I'd love some help thinking about each solution, but I think what is needed are mockups. 3D ones. I'll be back.

Question not related to the stairs. Is the guest bedroom used as a guest bedroom? If not, might I suggest switching the bathroom with the laundry room so you could have a nice sized laundry/storage space instead of having just a closet? Make the bathroom a powder room?

This is what I'm thinking.

Is this new construction or a renovation?

Thanks for the suggestions, cpartist! I'm not sure which you're calling guest bedroom and which bedroom two. Maybe they are the same?

This is a fairly extensive renovation, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. The purposes of the renovation are:

1 - Create a rental unit in the unfinished basement.
2 - Increase the utility of the main floor.

3 - Expand the main floor with access into the attic to give us some flexible space that can be used for play, guests, book club. That part is a den of sorts, if you will.

This is definitely not our dream home. It is a workhorse. We have two small children, not even in school yet. We also have guests that come from overseas a few times a year, so we need that second bathroom and it has to be a full bath. In my ideal solution, the bathroom would be closer to the front of the house and the dining room and the kitchen would be merged. There are some architectural details that make the splitting of the space difficult (see image in sixth comment). Also, touching the east wall is complicated because the fire code has changed and pretty much whatever we touch has to me made into a 1 hour fire wall. This is because we are three feet to the adjacent property line. I think that if we touch that dining room wall we are inviting extreme complication from the city.

Let me just say that I am not concerned about storage in se. I do want to make sure that we have enough pantry space, but we actually have a lot of storage both in the design and in potential space. I just need the bathroom a lot more than I need an expansive laundry room.

I'm not sure if you noticed this, but in the sixth comment I posted a complete floor plan of that main floor. Happy to post more if that is useful.

Ah, it's as I thought. We can't get it to work. If we could do a smaller refrigerator, it would, but we need those 18 cubic feet.

Could the second bedroom be added instead to the attic space?

Also how much will all these changes compromise the overall feel of the old house? Or has it been compromised already by previous owners?

I'm a firm believer of keeping older details that make an old house desirable.

Well, the second bedroom is already extant. The upstairs definitely has a guest bedroom functionality planned for it, although we don't need that all the time. I think that in terms of where the major players are, we just need to say good-enough-for-government-work and make the best of the situation. Many of the solutions are not ideal. For example, I wouldn't really want a laundry closet in a hallway unless it was a walk-in. But I think this will work. I don't actually hang out in front of the machines navel gazing much. I would want a bigger bathroom, especially if I planned to grow old in the place. But I don't. As a matter of fact I hope to rent out both units and go live in another place.

My stated priorities are safety-functionality-cost-aesthetics. So I filter any potential change through those. I really like the idea of the fridge on the short arm of the L, but I'd have to get a smaller fridge, so that hangs up on the functionality branch. If you can see an elegant solution, please tell me if I'm missing it.

We have thought of this as a huge constraints satisfaction problem and applied that metric to it. We got the input of a kitchen designer (whose demeanor and approach I adore, by the way). I'm simply not the kind of person who will stop inquiring until the kitchen is installed. That's the sad reality ;-)

I'm just trying to think it through as thoroughly as possible and get as much input as possible. The feel of the house will be good, I think. It has an amazing yard with raised beds and lots of work that I hope to do with my kids. We're opening up the southern end of the house to let in all that excellent light and we've even moved the corridor to keep it flowing down the house. We'll keep the basic trim/molding profile consistent, and repurpose the 5 panel doors. Those are very charming details, although they are not really congruent with our personal aesthetics. The worst the old owners did was install aluminum windows, and we plan to remedy that. The house was never intended for family use, I don't think. Evidence? A jack and jill shower-bath and vanity with the single toilet stuck in the very back of the house. A completely unfinished basement. Tiny closets. A horrific kitchen. And I do mean horrific. When I post before and after pictures you'll see why I'm so happy with my tiny little solution. I think the house was likely a boarding house for single workers who came to work at the Oakland port. We are beautifying it beyond belief. But we're not trying to turn it into our dream home. That just doesn't make financial sense.

This bit about seating in the kitchen is just a nagging detail. If we can just have a tiny spot for two that doesn't face the wall! Soon the kids won't need it, but anyone hanging out will. Should I give up on this? Would it be better to just devote the space that I had reserved for the seating to storage? That seems like a LOT of storage, but maybe it isn't.

Thanks for asking, and I'm sorry I made this so long. I do wish I had understood the importance of design when we began this. But people do seem to come to an accord more easily around larger spaces. And we just don't have that. Or possibly we could have, but we didn't bite into the yard at all, and I can't say I regret that.

Would it be possible to change the back door, so that the side that opens is on the right? Then recess the fridge in the high part of the stairs slated for the pantry, and add pull-out pantries as the stairs descend, similar to the last pic posted by chispa. That would give you more space on the long wall, and if you omit the cabinets which turn the corner, and move the range down, you'd have space for a small peninsula for seating. I drew it as 30" deep and 48" long, but it could be a few inches longer. The second seat could also be placed on the short side, and you could use a standard upper on the wall above the peninsula.

