide but then vary on depth. They are frequently "full size" ore close to it. I just caution you against making the same mistake we did with electrical. We did not make the mistake with plumbing though. Make sure you put your hookups in a accessible place. We already needed to turn our water off when one of the hoses got knocked off when we put the unit it place (the Bosch tech did it even). We were sure glad that those hook ups were on the side instead of the back. Much easier in a tight spot. It was worth the cost to move that small amount of plumbing. Good Luck!

I can understand you wanting to expand your eating area and I don't think it would be odd to walk into the eating area. Alot of homes have a backdoor or garage door that opens up into the kitchen/eating area. What I would be concerned about is losing your laundry room. Are you planning on living here long term - ie forever? If not, then potentially you could affect your resale value and make your home harder to sell. But, if you have a closet area that would work well for a "laundry area", it's doable. Do you have a basement? Could you put the laundry in the basement? Also keep in mind that full size stackables will take up alot of room - they're over 27" deep. Compact stackables don't hold alot of laundry, so if you have a large family you might be sorry with the extra loads you'll have to do.

27" does that include the vent? If so it will eliminate most models the compact electrolux is 33.5"hx24"wx24"d and requires 0" clearance but that extra 1.5" would make it easier to get in and out. I have the washer and really like it. I have the GE compact vented dryer. I almost bought the electrolux dryer but it was not available so I went with GE. The Electrolux dryer is a new type of dryer so I would read up on how they work. People who have them seem to like them.

In this instance, I might recommend our Speed Queen unitized if Miele is out of budget. While not without minor annoyances, it handles all but king comforters with ease, and is built like a tank. It has a shallow footprint at 28” so will look more sleek than most inside a closet. It will, however, be 27” wide and I think the Miele LiGi is 24”? enduring, correct me if I’m wrong.