This topic stressed me out a bit since we are the middle of work opening our kitchen to the dining room in our 1906 house. I'm already worried about whether everything will turn out ok. We thought a lot about this, though, so I'll weigh in. I apologize for the length - brevity may be the soul of wit, but it apparently is not my strong suit. We moved to our current 1906 Arts & Crafts house from a Victorian farmhouse which had the kitchen isolated from the dining room and living room, separated by a bathroom. We found it hard when we had people over since they were either crammed in the kitchen without enough room to participate in the cooking or they were way at the other end of the house. We saw that we had a pattern of having people over in the summer when we could congregate outside by the grill, but not much in the winter. We have a very close community of friends and we enjoy sharing meals in a very casual, family sort of way with kids playing, adults talking and cooking. We also found the dining room more difficult to use for everyday meals. Additionally, it was not possible to carry on conversations when in the two spaces or moving between them for setting, clearing etc. I enjoy cooking, but also like interacting rather than being isolated. When we decided to move we were looking to resolve this split and have a more connected common space. We saw many houses (and almost bought one) with family room additions connected to the kitchen which left unused living and dining rooms. These rooms had become merely somewhere to walk through, heat and cool. Some had little or no furniture in the abandoned formal rooms. We realized that we did not really need this redundant space. There is an excellent book by Sarah Susanka (Taunton Press), The Not So Big House. It talks quite eloquently about using space in an efficient manner. I personally like having one place to eat all meals. I like eating at the dining room table for just the reasons mentioned in posts above - slowing down, sitting on a chair instead of stools, in a space designed for eating, around a table (preferably round) which facilitates a relaxed, shared experience. The truth is that since we do not have servants, we often need to go back and forth between the spaces. Houses at the turn of the last century were often built to fit a more formal way of living which placed servants (even modest homes) or the women of the house out of the way while the hosts entertained in formal rooms. They were also built prior to the use of refrigerators. When we moved into this new-to-us 1906 house it had a (tiny) butler's pantry for staging serving, while the refrigerator was crammed into the food pantry in such a way that required near-contortionist moves to get a carton of milk. The only storage was open to mice or around the corner in the butler's pantry cabinet. Counter space was limited to the two drainboards of the 1950's metal sink. This was not the room of efficient post-work cooking and cleaning, much less any pleasant shared time. One of us would quite frequently get trapped in the pantry by another trying to get something. The rest of the first floor of our beloved home showed signs of the revolutionary changes that were happening in houses at the time, shifting from formal double parlors to more flowing open rooms with wide framed openings between them. I am in Oak Park, home to Frank Lloyd Wright, though our home was part of a far more modest working class development. It is stunning to see the differences among the different houses being built during the first part of the century. As central heating and radiators allowed rooms to open up, a social shift away from formality and toward more relaxed, real connection was also under way. Now that the social and technological changes that have transpired over the last century have ushered in a time of shared cooking, I welcome kitchens and floorplans that facilitate that. There are other times in history and other cultures today in which the communal kitchen holds a significant place in a community. Our new kitchen provides inward facing space where people can prep around an island. In our open floor plan I envision friends and family cooking and talking together, either within the de-cramped kitchen or between it and the dining room next to it. We are also concerned about creating something that respects the house's history, fits in with the architecture and creates a sense of two spaces with different but related activities. The disfunctional pantries were ommitted in favor of refrigeration and dish storage near the new dishwasher (uses less water than hand washing). We removed the wall between the kitchen and the dining room and are replacing a portion of it with shallow (12 inch)cabinets that create a partial division and open to both sides. There will be a 6 foot visual opening on top,stepping in to a 3 foot walking space at the bottom in a sort of key hole shape. As much as we love the big pocket door in the large opening between the dining room and the foyer, I doubt that we will use it. I just can't see part of our family sitting in the living room smoking cigars while another part of the family or servants quietly set the table out of sight. It has been a delicate dance trying to mesh the eras. We are having a duplicate of the missing original built-in hutch along one side of the dining room built, but it will have some wood doors in place of the original glass to house some less aesthetic items that have no other storage on the first floor since the one closet was turned into a WC in the 50's. We got a picture of the original at an open house across the street and noticed gloves and scarves displayed where china and silver of another time once shone. Life is not static and it seems to me that a key component to navigating the ever-shifting impermanence is to be flexible. I cross my fingers hoping that my ideas about homes and people actually work out in this re-working of our lovely old house. I do not disagree with any of the prior posts, I just wanted to add some thoughts.

I think Ikea cabs with lots of lower drawers are MUCH better, storage wise, than builder grade cabs. I have built-in-place builder grade with fixed shelves, and lots of wasted space from huge filler areas in the face frame. I only have 2 normal size drawers, and 5 little ones that are, literally, 3.5" wide inside. The drawer glides are low end, and not super smooth. Interiors are beat-up low-grade melamine particleboard, not looking too good. But if I were moving in 5 years, I would only paint (the doors AND the interiors that are beat up). Because, when I organized my kitchen, getting rid of everything I don't use, and adding a few organizer shelves from Container Store, it became very easy to find & access what I do use, even in my tiny low-end kitchen. If I were to retrofit 2 pullouts in the lowest shelves of 2 36"-wide cabinets, I'd be close enough, functionally, without the expense and hassle of replacing the cabinets.

If it has original cabinetry and you ripped it out to put in Big Box boring or that gawd awful Ikea ....... well let's just say I would not buy it when you go sell without a HUGE price reduction or escrowed funds to track down vintage cabinetry appropriate to the house. No house in our family was built before 1927. You CAN fit in a dishwasher -go for compact. You can fit in a microwave - get one that attaches to the bottom of the cabinets over the counter. And do save every cabinet door your remove. (1) next to the stove. Get an old 1900-1930 dresser. Paint it to match. Pick up some old marble top from an architectural salvage. Ditto find an upper cabinet at architectural salvage. Attach the micro wave under the cabinet and over the counter. (2) Next to the fridge - move it to the wall? DO the same thing with a small stand. Alternatively frame in a pantry cabinet and get an vintage door from architectural salvage. (3) Keep the appliances white - period appropriate. Stainless steel is the fad du jour - just like the avocado and harvest gold were in the 60s and 70s (and will be considered as -oh-so-passé-tacky in the not-too-far-future the way the fad of the 60s/70s is considered now.) Stainless with period cabinetry is like an 80 year dowager in a mini-skirt. (4) SInk - hit the architectural salvage and get a porcelain over cast iron. (5) Counter Would have been linoleum (linoleum - not laminate) or wood, 2 options that would cost less than period linoleum. First just do a laminate that looks like marble. Passable for a rental. If the counter run is as short as it seems, try Lumber Liquidators for butcher block counter lengths. Not the best but okay for this.

if your contractor could take the uppers at the peninsula and source you some glass doored matching fronts...that would be a start. If he could do that while changing [painting] all the uppers to white that would be even better. Get him to quote you these two changes and think about it. I might ask how he sources the paint job just so you have an idea. I hope it's not his grandkid after school in his shed or something like that. Just a general idea so you know how good an end product you will be getting....it ends up being all about price and convenience for you. Long term, I think you may want to redo the whole thing, so be prudent, but he may be a good resource.