Like Weedyacres, We have pantries on either side of our fridge- (done intentionally that way to avoid having to buy extra panels). If I'd started visiting GW earlier I would definitely have strongly considered cutting into the wall behind to create an opening for the fridge- but this way I do have a few inches to cover up with magnets! I love looking at the wood panel as I walk into/out of my kitchen instead of the side of the fridge. Previous fridge- but you get the idea!

Mama Rachel You make a lot of good points. We have never used TV shows, or big games as a jumping off point for entertaining (kids have, but not us). For those wanting two main TV areas built for entertaining (basement and great room) our plan would not work. I am very pleased to get your suggestion on where to get a good arm swivel for the TV to improve upon the position for viewing. I have posted below a floor plan of the open concept space. As per glare, there are lots of windows in this area, so we will need to buy the best glare free TV we can find. The large window behind the couch is south facing. There are windows located directly across from the proposed TV location (as well as across from the cab on other side of fireplace), but they are over 36 feet away in the dining room (west facing windows). There are also west facing windows in the kitchen that might make the left hand side even more prone to glare. Also if we keep it in its proposed location, we of DS can see it when dishes are washed (yeah). MommyToc, Thanks again for your comments and for thinking through the drawer and shelf depth. I think we are going to increase the depth of the upper part of this built in to 11 inches so we can accommodate books behind the closed doors. We can put a false back on the plate display part as that part does not need 11 inches of depth. Glad you think the plate display will look good too. We are thinking of putting a grove in the shelves for the plates, and then leaning the plates against the back of the shelf. In addition to those blue plates I posted, we also have some brown Hummel plates (we own less of those than blue) but we will display both for some visual variety and put Hummel figurines in between the plates. We are also planning on lighting the plates shelves. There will also be can lights cross lighting the fireplace and possibly uplights near the base of the stone surround. Carol

I built my dream home. Not my fantasy home, but as Jan speaks of, my realistic dream home. What was important to myself and my DH. Not the fantasy. I joke that I always dreamed of sit down dinners in a formal dining room. However my reality is that my entertaining style is buffet and indoor/outdoor entertaining so we built our house to accomodate that. No separate dining room. My dream was a walk in laundry but nowadays anything that has a stain on it gets a spray of Spray and Wash and gets thrown in the machine and then goes into the dryer. No fussing with laundry for us so we have our laundry in our hallway to our bedroom behind closed cabinets. My studio is large but that's because I'm a professional artist. DH's office is smaller because he doesn't need as large a space. Plus my space doubles as a third bedroom with a pull out couch if needed. (In the 3 years we've been here, we needed it a total of 3 nights.) Our guest bedroom has a Murphy bed and doubles as an exercise room. It's right sized and there is no separate bathroom for only the guest bedroom. I have no interest in cleaning a bathroom that will be used once in a blue moon so the guest bedroom and my studio share a hall bathroom. None of my guests have ever complained! And many have come back to visit second and third times. And would be back for more except for Covid. My point being, really think about how you actually live and how you will live once you're retired and build accordingly. Not your fantasy.

It's possible that if you have nothing BEHIND that wall - you COULD rip out the back of the cabinet and eat into the wall studs., etc. In our prior house - we opened a wall and pushed the micro back but then it encroached into a cost closet. It was no big deal because the coat closet the pretty deep and you never noticed it. But you defintiely need more depth than you have there and if you can't build out / forward - there's only one direction left!