You could move the door into the addition into the living room. This would allow you to continue your cabinetry all the way over in front of the stairs. I personally would remove the closet door and just add that space to the bedroom, for a desk or increase the size of that closet.

Your dishwasher should be right of the sink, not between the range and fridge.

Your refrigerator should move to the wall w/ micro and shelving and add pantry storage to fill the space.

With that you can have more open counter top space near your range.

According to you dimensions there isn't enough space between the sink wall cabinets and the start of the stairs. Personally i would remove the china hutch and add that space into the kitchen cabinets.

In an ideal world the stairs to basement would be rebuilt so that you access them from the "closet" side near our entry. You would then have about 5' in front of the old back door.

With that info i would try for this.

Move the backdoor over into the closet area to make the space feel larger.

Move refrigerator and sink/DW onto basement stair wall as plumbing is easier to move than anything else.

Create a galley style kitchen. If you want to get rid of the china cabinet you could open up the last 4' of the range wall and create a small breakfast bar.

If the basement stair can be removed, it seems logical to have a straight path through to the addition. With the stair gone, you could close that awkward corner and do a u-shaped kitchen (basically a galley with a closed end). The main appliance wall could be on the side where the micro-cart is now, giving you the option of opening up the kitchen to the living room.

The entrance into the bedroom looks awfully tight. In the scenario above, you could move the entrance to the bedroom to that kitchen closet and put the closet where the bedroom entrance is now. That would make the bedroom much nicer.

Where is your parking area? Which door is your primary entrance?

That addition is gigantic relative to the original house. Is it just 2 bedrooms?

This type of remodel is in Benjesbride's wheelhouse, however, I have an idea. I don't have a drawing, but what if you extended the kitchen towards the garage, allowing direct access from the garage into the house. Then this clears a path from the front door to the back. I didn't see where you stated what your goal for the addition is...additional living space or more bedrooms?

zmith - that is a sweet compliment to me. I'm still mulling this layout over. It's certainly a challenging one!

If the addition has a set of stairs down to the basement would you be willing to get rid of the original stairs? Adding all of that space to your kitchen?

Lol @ "the pine palace!" That was very popular back in the day. :) Not so much now.

I completely misunderstood the addition. I thought it was proposed, but now I realize it was built a long time ago, with no real thought put into the flow of this house.

Lauren, above is an illustration of my idea about extending the kitchen left, towards the garage. It could be an 8' wide galley with a wall between the living room or it could be open with an island. I don't think my drawing matches the scale of your layout. I also wiped out the basement stairs to give your a more open access to the back addition.

Another idea I had would be to wipe out the hall bathroom and move the front door and foyer thus creating a center hall and sight line into the addition. I didn't do a mock-up of that concept, tho.

Benjesbride, on the kitchen forum you and Jillius are/were the queens of reorganizing a space. I was always amazed at what you two could do.

Knowing that this is DIY i am trying to leave the major plumbing/electrical in place.

Leave the china hutch built in in corner, as there is likely structure in that corner of the wall. Leave sink in place, move DW to right. Center range between china hutch and exterior wall.

Remove door from closet to master bath, have access be from the room. Move door to master bath where vanity is currently at, run a larger vanity across wall w/ closet.

O=Opening R= Range S= Sink D= Dishwasher RF= Refrigerator V=Vanity

Pending actual dimensions you may be able to fit a small island in the kitchen, or a mobile island that can be stored next to you built in china hutch @ the opening to kitchen.

You guys are awesome! I tried to incorporate everyone suggestions (because they were all great!) and this is what I've come up with. Since I'm not sure which of the kitchen walls are load bearing, both designs incorporate the possible need for a beam to extend down, which is fine.

LAYOUT A: large pass-through looking into the living room and the doorway to the kitchen has been expanded. Basement stairs and corner coat closet have also been removed and the doorway into the addition has been widened. Hoping the outer facing cabinets around the beam can act as a place to put keys and bags, otherwise, we have no entryway.

LAYOUT B: The same as layout A but with a smaller pass-through that begins after the stove. My concern for this is despite the pass-through being just shy of 5ft wide, based on this mock-up, it doesn't look like it does much to open the room. Would this be a waste of money to even bother with?

Here's a loose floorplan of both A and B. What are your thoughts? The fridge jams me up a bit because it seemed too bulky near the kitchen entrance and moving it towards the addition opening made it too crammed again.

Something you can do because it is a closet behind the fridge is recess it into the closet. Have the bedroom closet absorb the coat closet in the kitchen. Then recess the fridge into the bedroom so that from the kitchen it is counter top depth.

Have you ever thought about turning the addition into the master bedroom?

On a bigger budget, a long term plan for someone might be to turn the front bedroom and bath into a master suite and splitting the addition into two bedrooms plus a shared bath.

For now, I was thinking you could turn your present master into the kitchen. I don't think I'd remove the original basement stair. 1) If someone ever wants to turn the addition into "a kids wing" they'll want that original stair. 2) With 7' ceilings, wide open space isn't always the best look; our original ceilings were 91".

Hi Lauren, the passage into the addition is overly large and I suggest closing off the door into the Master Bath and putting mudroom type cabinets along that wall. Then open up the kitchen like this with the stove on an island. If you really have 7' ceilings, maybe a downdraft venting stove?

I just reread your initial post and see that you want to reuse your appliances. So I have reworked this with a peninsula instead of an island. It's crazy to try to reuse those cabinets. Go to Ikea and buy some new cabinets! Those cabinets seem like they will be almost impossible to re-use.

Wow, what great advice you're getting, Lauren OM! For free.:) I'm a house flipper who has yet to master any sort of design program. Y'all willing to tell me what you're using to make these great floor plans and elevations?

PS I, too, have seen my share of "pine palaces." But my issues are generally disgusting shag carpet and extremely nasty kitchens and bathrooms.

I like the idea of getting rid of the basement stairs, closet by the addition doorway and the bedroom closet and just moving the kitchen over into that area. I'd put the fridge over there with extra counter space. Keeping the master closet cuts off the flow to the addition which seems to be one of the main issues with the current layout.