Thinking about walls

We are doing some major renovations to the house in the spring. We were all over the map trying to decide what we want to get done. Do we want a deck and pool? Outdoor living in the summer is great here, but that's it. 2 (maybe 3) months of the year we would be able to enjoy a pool. Hardly seems worth it, to spend $65-$70K on renovations we can't use all.the.time. So I've decided that we are going to renovate the kitchen and the basement. The basement is a must. We need the extra space. With the kidlets getting older, the toys are getting out of control, and while we do have a playroom on the main floor I want to open that up and make it into a dining room (we host most of the main holidays at our house and our small dining room just isn't cutting it).

I want something like this:

seaside interiors

I know that this is a family room, but it is similar to what I am envisioning for the opening between my living room and dining room. The wall that we would be removing a a load bearing wall, so my theory is to have some pillars that will help carry the load. I know that we will most likely have to put in a new beam, but I totally think it will be worth it to be able to open up the two rooms. 

Now onto the kitchen, since we would be moving the dining room table to the "new" dining room, our current space would become an extension of the kitchen. I want to take down this wall and bench and that wall next to the stove. 

Then continue the run of cabinetry down along that wall, moving the current door down just a little. It would make room for me to be able to get a larger fridge (33" maybe even 36") and a pantry (20" wide). I then could do something like this: 

along the same wall and then the door to the outside would just be to the left of the first cabinet. On the opposite wall where I have this now:

I would add a large opening and have 18" cabinets on each side of the opening. I would also make the island larger. Aiming for a kitchen feel like this one: 

decorpad.com

I am loving these colors together. Very classic and I could easily add my own "splash" of color and change it when I get bored. So that is plan for now. I need to get some quotes on cabinetry and counters and all that fun stuff. Wish we could start now.