Ok, then "crazy for crazy".

Can't you swtich the dining and the living rooms, so you'd have the dining room right next to your new open kitchen?

IME, when we have a party, my guests spend more time at the dining table than anywhere else in the house, so the living room does not have to be all that large.

I don't see a family room on the pix. Are you using the LR as a family room? To me, that would be a good reason to have it where the dining room is now, so I don't have to tidy like a maniac every time I hear the door bell. LOL

Our LR and DR are in one open area, with the DR "defined" by some architectural elements like coulmns, but no walls between them. Is your LR is large enough to put the dining table closer to the kitchen and keep the sofa where it is?
Do you need a TV in the LR for your visitors?

If not, I'd switch the LR and the DR completely and buy a smaller sofa and couple of nice chairs for the "new LR", so that the L-shaped sofa and the TV stand can all go to the family room.

Just my 2 cents...

By "new LR" I meant the new combined living/dining room

I would start by determining exactly what walls are load bearing to see which walls can simply be removed and which walls would require some sort of structural replacement (such as a beam). Then I would find out what options you might have in terms of rerouting plumbing, electrical, ventilation, etc. I don't know much about moving these things on a slab, but certainly a knowledge of the approximate costs would be helpful for you to determine if it's possible within your budget.

That said, my initial reaction to your home layout is that the utility/laundry room is taking up a lot of valuable central space in the home. My next reaction is that your home has no hallways from the front to the back of the house, so your kitchen and office appear to be the only access points and thus major walkways. Additionally, it appears the main living space (living room) is at the back of the house, while the main room by the front entrance is a breakfast nook that appears to be almost as large as your current kitchen.

Do you use both the breakfast nook and the dining room? Could one be eliminated or replaced with something like a breakfast bar?

Personally I would definitely look at recapturing some of the space in the utility/laundry room. Consider walling off a small closet for the utilities and maybe a stacked washer and dryer. Perhaps you could have a combined laundry room and pantry. Or perhaps moving the kitchen into a different space entirely might allow for a laundry room and a hallway.

Next I would seriously reconsider the overall layout of the house including location of some of the primary rooms. For example, you could eliminate the breakfast nook, move the living room to the front room, and capture the living room space for a large kitchen. Alternatively, you could put the living room where the dining room is, put the dining room where the breakfast nook is and again use the living room space for the kitchen. I do think making the walkway between the front and back of the house outside of the kitchen work area is important and it would be difficult to do by simply remodeling the existing kitchen space.

I see several options, short of relocating all your utilites to some corner which Im sure would be way too costly....lose your breakfast room, bringing the kitchen forward into that space with more cabinets etc,and just having a breakfast bar and on the other side of the kitchen flip flopping LR/DR like eleena suggested. Or, scoot kitchen down into existing LR some, move DR table into the corner where the couch is...take down the wall between LR/DR and make it a large, open space.
OR, do a combo of the above in conjunction with moving the one utility that looks like it's on the other side of your stove and put it between your W/D (all utilities would be in a line next to each other)..then move the wall over as far as you can with still enough room to do laundry and service utilities. Would be interesting to see what some of the real designers (or talented amateurs) on here would come up with!

I'd try to morph office/den together into one space,using creative furniture to allow dual functions. I'd also allow for one main dining area to save space so a nice open living/dining/kitchen can be the theme for your redesign.Too much chopped up and wasted space currently.

Thanks so much to all of you! @pricklypearcactus: You're exactly right, I do have to get a professional in here to tell me what is reasonable. The house layout is bizarre in part because it was expanded twice by the previous owners - bumped up once from a small Cape or tract house to one with a full second floor, and then pushed back and out, possibly overtaking a porch. The latter reno was meant to add a first floor master bedroom after the homeowner remarried; that's the reason why we have a full bath off the dining room (complete in 80s style, maroon and grey tile plus a jacuzzi tub!) We're here for the long run not because it's the most amazing house ever, but because the schools and commute are great, and the fact that it is on a busy road means we would probably pay double to get the same size house in even marginally better condition in this neighborhood.

@eelena - we don't have a family room in addition to a living room; we are just outside DC and (some) houses are smaller here. The living room is where we spend ALL our time, and I probably can't or wouldn't change that. The room gets tons of light and has a picture window that overlooks the backyard where the kids play.

@herbflavor: The den and office (which were probably small bedrooms in the original house) function well as is; the wall between them had been removed previously and we added French doors just so that we could use the den for closed toy storage and a pullout couch for guests.

