I was asking about moving the door because you could then have something like this: The flow is: - food enters via garage door, goes to storage in refrigerator (eggplant) which I drew 48" wide, and perhaps a pantry cabinet next to refrigerator (not drawn). - retrieved food goes to prep zone where you have sink (blue) and optional dishwasher (green) - prepped food moves down counter to cook zone where you have a 40" range (red) - cooked food goes to eat zone where I've drawn a 48" x 50" table (brown) that has 44" clearance on all sides except to family room opening where it is only 31". If you have some flexibility w/ the family room wall, you can fit a larger rectangular table which would be a lot better, as you need to seat 5 every day and presumably would like to be able to fit more (8?) to accommodate company. You have no other dining area I think? - dirty dishes go to wash zone with sink (blue) and dishwasher (green). This zone could be combined w/ prep zone of course. Removing this zone would allow you to fit a larger dining table in the existing room boundaries. But, consider, it is s-o-o-o nice to have separate prep and wash zones. No more dirty mugs dumped in the sink where you are trying to wash lettuce. There are a couple other flows too. - Food and drink can also go direct from food zone to eat zone, without passing through the other zones. It can also detour to a microwave which I'd put somewhere in wash zones. - Coffee, tea, etc can be prepared on the counters around the wash zone (using microwave or electric kettle) without interfering w/ the other zones. I would find room for a microwave somewhere in this zone. You lose the pantry in the laundry room/garage entry, but you can use that spot for hanging coats, muddy shoes, whatever. Well, I guess you could still fit a small pantry there if you really wanted to. Bummer about the two blind corners, but it's late and my brain has run out of ideas.

Buehl: What do you mean when you say that a fridge next to the mudroom entryway would create a "black hole" in that corner? Assuming the fridge is counter-depth, wouldn't the window illuminate that corner? Or does "black hole" refer to something other than light? I'm asking because in my current kitchen design, which looks a lot like the one you've drawn up for Firstyeargardener (great work, btw!), I have the fridge basically where you've put the message center above, except that my fridge would be roughly 70" from the window wall, instead of 42". What problems do you foresee with that? Hope I'm not hijacking the thread here (I'm kinda new at this), but maybe this question might be relevant to the OP too? Firstyeargardener: At the risk of repeating myself, I wonder if the half-wall solution I mentioned in my previous post would make you feel better about closing up the opening to your dining room a bit in order to accommodate the banquette. That's what we have now: instead of a 6' wide opening, we have a 3.5' wide half-wall (42" tall) + a 2.5' regular doorway (minus door). From the waist up it's 6' wide of light and air from the next room, but from the waist down it's a cozy corner for the banquette/eating area that keeps it from feeling as though you're floating in the middle of the passageway. It's one of the few things in our current kitchen that works. One of the few things we're going to keep in the remodel.

Thanks for the responses. Yes, they must be xenon and they do get very hot. I had the chocolate on a protein bar melt inside the cabinet. We leave them on all the time so it was definitely a poor choice. They were installed about 10 years ago. I'm off to the lighting store to try and figure out the best way to fix this. We've hired a company who just does this and they removed all the doors Friday and came today to start prepping the inside. I've asked them for a couple large size samples. They do use special paint and I am assuming the colors are their version of comparable colors.The one that seems to go best is the Chantilly lace and I have read that it kind pick up certain undertones and I just can't see it in the small sample, even sea salt doesn't seem to show the undertones I know exist.

Rug a bit complicated, I'd think dining set should be more the same [finishes of, etc..] e.g., maybe the table could stay dark but all else the linen/ beige upholstery. Or lighten everything and let a color from rug 'show out'... https://www.houzz.com/products/casa-faded-traditional-ivory-and-blue-rug-710x1010-prvw-vr~35555599