Looking at the plan, is the hallway to the left of the kitchen your mudroom/laundry room? If so, could you put the laundry elsewhere and remove that wall to enlarge the kitchen? You could also take away the existing door to the deck, extend the deck further across the back of the house, and put the deck door to the right of the kitchen (where it would make more sense anyway).

Put your fridge on the dining room wall and move the range to the fridge wall. If you can, remove the 29" wall currently next to the fridge so you have open counter next to the range.

Use pullout pantries next to the fridge instead of a pantry room. You should have room for a DW next to the sink if you don't mind off centering your sink on that wall.

Not sure if you want to take down walls for the pass through but you may still have some space to do it after moving the fridge and adding pantries.

That's a good thought! Unfortunately, that hallway is the main entry to the home and is on a lower level than the kitchen (you step up into the kitchen). It's quite narrow, the pictured closet is only a foot deep. And we are pretty attached to having an entryway closet because we have dogs and live in New England so have lots of coats, muddy boots, etc.

You can capture the ~2' into the Dining room (RED) through the wall. That is the bearing wall, so there would be a soffit above the cabinets. You can play with a mid-wall opening or whatever to help the kitchen layout, but your rooms are all very small and there is not much to play with. The Dining dimensions stay the same but just get turned 90d (BLUE) from removing those closets. The Living is long so there might be room for a closet next to stair if needed (GREEN).

My first thought was similar to @anj_p‘s idea. You may want to reference issue 295 of Fine Homebuilding Kitchen and Baths for ideas. There is a kitchen similar in size and constraints as yours and they had three different designers come up with a new layout for it.

https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2020/10/08/one-bad-kitchen-three-good-designs

What if you stole the front quarter of the family room and turned it into your mudroom?

I live in New England too and agree it’s an absolute necessity to have one!

@Andrea C cool article!

@ElleN Changing the location of your kitchen would probably eat up quite a bit of your budget, as will removing load bearing walls, so before you go too far down that path make sure your budget will work for it.

Thanks so much for the ideas so far! My husband is in the trades as are many of his friends, so we are hoping that relocating the kitchen won't be as expensive as it might normally be, if it's the best solution. Although there's no way around the cost of removing a load bearing wall. I'm just worried about "ruining" the classic layout of the house by moving it too much, so I appreciate some of the subtler ideas.

Would replacing the kitchen cupboards with more modern and efficient storage options be helpful? Maybe just a little bit? We kept the footprint of our kitchen and just replaced the original 1973 cabinets with much more efficient cabinets. Good-by to the Blind Corners/Entries into Perdition!!