This was our starting point, a small cramped kitchen. The far left inside corner is the plumbing chase for the 2nd floor. Check out where that shows up next.

We bumped out the back of the kitchen to gain more room. The chase from before can be seen between the fridge and the coffee maker.

We enlarged the original doorway from the dining room. This brought in much more light and made both rooms feel larger.

The view from the dining room. The original opening was about 36 inches. We also captured the space in the old mudroom allowing us to build a pantry and take advantage of the window light.

We wanted to keep the upper cabinet run continuous. Rather than just hang a blank panel over the plumbing chase, I modified the cabinet to serve as a "communications" center. Pretty sneaky!

Here are our pantry doors. We used slate tile as this area serves as a mudroom entry from the back yard.