My louvered door--oak. I don't think it looks cheap, but I am biased. The glass door on the left matches another door out of photo (left of the chair)--both connect to the dining room and from there to the balance of house so they're open most of the time but get closed when we want to close off a space. The oak door shown on the right goes to basement and matches nearby sliding doors on front hall closet. Guess which is the door to kitchen closet-pantry in which we operate two dehydrators and in which we store spuds and onions? I lost the argument to put a vent window into the stairwell from inside the closet at top of back wall. This would have improved air passage tremendously. I argued for high-quality doors and won the argument. Mr Oak (DH) is very pleased. These were all special order ones and therefore expensive. There's another door in vicinity--steel fire door to garage which is painted gentle brown to match (haven't wood grained it yet) plus an insulated steel door to front step. (We have a lot of doors--the curse of this part of the house, which was originally designed by a drunken committee of men.) This photo will be deleted pretty soon. I hope baseboards will be installed before end of August. Painting on wall is one of many we rotate into this position--this one is the Minn state bird. (We're into scientific illustration.)

I agree that the up and down of the cabs, esp with the beamed ceiling is busy. Do you have enough drawers? Not sure what I'm looking at in base cabs but it seems some are the standard drawer/door setup and on here it's always suggested to have drawers, drawers and more drawers! Also second Andreak's suggestion about a bigger window over the sink. It's a big kitchen and the window in there seems kinda lonely and small in the rendering, but I'm not so good at floorplan/renderings, fwiw. What if you ran the window down to the countertop and then stretched it up higher, too. Could even work a pretty piece of stained or leaded glass into it, if you like such things.

gthigpen, my husband is totally against the combined pantry and mudroom. He also says he wants to be able to see everything in the pantry all at once, and doesn't like to have stuff behind cabinets. (My MIL's kitchen is somewhat that way, which drives him batty, which maybe is why he is so opposed to it). He wants a fully walk in pantry. I do see how your plan would work well though! I don't think it would bother me at all, but I guess I have to pretend I let him help me make some decisions ;) mama goose, good point about dual doors. I wonder if I can put in swinging saloon style doors and get the best of both worlds? I envision something looking like cabinets still and not the 80s style louvered doors. Ha! Also, we entertain really informally, but I can always pull my coffee stuff into the kitchen if we have "fancy" guests. I do agree the microwave is probably best left in the kitchen. We use ours at least 2-3 times a day but mostly just to reheat foods. mabeldingeldine, I love that space! That's good to hear that you had a utilitarian area in your pantry and it worked for you. I think I might be able to do the same sort of thing. If I do a long enough countertop in the pantry, I can leave my stand mixer there and maybe do some prep in there also. That thing is heavy and not sure where else I would store it. I've seen the pics of the fancy little fold out mixer cabinet stand things, but I just can't see doing something that elaborate with mine (I only use mine once or twice a month, maybe). ally123, I can't see my kids ever actually closing the door if it were a pocket door. I wish though, it would look nicer!

Upper right with the sink is the utility sink (for gardening and garage stuff). The beverage center is the counter area to the right of the dining room table. If I have a pocket door, then I can't have my spices on the back of it. I don't really like pocket doors for doors that are usually closed--and I keep my pantry door closed. However, it is not too late to go that route--we're still finalizing drawings. I'll have to keep thinking about it. A saloon door might be a really good choice, too (although I'm really hung up on the spice rack :-). I don't want a door from the garage into the pantry. The shelving design in there isn't at all planned yet so I haven't asked the architect to do anything with the drawings. I am considering having an area for a kitchen baking cart in the pantry. I'd keep all of my flour, sugar, primary baking pans on it so when I bake I could just wheel out the cart. If I go that route, I'd probably still have shelves above it, though. I also don't store that much food in the pantry--75% of the groceries go in the fridge or the freezer. The pantry will store more cooking and entertaining items than food. cp, the only way into the house from the garage is through the mudroom.