Don't forget to review local providers if you have any, and don't go by just the big name. Out here in my neck of rural America the Comcast TV cable that goes past my home, and ends just down the road, is service generations behind urban America. It has limited channel offerings, and no HD. Thus, Directv is my source and after 18 years is getting too expensive. ATT offers telephone only here, and they should hold a gun and wear a mask for what they charge; $83.70 a moth for unlimited nationwide long distance. I am going to be looking into their home wireless which will be $35.00 for the same service. I have local cellphone service, wish I didn't have to have one, and the 3G plan I use is bare bones with the cost less than half of the big boys at $35.00 a month. This includes 500 minutes and 3 unlimited nationwide long distance numbers which I have assigned to my children. My 4G wireless Internet connection comes from them too. A little pricey at $60.00 month for 20GB, but it roars and is reliable. As I have shared before I live in my area's Bermuda Triangle for electronic services so no bundles are available.I just cope with what is available. DA

This is really long. So thanks for reading. Ok what I thought was going to be a simple '' oh, we'll just nock out this wall and open it up"" has turned into soooo many FABULOUS ideas, I don't know how to chose. You all are AMAZING at what you do. Thank you!! I have plenty of time to think about it, we aren't going to renovate this until we know exactly what we want. This is a total diy job. We are very experienced diy'ers. (I don't think that is always a good thing) So, if something needs moved to gain better flow, then unfortunately, we will do it. Except that dang furnace!! p.s my DH is an HVAC guy!!! he did that!! He asked me what I thought of closing the kitchen entrance and putting in cabinetry on the family room side, with a sink and small fridge for drinks and such. That idea is growing on me. We live in our family room, except to eat and homework at the dining room table, which is always a family affair. (I am a full-time nursing student, daughter is in high school, and son is 2nd grader.) That would remedy the ""I just want to get a drink!!"" problem I have with the walkway to the kitchen, while I'm cooking. I am greatful for all of the advice, and choices that are being presented!!!! Here is what I think I know I want: some type of entry seperation, I love this! (I forgot to put it in my drawing that there is a smallish coat closet by the front door, I will repost a picture including that closet.It's location(the wall behind opened front door at top by hallway to bedrooms) wont affect any type of entry,thank goodness) Except lavender lass idea. I would love a massive island, that doubles as and eating area for kids on holidays, or a buffet for cookouts,but not sure how big I can go. I loved the big island in my last house. I miss it dearly. It had no sink or anything, just an island with cabinetry. I have stewed over the problem of entering the front door and being able to see a mess in the kitchen, and I realized that isn't going to be a problem for me, but what about the next gal, right?! My father suggesting a tiered island or 2 level island, I don't like'em. So that means I MUST keep my kitchen clean. whatever... My current table (i plan to keep) is 72''x42'' fully extended, seats 6, can squeeze 8. I don't have any other furniture for the dining room, we've never had any space for it. This might just change. YAH!!!! We are an eat at home every meal family of 4, (every other weekend we add 1 teenage garbage disposal). As well as our very large extended families, that I would love to be able to include for birthday dinners and holidays. The DH loves to experiment healthy ways of cooking, (which we don't always enjoy, hehehe) I like to cook, especially bake cakes, (my weakeness), And our teenage daughter likes to dabble. The youngest is 7 and he pretty much just thinks it a fast food joint. We insist that our kids set the table for dinner and also help to completely clean up after dinner. They are wonderful about this. But it becomes so crazy in our smallish footprint (it's not really smallish, I'm just a person who has to drag out everything I need and have it handy) and I really need to make it a great environment to keep everyone wanting to cook, just not in my area. If you know what i mean. As for the load wall, we aren't 100% sure on which way we are going to do it yet. I kinda like the idea of a skinny wall and a header running to the other side, for the decorating aspect ( i have read way to many threads searching for help on this subject of open concept rooms.) This way I can paint each room differently if I choose. But there is always the possiblity my DH may want to go up in the attic and do it that way. As for the windows and exterior doors, they are all new, as is the siding on the house, but I won't say that they cant be changed yet. Except the 8' window in the future dining room, it matches the front windows in the family room and these are all street side. Thank you all again for your time and ideas!!!

