We're in the middle of our kitchen reno and I'm now realizing that I may have created a serious tunnel on the only entrance to the room.

We have a 45" opening (not a framed door) into the kitchen from the front hallway. Completely flush with either side of the opening are 90" high cabinets. On one side the pantry depth is 24" and on the other side the pantry depth is 15" plus a 6" wall, for a total depth of 21". I found a photo of someone else's kitchen that explains a bit what I'm dealing with, but the difference with my kitchen is that:

1) My door opening is wider than in the photo, and rather than a combination of base cabinets and wall cabinets, I have floor to ceiling pantries that are about 24" deep on both sides.

Is this salvageable?

My husband and I were thinking that, alternatively, we could drop that last 24" deep pantry cabinet and replace it with a 24" deep base cabinet and a 15" deep wall cabinet. My hope is that the space between the counter and the bottom of the wall cabinet would open up the space visually.

What are your thoughts?