It all looks forced, like the house wasn’t built for the kitchen you want to put in it, because it wasn’t. I think when there is a remodel, the finished product should not LOOK like a remodel. It should look like it belongs.

A table belongs in front of the window. There’s too much space if no table is there. So how about 12” deep tall pantry cabinets on the left wall. You can still do some counter and shelves in the middle.

Then, forget the peninsula. It will be too confining- will block traffic from living room to kitchen, etc. Looks like you can get rid of the stub wall by the fridge, so move the fridge toward the dining area. This will allow dishwasher between fridge and sink. Then maybe a beverage/snack area on the bottom wall. OR, have the fridge there. But not the stove. It’s too exposed to traffic to have the stove there.
Finally, I like the mudroom, but I don’t think you’ll be using a table in the family room if there is any seating in the kitchen (which there has to be). It would make a good den or office.

When you mention a dining area, are you referring to the left half of your kitchen? In a small area, with a family of five, having two tables doesn't sound like a good use of space.

Maximize the dining space in that left half and focus on making the right half a functional kitchen. Where is your laundry now? It seems like you're reducing the size of important areas like your dining space and family room.

Skip the open shelves and choose cabinets that maximize storage. I would be tempted to run floor to ceiling pantry cabinets on the wall adjacent to the living room.

However we need a measured diagram and an idea of your budget. Are you able to move plumbing?

Too bad you can't remove the walls.

I'd get rid of the kitchenette and extend the cabinets across the kitchenette window and do a counter height table for an island. This will give you a walkway from the living room to family room and traffic out out your cooking/prep zone.

I wouldn't make the family room smaller. I'd put the dining table in the living room instead.

Thank you everyone for your time and great feedback. Let me try to answer some of your questions and clarify a few things…

The kitchen and current dining space combined is 11’5” deep by 23’8” wide. Our budget is around 20K and we could and are willing to do some plumbing or move a gas line for our oven/stove. We recently replaced our dishwasher and oven/stove. Our fridge is still fine but could be replaced if necessary (but we don’t want to spend 6-10K on a new counterdepth fridge). So the budget would be primarily for cabinets, countertops, any plumbing or gas line work, etc. We are one of the largest houses in the neighborhood so we aren’t wanting to spend a ton on the kitchen and overprice the house for the area, but for the size of our house our current kitchen is not working (we only have one drawer for silverware and then a small 12” drawer for utensils…it’s just not very user friendly or functional) and needs redone.

We tinkered with flipping the current kitchen and dining space but run into some problems. 1) The large 72” wide picture window in the dining space is only 29” up from the floor, so it would be below the cabinet and countertop. The smaller 36”x36” above the current sink would likely need to be altered to fit the space more appropriately. We have stucco so it is a lot more involved and costly to change window sizes or placement leaving us pretty much stuck with the present windows. 2) We have soffits above our current kitchen cabinets that we were hoping to be able to open up but we realized the one along the top wall over the sink is filled with plumbing from our 2nd floor main bathroom as well as HVAC. Too costly to move for our budget so it would have to stay and look out of place all alone over there without cabinets or something else to help camouflage it. The one along the shorter wall can be taken out and we plan to do so in order to have taller cabinets on that wall.

There was a wall between the kitchen and current dining room that we took out (only a small 30” deep stud wall remains next to the fridge). We have a standard fridge and would like to try to decrease the amount of space it takes and projects from the wall. We realized there is a double wall on the right wall in-between the kitchen and bathroom. We have decided to move the fridge there because we can recess it back 3-4” making it appear closer to a counterdepth fridge.

Our current “living room” acts more like a family room for us, but we also just refinished our basement in the last year and that area serves more as our present family room. Since it is a large room, it would be a bit awkward to put our kitchen table there and have some extra space in the living room that leaves us wondering how it would be used.

Our current “family room” with the fireplace is a room we don’t use because our fireplace isn’t functioning. It is merely a room we walk through in order to access our backyard and why we thought taking some space from the room for a mudroom might be a good option. Our current kitchen table is large (40x72) with a bench and 4 tall/high back chairs. It takes up a lot of space in the current “dining room” space and why we were tinkering with a smaller table for the kitchen and moving the larger table to a new dining room in the back. However, it does make sense that we would likely no longer use that second table and would be a wasted space.

@emilyam819 Yes, we will be removing the small stud wall by the current fridge to allow more freedom in the design. Please see note above about the wall removal and possible fridge relocation.

@latifolia Our current dining area is the left part of the open space in front of the large picture window. We are considering putting a smaller table there so we can still have a place to eat yet have more room for cabinets and then moving our large kitchen table to the back room with the fireplace. It currently is an unused space as the fireplace is nonfunctional and why we are considering making a mudroom back there as well. But we understand dining rooms often go unused so maybe that area is better served as a den or office space like you suggested.Our laundry room is in the basement as we have a laundry chute and don’t have the room to put it on the 1st or 2nd floors.

@Cherie “Too bad you can't remove the walls.”—I know, right!?! It’s so frustrating! But we have sulked about it too long and need to accept it and move on, but it is such a bummer in our books!

If you post a floor plan with measurements of openings and windows, etc, one of the pros may weigh in on your layout.

Running the counter across the larger window would open up more options for you even if the sill is lower. Here a post on it https://www.houzz.com/magazine/great-solutions-for-low-kitchen-windowsills-stsetivw-vs~25381595

Have you thought about moving the dining table into the fireplace room and trying it out for a week? That would help you decide if you need seating in the kitchen.

I made a couple of doodles that works with your existing plumbing and gas/hood vent. I hope your current hood fan exhausts outside. If not, you should factor it into your budget.

Stay on this thread.

I didn’t intend to make you feel lost. I want to throw out ideas you haven’t considered.

I mocked up another plan with Ikea cabinet sizes. If you make the sink and fridge counters 27-30” deep, it would bring in the aisle. You could put seating across the larger window if a second sink isn’t your thing. But it moves your prep area to the corner between the stove.

I think the dining table will work better in the front room. The doorway is wider and easier for 2 people to pass when you’re carrying food platters and dishes. Also there’s a long uninterrupted wall where you can add more floor to ceiling pantry cabinets. I personally like having a larger dining room so there’s space to add seats when you have guests over.

You have big rooms. There's so much you can do with the space.

@CherieOh no, please don't misunderstand, you didn't make us lost...we just thought we were on to a good plan but from the feedback it sounds like we were going in the wrong direction, so now we just aren't sure how to change it up. We appreciate all the suggestions as to how we can do that in order to come up with a more functional layout that we will utilize :)