NCAMY: Try a coffered ceiling approach. Here's a link to a house in N. Michigan that we used as inspiration for our recently finished Craftsman home. Denise Here is a link that might be useful:

The arches could be original. If not, someone sure went to an awful lot of trouble to make them, and they do look nice. Are your crown moldings all original, and all match up through the main rooms? Are the floor boards original? If so, look at the boards on either side of the arches and between them. Sometimes that can tell you a lot. Craftsman, Mission, Prairie all were popular about the same time. Most houses built then borrowed a bit of this from one style a bit of that from another. The Craftsman and Mission styles both started in southern California. People didn't say they were building a Prairie style house, and only using the appropriate doors and windows, etc.,they were just building a house to live in. A book of the period, "Hodgeson's Practical Bunglows and Cottages" describes those new smaller homes. "They are the simple and unconscious expression of the needs of their owners, and as such they can be credited with the best kind of architectural propriety". The preface descibes how they can be covered with most any kind of material, shingles, clapboards, etc. The interiors can be plastered or not. People liked the houses because they were cheap to build and were a brand new style, unlike the then same old basic Eastern farmhouse. No I'm not an architect. If I hadn't listened to my high school guidence counselor when I was 16 I might have been. He said that since I didn't like math and my grades in it were just so so I'd never be accepted to architectural school. Years later I learned that I still could have gotten into the field. Ah well. I used to draw old houses when I was 7 and 8 years old. I had never seen a floorplan, so I drew the interiors in the only way I knew how. I used to do sectional drawings, like a dollhouse. I found my first library book of old floorplans in high school. I love to have lunch with a book of old floorplans spread out on the kitchen table. Yeah, I'm kind of nuts. I never was that interested in the architecture of public buildings. Even the grand mansions of the 18th and 19th centuries never interested me as much as THE HOUSE. A couple of years ago I got a yen to build an old house for myself in miniature form, a dollhouse. For my second house I went crazy looking for pictures of old chimneys and fireplaces from the 17th c., and English kitchen ranges that could fit into the mid 19th c. Believe me, I had to look far and wide, high and low. Whenever I look for information about one thing, I always find information about something else that interests me and that I may find useful in the future. I save it all. I started sharing with other miniaturists who wanted to reproduce times past in small scale. I kept hearing "I want it to look right, but I don't know just what is right and I can't find out anything about it." Well, I'm around to help when I can. We always lived in old houses when I was growing up. My father used to buy them and turn them into duplexes and triplexes. I used to look at everything and wish they could remain as lovely as they were long ago. Even the basic brick workingman's row house had a lot of charm and details. The first time I saw what was behind the plaster I thought it was so cool. Now that I've been finding all these online books I'm in heaven. I've gone through everything of interest in the libraries I've belonged to. And I've checked out all kinds of websites. Good thing I'm a very fast reader. Now as long as I stay on the ball with my filing system, I'll be ok..... Oh one more thing. My grandfather built his house with his own hands on his farm in northern Europe back around 1914. When he died he left it to two of his sons who lived there with their families. The house needed a facelift and repairs after some years and the brothers got into an arguement about what should be done. In the end, one took one side of the house, the other brother the other side. The house is now painted two different shades of green with two different clapboard treatments and trim. A home is not just a house, it's the people who live in it.

I LOVE that period of design too. Lately I've been drawn to the early A&C when there were still traces of Victorian in evidence, and later, when some Deco influences were showing. The Prarie subset of A&C can come off as a little austere, and I like a more colorful, richly textured and detailed space. thebrightspot.com is an excellent source for lighting of this sort, and have excellent prices and service. None are installed yet but here are some of my choices: I'll have 3 of the pendants over the island, 2 over the sink. Frankly, I might have used ones like yours in the sink area if I'd seen them first. I'm worried that a total of 9 of those shades might be too much of a good thing. Ceiling is beadboard with beams. I love each of the elements, but I may be going a little over the top... Using emtek for all the doors, haven't chosen cab hardware yet.

I ended up with tiles from Seneca Tile in their Handmold line. I absolutely love the way the tiles look surrounding my fireplace and they would be just as beautiful on a backsplash. I searched high and low for handmade tiles that weren't $$$ before I went into a more boutique type tile store and found exactly what I was looking for. The link doesn't do the tiles justice at all. For example, the tile picture below is the color "sierra", which on the website looks beigy. IRL, it is far from being beige. Here's an old picture, but you get the idea. Here is a link that might be useful: Handmold collection