The new kitchen design:

For cabinetry, I wanted white with a Shaker-style design.   Both Kraft Maid and Mills Pride had reasonable alternatives,  but the Kraft Maid total was about $1500 more than the cost of Mills Pride - must be for that higher quality Thermafoil on this miniscule amount of cabinetry? 

After doing the research, it seemed that the primary difference was just a bigger variety in cabinetry shapes & sizes, not necessarily in quality, plus the Mills Pride cabinetry did not come pre-assembled.   Sounded easier to transport & store to me!  

Plus Mills Pride has a great online kitchen design tool at http://www.millspride.com , making it easy to figure out the new layout. 

Yes, it's still small!   But observe how it's actually possible to move around!    Not shown on the plan is a bar which will be installed where the range is, overlooking the dining room.   

I planned on going for lower cost granite tile countertops in a marble-like color, such as Bianco Romano or Kashmir White: 

but I coveted an apron-front sink like this one from Franke http://www.frankeksd.com/productdetail.php?prodid=222&node=10&group=85&lvl=3

This caused some chaos, because there wasn't a tile-in or overmount apron-front sink that I liked, which meant I'd have to have solid-surface countertops.      I'd also introduce some cabinetry chaos, since the Mills Pride cabinetry did not offer an apron-front sink cabinet.     However, $1500 pays for a lot of carpentry skill, and conveniently my preferred granite tile colors were also available in slab,  which wasn't a huge cost considering the size of the kitchen.

Details:

Since it's a small kitchen, I also needed a small faucet.   I ordered this little Grohe one online from http://www.universal-akb.com:

And where else for knobs but Builder's Hardware on 15th NW.