LOVE this system! fitted a bank of wall cabinets in a bathroom nook -- installation was crazy-easy, and I'm loving the clean, simple look. And, those soft-close drawers. Finishing up the kitchen now (another EASY install), and I'm loving the soft, almost-matte finish of the white Veddinge doors even more. Knocked out the old plaster soffit (no ceiling repairs, thanks to the add'l depth!), taking the cabinets to the ceiling. The space looks so much larger! And, I'll bet we've got (at least) 50% more storage thanks to their drawers and clever fittings -- without adding an inch to the footprint! P.S. My sister installed an Akurum kitchen nearly 15 yrs ago -- everything still looks and works like new.

Thanks everyone for your responses! These are very helpful. We have been thinking through our options for moving various bathrooms or taking over the mechanical space. Unfortunately, there seems to be challenges with most of the ideas we've had. These two floors are all the space we have - no basement or cellar. We're in a historic district in Washington DC, so any additions would be a heavy lift. We have thought about selling and moving, but we would need to renovate the kitchen and bathrooms before we sold since they are all pretty out of date. The fact that we have a two and a half bathrooms is fairly rare for a house this size in this neighborhood, but since they were one of the main selling points of the house for us, it would be tough to give any of them up. On relocating the half bath downstairs, my wife likes the fact that it now opens into a hallway and not directly into the living/dining space. This limits where we can move the bathroom, The closet underneath the stairs would need to be expanded to hold the half bath, the full height section is too narrow and not long enough to meet code. Also, the kitchen/bathroom hallway wall parallel to the stairs is load bearing. We'd probably be able to put in a column and beam, but that's a factor that will likely drive up the cost of opening up the downstairs. We have thought about relocating the washer and dryer upstairs into the small step-in closet with the chimney that buehl mentioned. There is space for a 24in washer/dryer in the back of the closet, but keeping access to it would waste the rest of the closet space. We hadn't thought about reworking that space with the other closet and hall bathroom. Thanks for the suggestion! I'll think though how we could get it to work. I'd love to hear your ideas. If we relocated the washer dryer, we could move the doorway into the mechanical room to the main area from the kitchen. That would give us the ability to add more counter space in the existing kitchen space. The wall where the refrigerator is too narrow for the 36in fridge. We would either need to close the doorway into the mechanical room or widen the doorway into the hallway. Venting for the hood will be a challenge from the current kitchen. Our options are to run the vent pipe up through the bedroom above or out the back using the space between the floors - there is about 2 feet of space between the ceiling joists downstairs and the floor joists above. going out the front is a no go in the historic district. But before I give up the plan to move the kitchen into the living space, let me ask, what do you think about the one wall kitchen idea? Is 14.5 feet too little to make a usable kitchen? Is there a way to design it so that it doesn't feel like it takes over the rest of the space? By the way, the sewer line goes back through the rear of the house, so at least we have that on our side.

A common problem that I find in a lot of initial postings to this forum is kitchen remodels being driven by the desired list of features. In principle, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, you should identify the features that you need and then build your kitchen around it. But inevitably, the answer then turns out to be that a bigger range is required. And that's typically not true. Very few homechefs need 8+ burners. It's really hard to keep more than a handful of burners in active use. Once you realize that, you are back to a more conservatively sized 30" or 36" range or range-top. And you start thinking about adding other appliances to fill the remaining needs that you might have. This could be a second wall oven, it could be a combination steam oven (awesome choice!), a microwave speed oven, a microwave drawer, a warming drawer, or built-in sous-vide facilities. Or of course, any combination of these appliances. Also, once you separate your needs into specialized appliances, you have more choices in both gas and/or induction models that fit your needs.

OMG! and these were the people you were calling all the time. I'm glad you are going to bargain hard. Remember the negotiating rule: say what you want and then stop talking! Don't let them offer you free add-ons or anything that has no value to you. I'd also want them to tell me how they are going to earn back my trust.