There are some petroleum based cleaners that sometimes have to be used to clean grease and oil. It would not be advised to use these in the washing machine or dryer. But that's one reason there's usually a big sink in a laundry room. Also, mixing some of these chemicals can be nasty (normally you wouldn't, but mistakes can happen). I'm not really thinking of a specific scenario, but rather, being exceptionally cautious. As for the upside down issue, consumer grade panels do seem to have always a horizontal main breaker. I guess that's because the main breaker is factory installed, so it's horizontal so it can still be inverted and be OK. Personally I'd rather use MLO panels and a separate main box. But that can get expensive. If hanging a painting over a panel is a violation, then I suppose maybe closing a wooden door over a panel is, too. I don't know what the point is other than making sure it's easy to find. A painting is easy enough to remove; certainly nothing permanent should ever block access. But the tendency is nothing at all should block access. Well, a door would block access even if it is a door to a utility room. Of course, if you are looking for a panel, you might expect it to be in some room, and search all the rooms (and garage, and where the wires come in). I can just close off that hallway and make it be the utility room. That hall in a few of my tenative plans has no important use besides utility access. At least it would have 2 paths of egress. I'm designing the floor layouts for 3 panels, some with all 3 at the entrance, and some with 2 of them placed elsewhere as subpanels. Telecom, security, and lighting controllers, would most likely be with the panels.

Last week, the electrician who works for the general contractor came out and said we can move the panel to the location that is 10 feet away. We'll need junction boxes in the attic and in the basement crawl space. We have not signed a contract yet with the general contractor, and we also have a handy man who is a licensed electrician, does HVAC and plumbing etc. He is wonderful. He knows the code because he works for a large institution. He says there is nothing we would be doing in our kitchen that even needs a permit UNLESS we decide to move the electric panel. The ONLY reason we would move the electric panel would be to meet code and get the inspector's approval. Handyman says all the structural work is done, that installing cabinets, countertops, under cabinet lighting, there is nothing to inspect. That we would be throwing money away to pull permits to do this work. We are not going to even move any vents or anything. The electric in the kitchen is already up to code. Handyman has offered to do the installations for us. It would be so much more reasonably priced - OTOH, we'd be without a kitchen a lot longer because he works on the weekends. Has a regular job during the week. So I guess the general contractor wants to pull permits to cover himself? He is also going to ask us to sign a contract with allowances, which I think would be foolish on our part. Does anyone have advice about the advisability of pulling or not pulling permits, or should I post this on a different forum?

If it were me, I'd install a lock on the breaker box and call it good. If you want to do a little more, install a picture to hide the box. Further, unless this child is incredibly young and doesn't understand consequences, you should be also able to explain that he should not mess around with this. If there are no open breaker slots in the panel, I don't see how a kid could do anything other than flip a breaker, unless he's really good with a screwdriver. And if that's the case, you've got a whole lot of other things to worry about. The idea of re-wiring a house and moving the panel, meter, and mast because there is a breaker panel in a kid's room is, to me, incredible overkill. With the money you would spend on this, you could probably build an additional bedroom for the kid instead.

@Buehl Thanks for your thoughts . We had this property insepcted and the inspector made no comment about the placement of this sub-panel. Only when I brought this issue up on Houzz, did I think anything about the electrical panel. The plan was to simply keep everything in the same place but update the flooring and cabinets. Now, I am in a quandry because of the electrical panel. The reason I asked about permitting requirements for moving the panel was due to a comment made by one electrician about it not being necessary for what he viewed small adjustment . I did not believe it, but I thought I should ask. Others don't appear to have a problem with keeping inside a large 50" blind corner pantry space. One referred to it as a utility room closet. We will look at the sofit to see if can be removed or minimized. Since the sofit is used for stove venting, one possibility is to simply remove and replace with re-circulating microwave . Finally, to answer your question about the floor plan of the townhouse, it is 16 feet wide and probably 30 feet long . The dining room is across from the kitchen and it opens up into living room. I have attached an example of a similar floor plan so you can understand the layout. Thanks for your thoughts and comments.