Mom's Kitchen Remodel Options

My mom, brothers, and I are working to remodel my parents' house, our childhood home (Mom and Dad purchased it in 1978 and didn't move since). Mom still lives there but has been looking to improve it for both liveability and marketability. It's not without deep emotion saying goodbye to many familiar, quirky, fun things about the home where we grew up, but it is time to update the home, particularly the kitchen, which hasn't really been updated much since we moved in as a young family 34 years ago.

Here are some potential designs for mom's kitchen, which is currently enclosed by four walls with two small doorways (no doors), one into the dining room and one into the laundry room.

Note that Autodesk Homestyler, the program used for these designs, doesn't allow for half walls or cutouts, so the south wall cabinets appear to be "floating". This wall will actually be a passthrough/cutout with small cabinets overhead. The passthrough would look out into the living room.

Also note that we MUST replace the kitchen floor (and the flooring Mom has selected is much lighter than that shown here--flooring options were limited in Homestyler), but the hardwood flooring in the dining room is original and beautiful, so we're keeping that, and also the dark, brick-red ceramic tile in the laundry room. Thus, three different kinds of flooring.

Please vote for your favorite design in the comments and explain what you like/dislike about each one, and if you have any other suggestions. Mom (and all of us) could use some expert opinions!

Option 1: Red-finish cabinets; base cabinets divide kitchen and dining room. View from dining room:

View from laundry room:

Option 2: White-finish cabinets; base cabinets divide kitchen and dining room. View from dining room:

View from laundry room:

Option 3: Natural-finish cabinets; base cabinets divide kitchen and dining room. View from dining room:

View from laundry room:


Option 4: Red-finish cabinets that extend into dining room; no divider between kitchen and dining room. View from dining room:

View from laundry room:

Option 5: Natural-finish cabinets that extend into dining room; no divider between kitchen and dining room. View from dining room:

View from laundry room: