I know there are a lot of great, knowledgeable, and helpful folks out in the GW universe...hopefully some of you can help me with my dilemma. I'll try to keep this as brief as I can.

I'm trying to determine if the layout in my house can be improved as to be more functional and useful. The house is 75 years old. We have lived here for over 10 years so I have had plenty of time to mull over things and get a sense of what I'm really hoping to achieve with a remodel. Here is a picture of the floor plan of the area that I'm looking to remodel. The breakfast nook is on the north end of the house - living room is on the south. One block is approximately 1' per the drawing. There are two bedrooms & a bathroom on the east side of the house - these are accessed through the small hallway at the southeast corner of the Dining Room.

The west wall of the kitchen/living room used to be an exterior wall; but a number of years ago the laundry/mechanical rooms were added on, along with the garage (garage is west of the laundry room). There is no basement, as the water table is high here. We have a 4' or so deep crawl space.

Issues I'm hoping to address:

* Due to the layout of our property/driveway, the front door is never used. We always come in through the garage/laundry room and visitors either come in through the garage or the patio door (north wall of dining room). I would like to have a nicer/more welcoming entrance for visitors than my garage or washer/dryer.

* The kitchen is a galley kitchen and has lots of cabinet space (cabinets go up to the ceiling), but is lacking in countertop space. The only dishwasher in the kitchen is me. Anyone coming into the house from the garage has to pass right through the middle of the kitchen "work triangle" to get to the rest of the house. The kitchen is small and cramped for any more than two people.

* The "dining room" seems like wasted space that could be better used. We eat all of our meals at the kitchen table in the breakfast nook (family of 4). We have a piano in that room (along the west wall) but that's it.

* The stairs in the living room (accessing the rooms/bathroom upstairs) were added about 20 years ago when the attic space was converted to useable space. The upper part of the staircase partially blocks the doorway from the dining room to the living room, and creates an awkward under-the-stairs space that can't really be used very well.

Can I move/open up a few walls and make this space work better for my family, or am I looking at something so expensive that I'm almost better off just building a new house elsewhere that works better for us? Both DH's & my families think we should just build something new, but we really like the location, neighbors, character, mature trees, etc. that we have here. Not to mention that this house is a lot less expensive that anything we could build new.

Any suggestions/advice is appreciated!