However, as you all point out it's insane to have 2 dining areas in a house of only 1900sq ft. I've lured the kids into this front "breakfast" room to eat most meals, but it's not the best defined space. The actual dining room is a wasteland of lego creations - it NEVER gets used. If I could transplant the kitchen there, and tear down the wall between it and the living room, that would be perfect... but our main plumbing stack is in the center of the house, and I can't imagine that there is any way to remedy that easily.

My realistic options - at most - would either be to steal some space from the util/laundry area as above, or as suggested by Joaniepoanie, whose beautiful appropriately wide galley kitchen I've been admiring here, somehow push the kitchen forward to the breakfast room. I haven't gone there yet just because it would literally mean the kitchen is at the front door... and as much as I hate my galley, I like that I can talk to my kids in either the living room or the front room while I'm cooking. Well, back to the drawing board (courtesy of Ikea software). If anyone knows any great kitchen people in the DC area who might have good ideas for such an awkward space, I'd love any recommendations.

It might be cool if you could shift everything from the laundry room over left. Put the bathroom where the office is, the laundry where the bath is, and the kitchen over into the old laundry. I hope that all made sense. There wouldnt' be all that much plumbing overall. OH... put up a wall in the dining room to create a new office and whatever else you need. You perserve your living room, breakfast room and den area.

If all the utilities were moved to line the left wall of the laundry room, you could create a long 'closet' of utilities with nice doors on front. The laundry room could become a hallway with openings to the living room and the breakfast room. If the wall shared with the kitchen was extended through the breakfast room to the front door, you could create an entryway at the front of the house while creating an eat-in area in the kitchen (or more storage and counters) on the other side of wall in the expanded kitchen.

Smaloney....thank you for the kind words about my galley...are you in MD or Va.? I'm in Mont Co and can suggest a kitchen place....

@Joaniepoanie - thanks, I would love that. We're in MoCo, on the gentrifying side of CC MD. Last year I got quotes from contractors that work with HD and another one that is referred by Ikea College Park. Both were less than convincing (the bid from the HD guys had included items for someone else's kitchen.) We're sort of clueless about how to go about this whole process.

Today I'll write out a couple things that are so big they don't require any preparation. smaloney, I'll re-read your post and the responses on another day. Here, I'll respond as if you had only posted the floorplan image and nothing else, and as if I were a first responder.

One point is that recessing a fridge into the corner of the laundry room will give you a vast expanse of open counter space, and a lot more elbow room - all on the window side. Another point is that a straight run galley is an efficient use of space. So, be happy about moving the fridge to the laundry room side. It keeps the straight galley. There is no doubt in my mind that you may remove the tiny "return" walls that block the ends of that one counter next to the window. Doing so opens up the kitchen enormously. Additionally, I'll point out that you could keep the cooktop, sink and fridge all on one side. Finally, I'll point out that you could first move the fridge and get one huge open counter on the window side as step #1 and then later (in another decade) renovate the work side of the kitchen as step #2. Anyone might easily point out that it's not perfectly ideal to have all three big things on one side in a straight run, but that point of view is easy to rebut also. Web search Snaidero kitchens in Europe: they do a lot of "upmarket" kitchens that put fridge sink and cooktop in one straight run of counter. Remember that you must accept tradeoffs, so pick your tradeoffs now.

Hth

I'll add that your floor plan is not to scale.

Please draw one to scale.

Would it be possible to take down the wall between the laundry room and kitchen then use that whole space? I've seen kitchens with a washer and dryer cleverly hidden in cabinets or behind closet type doors.

Smaloney....I think what others said about creating a hallway makes sense...then you're not walking through one room to get to another room....so...you might want to get an architect involved to get a solid plan with drawings...this would be $ well spent and you could do the changes slowly as you can afford them. If you are just interested in focusing on the kitchen instead of the entire floor, I liked Kitchen Planners in Rockville near White Flint. Our neighbors used them and were happy with them. We ultimately did not use them(they were a close second!) They were a little higher than we had planned, also, they weren't all-inclusive...you had to go elsewhere for flooring, etc...but I think you could, again, just have them do a plan and use your own contractor. The company we used was Home Breakthrough in Frederick. We were very happy with their work and I would use them again. I found them on Angie's List and interviewed about 6 other contractors from AL. They were all fine but HB stood out--they showed up on time, were prepared, went the extra mile more than once. We kept the same footprint, so I'm not sure how they would be in terms of coming up with a new floor plan. Hope this helps!