Thank you Flower, I have a very strange little cottage. It is built into a hill so from the front it looks tiny. To get into my garden one must either descend the outside steps or travel through the house to the basement and out the back door. The bottom of the house is latish 1700's with thick walls and a fireplace but the top was placed there in 1829(some say it was once the public loo) so my garden is in the back and I look down into it from my kitchen window. My neighbour is a churchyard and we love it very much even though we have a million things to do with it stll, Martha

Schoolhouse, what a treat to see your little Morning Glory Cottage Barn. It is one of my favorite places to think about. Do you have some cinnamon and cloves you can place in the window like a sachet hanging in the sunshine? Or a packet (opened) of Captain Black pipe tobacco? It will add another layer of nostalgia.....scent is so important at this season. Thank you for sharing that picture of the band. Ah, those were the days. Your vignette makes a good Christmas card, and your picture on the wall adds personal warmth to the scene. Those were the days.

I can't save your screen shot (?), so I did a quick estimation of the kitchen space, using as much of the existing layout as possible. I put the fridge near the dining nook, but that wall could be flipped, with the fridge next to the DR. That would keep the clean-up area completely separate from the prep/cooking areas, but the DW door would open partially against the end of the peninsula: Everything on the clean-up wall flipped: The black arrow is for corner storage that's accessed from the back of the cabinet. Or it could be accessed from the FR side, and since you have a table nearby, the peninsula could be extended over a run of cabinets, to increase storage and make up for the lost pantry and hanging cabs. I gave you a KW mixer. :) Back with one more--if the door to the formal DR could be moved to the hallway, the range wall could be extended, and a wide island with prep sink would work. Except for storage in the middle, drawers in the second run of cabinets in the island would have easy access from the ends. Optional upper cabs beside of range hood. (Contingent on the hood being vented as in the current kitchen.) If anyone else wants to borrow this plan to experiment, please feel free.

Pal - I liked your comment on the earlier post that there are some people that you use as a negative feedback mechanism. I hadn't thought about it that way but you are right - had she loved my wallpaper then I would know that it needed to be removed immediately. Actually I don't particularly care for it any longer myself but several realtors have said that it's not worth removing - it's a fairly subtle tone on tone in the foyer and hall. We have removed wallpaper in the dining room and our bedroom and bath and the rest of the house is just paint. We have an estimate on removing the foyer and hall paper and are willing to include that in a negotiation. Obviously if it proves to be an onerous selling point we will have it removed. So far it doesn't seem to scaring anyone off. So far 2 couples have been through 3 times each. One put in a very lowball bid and we countered but they ended up buying a less expensive home in the next suburb. The other couple loved everything except for the 120 year old structural fir beam in our bedroom and wanted to know if we would have it removed. We told them they we could give them the name of a good contractor, structural engineer or architect but that we weren't going to remove it. One other couple said our house had everything they wanted except they didn't want to move back into this neighborhood. They lived a few streets away and just sold their house because they had serious issues with their next door neighbor. I'm not really sure why they bothered coming but they may end up changing their minds if they don't find something else they like. Pal - I think if a realtor knows you and your interest in homes and interiors he would value your knowledgeable opinion on a particular property. And now that your SO is a realtor I'm sure you have ample opportunity to see all the unique or historic places in town. Selling real estate is not as easy as it might appear - it's a tough job and I hope your SO loves it. Two of my kids have purchased homes in Philly within the last 2 years - and the third one just left for a leafy, fenced in yard in the suburbs. I wish I could have given him our home but he couldn't afford the taxes and maintenance. Thanks, Maire