My vote: Get a frameless cabinet (a diagram of the difference here) and here made for there, no matter what you do in other places in the kitchen; paint it as if it's wall, and give it a slab door, also painted to look like wall. Make the cabinet go all the way to the ceiling. You can even skip the toekick on that cabinet if you want (a local unfinished-furniture place can make this for you if nec.--it is essentially a bookcase with doors, just leave off the plinth on the bottom. The flat wood door(s) can go ALL the way up, pretending to be wall. You might want a fixed shelf halfway up--just at eyebrow height, maybe--to stabilize it; you might also want the door to break halfway up so you don't have a weirdly overtall door. Pullouts will be crucial, w/ that 30" depth. And I agree w/ you on how important it is to have them be adjustable once they're in. The frameless cabinet is crucial to that. Here's the best way to get them adjustable. use those slotted shelf standards they use in bookcases, and buy these clips that you can attach drawer slides to Then get either drawer boxes (from some place like www.maplecraftusa.com or TapeEase.com or many other places you can find online; I personally think dovetail is overkill, and would try to find some place that will use a rabbet or dado joint) or pullouts (from some place like www.shelvesthatslide.com which will make them to the size you need) to be your pullouts. You might be able to find a local woodworker who will make the drawer boxes for you, or the pullout shelves. You could even make pullout shelves out of 3/4" plywood w/ lattice nailed and glued to the sides as rims. You can get tallish drawer boxes to hold a lot; ShelvesThatSlide.com has a deep pullout w/ a slanted side--taller toward the back, to keep stuff from falling out; shorter toward the front, so you can see in. I did once buy a SINGLE drawer slide for Elfa baskets--you could mount them on the cabinet wall, or under a shelf. But my vote would be, if you can swing the

I think your idea of putting the sofa facing the fireplace and having the play area behind it is a good one. I'd go with a low bookcase behind it, with baskets or bins to hold toys and books. Is this room your prime tv watching area? If the tv can be put in one of the built-ins, then you would have one major focal point, with the tv and the fireplace next to each other, and the sofa facing them. Keeping the media cabinet where it is will really limit your seating arrangement possibilities--it will be difficult to watch tv from the sofa if the sofa is facing the fireplace. And if the media cabinet takes up most of that wall, it is also taking up a lot of the space where you could add in new chairs. Moving the tv to the built-ins might cost some money--you'd need to have the cable hook-up moved and maybe hire a carpenter to make changes to the built-ins. But you will be spending money anyway on new furniture. I wouldn't let the fact that you currently own the media cabinet influence your plans for this room too much, as it could be as much a liabilty as an asset. If it keeps you from creating an attractive room with the amount of seating that you want--why keep it? My thought is to put the sofa where you plan. Then you could put two upholstered chairs, one on either side of the fireplace, angled a bit, but facing the sofa. That would be a nice spot to curl up with a book. That would give you seating for at least 5 people. Then get a couple of side chairs and put them on the wall currently occupied by the media cabinet, with a small side table between them. If you make the table and chairs in the play area into a game table, then you will have 4 more chairs for guests. Now you are seating at least 11 people in the room without having to move in chairs. If you absolutely have to keep the media cabinet and keep it where it is, then I'd suggest a sofa against the window wall, facing the tv, and a second sofa or a loveseat (depending on how large your room is) at right angles to it, facing the fireplace. You could still put a bookcase against the back of the sofa facing the fireplace. Then an upholstered chair in that lower right-hand corner between the built-in and the media cabinet. That should give you seating for 6-7 people, although only 3 of them will be able to view the tv comfortably. If the media cabinet fits the style of the house, could it be repurposed in the play area of the room, holding toys? This post was edited by camlan on Tue, Mar 11, 14 at 8:53

The kitchen would be at the back of the great room. The living room would be the front of the great room and the current kitchen becomes the dining room. To save money, it isn't necessary to move the laundry room. But, moving a kitchen will cost $60 - 100k. Or more depending on how your house is put together. What if you move the stove cabinets down toward the bedroom and put a wall at that end of the kitchen making a U shaped kitchen. By moving that cabinet group, you can put a doorway into bedroom 3 making the hallway to the bedrooms go through bedroom 3. You COULD even build a wall to separate bedroom 3 from the walkway to the bedroom area. Bedroom 3 will be smaller, but still a bedroom. ???? Much cheaper. Fixes your problem and still retains 3 bedrooms.

Agreed, they did a great job utilizing space. I LOVE this house, I've walked by it many times. I'm a bit surprised a family with kids bought it... but it's a prime location, a single family with a yard & roof-deck -- not easy to find in the city. The North End is a beautiful, historic neighborhood, they just built a brand new state-of-the-art elementary school, it's right on the waterfront, the financial district is a 5-minute walk. If I had an extra $1.25M, i'd have bought it :-)