Newest update ... ... I did finally get around to sewing one of the new elastic free-flowing girdles the other day, when I anticipated a need. I sewed (at one end) a sextuple thickness of hem from an old sheet to the yard-long piece of elastic from the dollar store. Since I'd found that I'd never used the hook and loop (read "Velcro" substitute) on the original, so wouldn't have an option regarding length if I sewed the other end ... ... I tied it down with safety pins, till I got a handle on its tautness ... and my resultant comfort, as secondary issue when considering the main task needed. Works - so far. And another breath-taking piece of information learned on Sunday afternoon, when visiting my friend's house (who's familiar with this situation). Telling me that he had earth-shaking news, he rose from his seat and demonstrated the latest thing in men's lower-level underwear ... ... a drawstring! Who wouldda thunk! Now ... why didn't I think of that ... and patented it: I'd be set for life! Don't anyone tell the underwear maker, please, that, the elastic being the shortest-lived part of the underwear project ... ... that ones with drawstrings'll last much longer ... ... resulting in fewer sales!! Or they'll deep-six the whole idea! ole joyfuelled (with a bit o' help from a coookie or two, on occasion)

tartanmeup -- thank you for the note! In my (way too many) logged hours of paint searches (and too many samples!), that beautiful color slipped through my fingers so thank you for the color recommendation! And, anything iffy (accent/color choice) is my waffling dilemma since it is so high up and I am getting too old to climb up there and change my mind ;)

I absolutely love the Idea from @cd7733, but isn't a problem to have a wall in front on the entryway ? and the closet you suggested is where the water heater is at which might make the bedroom smaller than 10*10 isn't that's kind of the minimum for acceptable bedroom ? @mulder2001 We might open another door from the kitchen if the kitchen ended up on that side of the house, I honestly never thought about that is that a big issue ? @hemina How far do you think a bedroom door should be away from the kitchen ? and the last suggested layout does that but we'd have to add a hallway to get access to that room from the living room which is kind of costly

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!