justgottabeme: That is a very sweet story about your Mom. DD seems to enjoy having my attention on her room--sometimes before she'd get annoyed when I spent so much time on "decorating." What I am doing is sifting through the myriad of choices to 1-3 choices which I think are acceptable in terms of cost, color and durability and have let her make the final choice. Having this forum as a sounding board to determine the options is very helpful, but for the most part I try to let her make the choices. The JCP rug is a tad smaller than I'd like, though bac717 brought up a good point that with JCP returns are not a problem. I may actually work from the chair fabric backwards and see which fabric she chooses then choose the opposite color for the rug since we have two options. One concern I have with the dotted fabrics is that they are all 100% cotton--and perhaps not the most durable choice for the seat cushion. Here are some of the ones from the Susan Sargent line I thought could work. The first two are woven and look to be of a heavier weight. cartwheel: 54% cotton, 46% polyester, woven jacquard medley: 60% cotton, 40% rayon, woven linen dot: 100% cotton, printed

Thank you, bmorepanic, I appreciate your response. I will try to answer your questions first. The family room is pretty formal and traditional with dark wood antiques and I am hoping to make my kitchen more transitional and lighter in feel, with slab cabinetry, so I think it important to keep the wall up between the two spaces. I also use that wall to hang art on the family room side, and cannot figure out where those paintings will hang if the wall is not there. The sunroom is currently where we eat almost all our meals, on a Moroccan tiled table that is 39" x 78.5" and I hope to incorporate that table into the new kitchen/sunroom area as it's a very functional piece. I am ok with the sunroom becoming more of the hang out place, but am not sure where the table will go if that happens, as it seems too large for the breakfast area. We currently have three stools at the island but the overhang is only 7 inches so knee bumping is a regular occurrence, and the gas cooktop is there, so there is not much room for plates, etc. I only use the dining room when I am entertaining, and when I have the extended family over we split up and sit down to our meals in three different rooms (the dining room table, the sunroom table, and the living room sofa and coffee table.) It isn't ideal, but it works. Problems with current kitchen are too little usable counter space (microwave, toaster oven, juicer, coffee maker, drying rack, etc. occupy too much space), and lack of storage. I also have all of my 12 year old builder-grade appliances breaking this year. We seem to be in each other's way as a result of the layout, getting stuff out of the fridge, using the sink, getting to the pantry. My garage has a ton of stuff I never use that belonged to my husband, old gallons of paint, old chandeliers, etc. I think I can clear out the back part, and still have enough room in the front half for the stuff I do need, ie. trash cans, recycling bins, bikes, scooters, etc. We are able to split up responsibilities with one person needing prep and oven and the other person using cooktop. By my count there will be one regular electric oven (30" Wolf) and one microwave/speed oven (Miele or Adv) and one warming drawer (also 30" Wolf). Finally, the load-bearing wall that separates the kitchen from the solarium holds the HVAC return and I don't think I want to deal with the expense of re-routing that, so it will probably remain as is (behind and to the right of the current ovens). I was thinking the bottom half of some of the load bearing wall could remain, at least for additional counter space and now that you mention it, to stop people from coming into the kitchen prep/cook area from the family room, what do you think of that idea? I like your sketch but don't know what P1 and P2 refers to, please forgive my ignorance. Thanks for clearing up the dimensions and aisle widths, good to know that 48" is the minimum for two cooks. Currently, I have a couch and table in the breakfast area, and my boys sit there all the time and use the table for coloring, legos, etc. I am having a tough time imagining that area gone, especially if it means I have to replace the windows in that area with ones that start 42" from the floor (which one designer tells me is necessary if I am to put the clean up area there) and deal with the exterior siding of the house being matched to the 12 year old pre-existing shingles. If I can keep my existing windows, then I would be more amenable to the idea. I look forward to your response. And thank you again for taking the time to come up with a plan.

We had picked up samples and I have been watching how they change in different lights, and frankly, I just can't tolerate the orangy-ness of the gold bordeaux. In the sunlight, it looks almost garish. Somebody said rustiness, and that is exactly what it reminds me of with the grays and rust...an old can that somebody tossed out their car window and has just been sitting there by the roadside. Shame because it is my husband's favorite. I guess I could try to find one with less of the rust color, but right now I can say that I just don't like it. I was trying to spin the pink tones into "wine colored" while at the granite place, but I don't know if he was buying it. I have been playing around with the Susan Jablon site and think that if I add in the wine/burgandy tones and we can find a non-pink slab, he may change his tune. Or it may just be back to the drawing board. The Ice Brown (looks like it is also called Alaska White)at that shop was also the same price as the two Bordeaux options so puts that back in the mix too (but I didn't take a pic). I could put together a backsplash with some flash and sparkle with a mix of all the different finishes available at Susan Jablon, but it doesn't give as many options for adding in an accent color in the backsplash. Maybe the sparkle is enough to add interest more than just the subway tiles. That Susan Jablon site is truly addicting though. I could play on that for hours.

@Sophie Wheeler -- Thank you for taking the time to offer your advice on how to better improve the flow of the kitchen. It is very kind of you to help others. Our cabinets are already ordered so it is too late to change layout. In any event, I think with all choices there are trade offs. When my neighbor redid her kitchen and implemented the design you suggested, she lost her pantry --as Tina Klucsik suggested would happen. She now uses a closet under the stairs as her pantry. I prefer my pantry in the kitchen. In the 12 years I have lived in this house, I never once thought I wish I had more prep space. Actually, I think I have only had three complaints about my kitchen. 1) I hate the shutters over the windows by the kitchen table -- I like bright, wide open windows. I was always afraid to take them down because we have shutters everywhere in the house. (They were here when we moved in.) I have decided to go crazy and remove them. 2) I hate the clutter on the kitchen island. So I studied what exactly gets put on the kitchen island and designed storage options to accommodate that. Fingers crossed. And 3) I wished we had a couple of seats at the end of the island. So we are adding that. I know we can sometimes be surprised with things we didn't know we needed. When we bought the house, the folks who lived here before left the granite top kitchen table -- it is so heavy it was too expensive to move to the East Coast. I kind of thought the granite top kitchen table was a little strange (never having had one before), but now I can't imagine having anything different because it is so unbelievably durable and everything just cleans right up. (Finger paint, spilled easter egg dye -- you name it!) Also, it doesn't get scratched and it doesn't get water rings. That is a long way of saying I really appreciate folks sharing their wisdom and introducing reluctant remodelers to new ideas.