A drawn out floor plan of the kitchen and surrounding rooms (since your talking about removing walls) with all dimensions filled in will help you get advice. Next to impossible to get much from pictures alone.

Need floor plan.

To scale all windows , doorways and where the doorways lead . In your case also the mud room and how high the step is from mud room to kitchen. What is under the mud room. All measurements clearly marked and post here in a comment in jpeg format I suggest you use graph paper it makes it easier to do scaled drawings. Do not start another post.

Is the mudroom an enclosed former breezeway between the kitchen and the garage? Do you have a family room elsewhere?

First thoughts.

My idea for use of some of your mudroom is reduce the patio doors to a windowed door. Even though the ceiling is lower in that area compared to your kitchen I feel you can build up the floor to the kitchen floor and move your fridge into a recessed wall. This will free up the wall by your stove for a countertop. Where the buffet is now in the kitchen that whole wall can be pantry cabinets at 15"/18" deep. They make great pantry cabinets even at that depth for canned goods/packaged goods/baking goods and even small appliances.

You will get many more ideas if you post a floorplan.

Thank you everyone! I will post a floor plan soon. For the comment above, yes we have a living room on the other side of the house in the front. It is a Dutch colonial with a set up similar to that of a cape. Two rooms in the front of the house, center staircase, two rooms upstairs.

Here’s a floor plan I just drafted. The height of floor difference between the kitchen and mudroom is about a foot. The mudroom looks to have a brick under it that can be seen from under the slider outside and there’s a small brick patio in front of the mudroom as well. Ceiling in the mudroom is approximately 86”. Could potentially open it up to have a higher ceiling since the roof on that side is an a-frame type and there’s storage space over it that we can see from in the garage.

I love your blue cabinets ))

Here's an idea. (consider the cooktop as a range, I forgot to change it.)

The island is 142" long including 1,5 "o/h. The depth is 32,5", 24" deep cabs and 6" deep cabs at the back plus 1,5 o/h on the operative side and 1" o/h on the DR side. (IEDIT: 142" can be too long to have a counter without a seam, I don't know what I was thinking!)

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I'm thinking 36" aisle b/w the island and the DR wall and 44" b/w the perimeter cabs. I'd at least leave 42" aisle in bathroom side.

I tried an L and an island but when I placed the fridge on the bath wall and tried to get a good prep space b/w the sink and the range, the distance b/w the range and the fridge widened a lot, so I think a galley worked better in your space.

Thank you so much!

I feel then your first step is to have a contractor look at it to determine if part of the mudroom ceiling/roof can be raised to the same height as the kitchen so the kitchen can be extended and that it falls within your budget.