It wouldn't be difficult to change the peninsula in the future, to finish the run of base cabinets, for rental or resale.

I drew the pull-outs on the stair wall the depth of a standard base cabinet, but if you can fit it in the budget, you could make them the full depth of the stairs, for extra storage. A MW drawer is included beside the fridge, but if that is not in the budget, you could use a small countertop model, or if there is enough upper space available, it could be located on an upper shelf.

The DW is between the sink and range, which is not ideal, but the possibility of having convenient seating might make that an acceptable trade-off, and this plan gives you more prep space where you need it.

The house was never intended for family use, I don't think. Evidence? A jack and jill shower-bath and vanity with the single toilet stuck in the very back of the house. A completely unfinished basement. Tiny closets. A horrific kitchen. And I do mean horrific.

Actually it probably was a family home as that's how houses were built at the beginning of the last century. There was one bathroom stuck out of the way for the whole family to use. Basements were never finished and closets were tiny because people didn't have as many clothes and they also used wardrobes. Kitchen's were bare bones.

Take a bit of time to look up what kitchens used to look like. You'd be surprised and thankful you didn't live 100 years ago. :)

It could definitely work where the pull out pantry is. The advantage of it where Mama showed is it's closer to the dining room, but being on the opposite wall makes it ok even if you switch the pantry and fridge. I like Mama's last plan. It gives you what you want and still keeps the main work zone separated a bit so no one is walking into it. Well done Mama.

And Marc that is an excellent idea too for a total gut.

I think I like Mama's idea the best for what you need.

This is a rough drawing of what I had in mind (using chispa's pic from above). Will the fridge fit, if it's facing into the kitchen, or did you mean that it has to face the laundry alcove?

In the illustration of the stairs, in your OP, is the pink area where the pantry will go, or is that where the bedroom door is located? If there is not enough space for the fridge to fit, can the bedroom door be moved down into the closet area, leaving more space for the fridge as the stairs rise? Then could niches in the stair wall make up for some of the lost closet space?

As I skimmed this, my first thought was to put the frig under the stairs where the pantry was planned. I now see you are considering this, so I hope you can make that work. That will use the deep space under the stairs where a pantry would need a deep pullout of some sort. We put our frig under the stairs and I love it for maximizing the deep space, so the frig doesn’t stick out past counters.

You are getting great help here, fun to look at plans!

edited to fix typo

Our stairway is u shaped forming a sort of cubby below the landing and the frig is tucked into that cubby . It would have made a nice pantry but I decided to tuck the frig there to utilize the deep space and avoid frig sticking out past my other cabinetry elsewhere in the kitchen. I have a smaller pantry under the stairs around the corner from the frig. Under the stairs spaces are opportunities, there are so many ingenious ways to utilize them.

So it’s a bit different from yours which looks like a straight run of stairs. I was thinking a frig would fit under the tall portion of your stairs. I’ll look more closely at your plans to understand if my suggestion makes sense, I’m no expert at that for sure!

It looks like a nice wide approach. I'm glad that you like it! Why do people say not to do it?

marcaevans, your corner cooktop looks great. I hope you're planning to post a reveal when your kitchen is finished.

There are circumstances where corner ranges, and corner sinks, work well, but they waste space, so aren't the best option for a small kitchen. Tosca, you could do a corner range, but I don't think it would gain you any countertop, and if you use that option, I'd suggest leaving the other elements on that wall as I've drawn the plan.

That still leaves the issue of the fridge. If you can't position it under the stairs so that it faces the kitchen, I agree that it will be awkward to turn the corner to access it, but---there have been kitchen plans posted, which have had the fridge in the pantry, or mudroom. I wouldn't recommend that position unless the fridge doors can open left-to-right. You might pretend to cook a meal, or make a snack, with the fridge turned 90° under the stairs, and see if it feels awkward to you. Don't forget that you will need some space on the right side, to fully open the doors.

If it doesn't work out that the fridge can go under the stairs, you have the option of reclaiming some of that space for the bedroom. This is an in-progess pic of storage in a bedroom, recessed into space under the sloped roof, but it would be the same under the slope of the stairs. The tall, narrow shelves in the background are recessed into space between the studs.

The shelves below were built into stud space. On the wall to the right, some are more shallow than others, due to the closet space and old roof joist, on the other side of the wall.

All the pics I posted of recessed storage, above, are in a bedroom. It was a guest room, now my DD and SIL have settled in to stay.

Well, the under stairs plan is dead in the water. That wall is load bearing, and we would have to frame the opening with a beam. I don't think we are going to go that far.

I am also realizing that we don't have enough counter space or prep space. I'm considering changing that double patio door to a tall window and single patio door. Then I can wrap around that corner and get space for countertop appliances that desperately need to be near the sink.