What is the budget? Can doors/ windows be moved?

Minus a powder room at your back door, with a horrible off the kitchen locale, and minus a walk in pantry ( many ways to have adequate storage)......, your options are nearly limitless. or at least freed from most constraints. .Show the entire first floor.

You don't want ia PR there, nobody who uses it wants it there, and it is not great for a potential next buyer, should there be one: )

We're aiming for a budget of $20k or less. We considered adding a window (next to the door that leads to the outside/exterior of the house) to get more light into the space, instead of just relying on the glass door. We were told this wasn't too hard to accomplish? We were also thinking about moving the door that leads into the 1/2 bathroom into the kitchen...but this would impact counterspace opportunities within the kitchen. So in other words - doors and windows are on the table...but we know this would increase costs.

Is that a RAV left of the rolling cart? You don't show it on your floor plan. I don't care for the pantry entry from the dining room. Could you move that door next to the basement door? Then, with the pantry wall removed, you could put a prep sink and the fridge in the current pantry. That leaves the other space for your clean up sink, DW, ovens and cooktop. I wouldn't waste all that DR/Kit wall with a breakfast bar counter and pass through. Put a nice buffet or china there.

My first thought, given your current layout, was to move the fridge to the cooktop/oven wall, move the sink to the left wall, and put the range (not a separate cooktop/oven) on the outside wall by the deck.

You could definitely do more if you were willing to move/remove walls and doors, but this would not require any of that and IMO would be a more functional layout. At the very least, replace the cooktop and ovens with a range so that you can have counterspace (even a tiny bit) on both sides of the cooking surface.

Here is an idea for you. Minimal framing and it would open up the kitchen space:

1. tear out the pantry and the internal walls of the powder room and the powder room sink.

2. Frame in a pocket door and solid wall for the powder room, reorienting the door.

3. change up the sink in the powder room for a very minimal thin sink hung on the wall across from the toilet and change the toilet to a round bowl that takes up less space.

4. Frame in a new wide archway to the dining room that is next to the stairwell

5. eliminate the existing door to the dining room

6. counters along the exterior wall with sink under window and cooktop on exterior wall for venting

7. countertop along dining room wall anchored by a double oven

8. refrigerator and pantry along opposite wall from sink - can make pantry depth of standard depth fridge to save on appliance cost - pantry can be doors with shelves all around or cupboards with pull outs.

9. island with 42" space to sink area and aligned with dining room opening

10. not to worry about work triangle with fridge because island becomes prep space

see sketch:

JAN MOYER - thank you for the advice...though given that we're a bit frustrated with the positioning of the stove top, we would rather put some money into improving the flow, even if we're not going to be taking down multiple walls and re-positioning rooms. Valid advice !

salex - thank you for the advice. Our original brainstorming thoughts aligned with your suggestion ; given the useless and outdated pantry, we thought we'd explore using that space somehow. I absolutely agree that at the very least, replacing the cooktop and oven with a range would at least allow for some counterspace.

decoenthusiaste - unclear what RAV stands for but next to the rolling cart is a gas kickspace heater that is built into the wall (it's a very old house) - like where your thoughts are...definitely out of the box and we haven't even considered that till now !

For those who would find the first floor plan useful at all, see below.

margaret T - I love your out-of-box thinking on this ! Leveraging the existing window for the sink...re-positioning the entry-way to/from the kitchen, and making the best of where the current 1/2 bathroom is located! It's very unfortunate that the 1/2 bathroom is placed where it is...but given where the water lines are within the house (with 2 full bathrooms right above where the kitchen and 1/2 bathroom are)...I can see why it was placed there.

Thank you for your quick sketch - very useful !

https://sinktwice.com/

If you want to make the powder space minimal, consider these toilet lid sinks. RAV is return air vent. Do you use that gas heater, or will it be eliminated in the remodel?

https://www.digsdigs.com/toilet-sink-combos/

I like margaret T's floor plan except for the fact that the island is a barrier between the sink and fridge. I would switch her location of the ovens and fridge so you don't have to schlepp foods across the space to prep them with water.

Thanks, Stacy! Play around in sketch up or whatever program you are using and see if you can make everything fit with actual dimensions. Here is the type of powder room sink I was thinking of:

It only takes up 8.5"

Can you cut a passage left of fireplace and install a butler pantry between living room and kitchen? Seems a good move w a lg formal living room . how would you open kitchen to dining room ? Powder room can dealt w , but what seating venues do you desire? you can do a lot but budget must be expanded. You should wait and plan.

Interesting that you suggest this, herbflavor - from our understanding of how the house was originally built, we believe a passage used to exist but a previous owner of the house closed it up in order to build the current kitchen (to maximize counter space where the current sink/dishwasher is).

Without re-positioning the power room/half bathroom, this house has a similar setup to ours, where they blew down the wall in between the dining room and kitchen and added a breakfast bar (no island). I believe our setup is similar:

For what it is worth:

Not uncommon at all in old homes to have even a full bath off a kitchen. But nobody is living inn 1920 anymore.

Your best bet is to ask how long you're staying in the house. My parents managed for nearly 45 years without a first floor powder room. Did they need one? Yes. But there was no place to put it. They did add a basement full bath.

I'd be looking at a two phase remodel. One that tackles first the kitchen, and then uses some of that looooong narrow office for a FUTURE powder room. And I'd delay the kitchen until you have more resources too. : )

An architect and a CKD on your site would be my first choice, followed by plan and save.