thanks for the thoughts and suggestions. oaktown and writersblock, I love the idea of a projector! I hadn't even though about that. We're calling an AV person to see if they can help us with that. louisana, you're correct, the wall between the open kitchen/family/dining does not fully separate the living room, so there will be sound transfer. Actually, one of the bedrooms does not have a wall going to the ceiling so there is a lot of noise carrying around the space. Here's how the space is laid out (pre-remodel): ineffable, I'm a TV listener too. We have Sonos speakers we've installed in the house and I could be perfectly happy just listening to Pandora and watching Downton Abbey and SNL on my iPad, but my husband would be so lost without a TV of his own. tom_nwnj, thanks for the recs -- I will check them out. Good luck with the remodel! robotropolis, thanks! I like the idea of putting all the comfy seating in the formal living room and just making the den/space next to the kitchen just a "lounge" area -- for drinking wine, playing games, etc. I think it would significantly enhance our use of the house as we don't currently use the living room. That room is bathed in light most of the day and has the best views of any room in the house -- it seems like a waste not to utilize it. linelle, we were just visiting friends recently and they had a TV (LARGE ones!) in every room, including several of the bathrooms. The owners both work in the entertainment industry, but it was slightly overkill. karenseb, thanks for the nice words. In our upcoming kitchen renovation, we plan on replacing the double ovens with a pantry as we have no pantry and limited food storage space. A tv at the end of the bar is still definitely an option if we can recess it -- we're going to have an AV person come out to measure. If all else fails a TV in the master bedroom is an option, but I'm not generally a fan of TVs in bedrooms.

Clinresga, you have a weird idea about the purpose of advertising. Advertising is a way for providers of goods and services to inform the public about what they offer, thereby encouraging them to become customers. Some products (e.g. Spanx) require no advertising. For the rest, getting the word out to the people who are most likely to become customers is really important. The best ads are appealing and interesting and have elements that draw attention to themselves, while providing information about what they're selling. Poor ads are obtrusive rather than interesting, or leave the potential customer unaware of what was being offered. The worst ads annoy the customer enough that while the message--what is being offered and/or by whom--may be clear, they so annoying that those who see them actively avoid doing business with the advertiser. It is these worst ads that we complain about, and install ad-blockers to eliminate. They make the site unusable. For me, it was the full screen dancing baby. I don't even know what that was selling, but would certainly avoid it if I did. It is ridiculous for the webmasters to design new advertising products that are so annoying that they drive away the very eyeballs that they're supposed to be selling. NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb has known for many years that people are installing ad blockers to avoid seeing the annoying ads. They allow threads where we help each other to do so. They're not hurting from it. While it's true that we're not looking at their ads, it's also true that we probably don't pay attention to the regular ads anyway. They're probably using us as an experiment lab to see just how annoying their new advertising products are and testing how many complaints are generated. One thing you've left out of your business side thoughts is that we are providing free content for NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb. Kitchens Forum, especially, is very highly ranked in the search engines nowadays, and GW in general is, as well. There are a LOT of lurkers and click throughs who are the real targets of the advertising. Without the free content created by the members of the forums, there would be no eyeballs for the Powers That Be to sell. It's just a shame for all of the smaller sites that are trying to stay afloat with a little third party advertising, that we can't see their ads once we've blocked the really egregious ones. Instead of complaining to us that blocking ads is bad for your business, you should be complaining to NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb, and the other big sites full of obtrusively annoying ads, that they are the ones who are hurting your ability to support your site through advertising. With Ad-Block, there isn't even a link to accidentally click on with which to pay you.