My Kitchen Needs an Extreme Makeover!!

I need your help. We have a really big kitchen by New York standards (most apartments have no kitchen at all). But we are totally not using the space efficiently or effectively at all. Here's the visual:

Yes, the microwave and toaster oven are on top of the refrigerator. We have about 2 x 3 feet of counter top space and I need 3/4 of that for the drying rack for the dishes (that's right! No dishwasher either!). So anyway, see that big stack of boxes in the corner? Those are mostly nice dishes, extra glasses and stemware that we don't have space for but don't want to let go off either. They are just sitting in that corner still in the boxes we moved them in, lest they get broken. I'd really like to use that corner for something else.

Then we have the fridge in an awkward position so as to allow maximum space in the middle of the floor, plus the only outlet I can plug it into is on the wall on the other side.

As you can see on the left, there are wooden shelves that have actually served quite well as a pantry type space. I'd like to have more of them.

So now that you know the lay of the land, maybe you can help me. I'm willing to buy some cheap kitchen furniture from Ikea, but that's about it. Any ideas how I can better utilize this space?