HI -- I think the "pantry " may be a problem being only 6 inches deep . What is behind the pantry wall ? If you can steal a little more space so you can have a pantry that is 12 inches deep that would be a lot better. Your plans don't show much counter space either. Actually the kitchen plan looks like a smaller kitchen than the old kitchen !

That raised floor in the kitchen is a nightmare. Any way you can make the floor the same level as the two adjoining rooms?

Lefty, love ya, but I love a 6" pantry ! So good for storing one layer of boxes and two layers of cans. Sorry !

HI -- I agree a shallow pantry is ideal ,but 6 inches doesn't seem to be very much . I have 24 inch deep pantry and I am short and it is a pain to find things that are in the back and I have to reach things with the tongs or my long armed husband who is a foot taller than me . Well Ralph I guess this is the best plan that is going to work for you apart from relocating the kitchen to an other room which is probably not possible. Good Luck on the new kitchen !

You mentioned it's fine to remove the wall structurally, just wondering where would the beam the runs diagonally in the living room will end up ?

It would be really helpful if you had pictures of the adjacent rooms. Your current design seems like you are losing a lot of cabinet space. Personally I would worry about that. You may be able to extend the cabinets along the pantry wall into the adjoining room. You can use upper cabinets 12" deep as base cabinets and build the toe kick up to make it work with the dropped floor. Then you could use upper cabinets above this to create more storage. Then add a few glass doors to create a built in hutch look that connects the two rooms and makes the kitchen seem larger with more storage. I would also play with the island size to make sure you could get a 12" pantry cabinet in. You could get more storage out of the island by adding another row of cabinets and having a step down which would act as a reverse bar type seating area. This would make your island come in to the adjacent room and create a perfect breakfast bar and working area. This design depends on being able to come into the two adjacent rooms at least a couple of feet.

I'm not seeing a way to add additional pictures. For the termination of the beam, my plan is to leave the top 6-8" of the existing wall all the way around, and either paint it or wrap it (and build in a hood). I am losing some cabinet space. All the existing uppers on the interior wall hold food and that will need to go into the pantry. And we will remove the soffit a the top of the upper wall, which will give us more space. We like the open shelves, but we could go with enclosed uppers. We also have built-ins on the other side of the dining room. I really appreciate all the comments. Please keep them coming!

Do you have an e-mail. I can send you a sketch of what I mean.

rmeronemo@gmail.com Thanks!