We're moving to a community where every (and I mean EVERY!) house is a center-hall colonial. The problem is that their kitchens are just not usable for me. I like to bake, which means I need three feet of dedicated counter space with upper cabinets (for flour, sugar, spices, etc.) and drawers below (for bowls and measuring stuff).

This space needs to be in addition to food preparation counterspace. Every colonial that I've seen has its main counter space either as a small center island (useless for the toaster/blender/coffeemaker/mixer that need to go on the counter) or a peninsula separating it from the dinette that's great for eating breakfast but useless for the appliances mentioned above.

Below is a floor plan that's fairly typical. The problem is that one wall is usually broken up by doorways to the formal dining room and center hall, one "wall" is either the peninsula or gone entirely, the window wall of necessity has almost no uppers, and the fourth wall is broken up by the doorway into the mudroom/garage entry. I would love ideas on how to remodel it so that I have more usable counter space. (Usable = against a wall, more than 24" wide, with upper cabinets.)

I've considered expanding the kitchen into the dinette, but there's usually either a patio door leading outside or windows on the outside wall.