Lol I like everything, but given it's a Victorian homes tour I will stick to being somewhat traditional, lots of sparkle and glass. I love that blog. I have quite a bit of silver including some huge trays so I a, going to pull those out and copy her a little :). I love the plates, but they appear to be resting on the branches which tells me that she does not have a five year old red headed devil running around her trees :). I do have 40 plus china tea cups though.....that would be a fun theme on the dining room tree. With lots of white lights and silver...crystals....ok now you have me thinking lol Thanks!

Thanks Peke, for your recommendation. I've always wondered how people pick their names. Mine is also pet-related. I found myself to be the mom of a stray pregnant cat about 8 yrs ago. Me, who had always hated cats and had always said I'd rather have an elephant in my house than a cat. Well, she was named Butterfinger by my daughter, and that name quickly morphed to Fing, among a few others. Her babies were named Nuggly (because he was so ugly as a newborn) and Snuggly (she was very cute and snuggly). I tried to get those babies adopted out, but we all fell in love with them...including me!...and couldn't bear the thought of trusting someone else to take good care of them. They stayed, their names morphed to Nug and Snug, and little ugly Nuggly is the most beautiful long-haired orange kitty with the personality of the sweetest angel! Our precious Butterfinger is no longer with us, and I think I cried the most when we lost her, because she taught me so much about opening my mind and heart to all possibilities. So that is my story of FingNugSnug!

This is interesting to me because in my former and beloved house, the last thing I did was redo the bathroom. We just agonized and agonized over what to do, how to make it fit the style of the home and yet not cost an arm and a leg. Nothing great would have been lost if we had gutted the whole thing! Boy was it hard to find "period" tiles, particularly something affordable. The tub was an odd size, very difficult to find a replacement that would fit in the room. Just doing a shower would have probably been best, but I wanted a tub and that was the only bathroom space for a tub. My house was built in 1929 and it was a low-end row house. The tub was all that was left, although I know that underneath the beadboard wainscoting was probably the original ceramic tile. The house had a terrible update of a plastic tub surround and plumbing work-around to install a shower. The original bathtubs had no showers, because the half tub just was not designed to have a shower or shower curtain around it. Here was our dilemma, Every plumber and contractor we talked to said just tear the whole thing out and replumb the tub so the shower was against a real wall, like on the other side where the entrance door was. But we didn't want to spend that kind of money, so we tried to go with the original logic, somewhat. The fact that my SO and I are still together after that whole fiasco is some kind of miracle! But did order some nice repro shower fixtures that I found FINALLY after searching and searching. Plumbing it was a PITA, but the hardest thing was figuring out a tile pattern design that I liked and could afford. In the end, I didn't like it, but SO (who did all the installation) said that was all I was getting of the little colored tiles! We also had to have the tub reglazed. This was what was underneath the surround. Really high quality ceramic tiles by today's standards, and not terribly ugly, but ruined. SO used up one whole diamond bit just sawing it out tiny piece by piece, including the plaster and lathe behind it. Not sure if it was worth it in the end. It was less expensive than a total overhaul, but we weren't saving anything that unique or valuable at that point. The shower support had to be bent because the side of the tub was angled. The original tub didn't have a shower so it wasn't an issue. We figured the bend was better than trying to further jimmy-rig additional plumbing fixtures on the outside of the tub, since it wasn't set up for that either. It wasn't clawfoot tub, it was just rounded and sat flat on the floor. Probably would have been best to just tear it all out, but we wanted something minimally invasive to our lives. But tearing out all that ceramic tile sure was dusty! Oh, I forgot the best part, the nooks! Those were the absolute worst geometry problem ever, due to having to be where the studs would allow. This photo is pre tub caulking.

Ok, here's my super long reply! The sink is a Kindred, made of granite composite material. It's a dark grey color (WONDERFUL for not showing any spots and most stains). It's 31" long, 18" wide (front to back) and 8" deep, single basin. The dining fixture is centered with the window on the far left wall (where your fireplace is; I've got a side window instead). It's NOT lined up with the window in the "dining room" area - several inches off, actually, but I never noticed until I just got up to check. (And I see that in my floorplan it looks like it's lined up with that window - oops!) The clearances to get past the table to the living room are perfect. Plenty of room on both sides of the table (except during holidays when I put that extra leaf in...then I try to push it toward the front wall so you can easily get around the "back" (hallway side) of the table. The noise with the open plan hasn't been a problem for me at all - I've got a 4-year-old and 19-month-old who are regularly running laps around the room screeching at each other. (Who knew opening up the floorplan like that made for the first real circular running path in the house?) When I'm cooking, if they're in the living room watching TV, I've got the TV as my background noise too. My only issue is the dishwasher. We tend to hit the "delay start" button when company is over or when we're just trying to watch a movie in the evenings. But, we didn't spring for a quiet dishwasher either - it was one we bought in '06 when we moved in and just made it work with the remodeled kitchen. When it's time to replace, I'll look for a panel-ready or stainless model that's got reviews for being extra quiet. Now, for outside, like I said, we've JUST closed it in. No siding or even a real door or windows up yet! The picture I'll post was taken several weeks ago and we've made some progress since then, but with waiting for those materials to arrive and it being a project my husband is doing, it's not exactly fast moving. :-). I'll also show you a picture from a few years ago - the door has ALWAYS been off-center. On to the good stuff - pictures! Here's the pictures from the mostly finished kitchen remodel in May of last year. It's probably the cleanest my house has ever been (the day of my son's christening). Imagine many more toys strewn along walls in the living room and a wooden play kitchen in the dining room now. View from the hutch/fireplace area: View of my island - notice how we raised it on the one end - another great mess hider! Mudroom area we built into the kitchen, given where we really enter the house. The small doors are for a pantry we added. Another reason we raised the island on that one side - for the hidden microwave at a slightly higher height than the traditional under-counter ones. The sink I still drool over. Here's a view from the kitchen out toward the dining and living room. That front door will become a doorway with our new enclosed entry. But it's not moving location at all. The original entry with off-center door: And, I know it's a blurry picture (cell phone) and it's off to the side, but here's the addition as it started to take shape. It now has a small porch (about 3' deep) and steps that line up with the door. The porch is covered entirely by the roof overhang (there will also be columns on each side). On that blank-looking wall, we're putting in a 24" x 24" square window, set up high so the top of the window lines up with the top of the door. It helps balance the off-center door within the addition. We may dormer the attic at some point and we'll do different size/shape ones to balance it out even more, but it really doesn't look too bad now. I wish I had a more recent picture for you - maybe if I remember tomorrow morning since it's dark by the time I'm home from work. We laid out a lot with painters tape on the floor (as much as we could since walls were coming down and we pushed the kitchen out about a foot from where it was). Heck, I even set up pieces of cardboard to test our layouts. I was thinking peninsula too, but hated the idea of doing dishes and having to walk around the peninsula, and then around the dining room table to open the front door. My dad threw out the idea of fridge on the front wall and an island with a totally open wall and we loved it. I never would've thought to do it that way. The pantry/entry/2 seats at the island side keeps guests out of my way when I'm cooking - but they can still linger nearby.