Lavender, I haven't followed your posts well enough to recall the layout or be able to mentally place the various elements you are thinking about. But my general thoughts are:

If you have a direct doorway from kitchen to dining room, I don't see how a pass through really adds much functionality. You're not actually going to serve through it - you're not running a lunch counter - and you can't carry dishes and platters through it. The passthrough also robs the kitchen of useful wall space for uppers and shelving.

To transmit light and ''openess'', a french door between kitchen and dining room would work just as well.

What about when you don't want light and openess between the brightly-lit, noisy kitchen and the serene, candle-lit dining room? A door can be closed to cut off noise and odors, while a pass-through cannot. A door can be veiled by draperies, while I've never seen curtains on a pass-through.

You might consider a wide french door or a pair of swinging french doors, even a pocket door. Also there is the option of skylights, for even more sunlight.

Well, after measuring, I may not have a choice. If I want any stools for the kitchen, they may have to go on the dining room side. Instead of the window seat, I may go with a big bay window, which would give me a little more room for the table.

John- Thanks for your comments. I'm not a big cook, but I do love to bake, so the kitchen doesn't have a lot of noise or bad odors, but it does have a little flour and powdered sugar floating around...along with the fragrance of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves :)

Ah ha, I get the picture. You have unicorns :-)

Well, sort of :)

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Here's an idea of what I want to do, but instead of the window, I'd have the half wall to the dining room. There would be a window opposite the sink, in the dining room.

The upper cabinets would not be there (moved to the wall on the right, on either side of the stove). What do you think?

I love the tile, but I want a white sink and antique brass faucet/hardware. The tile backsplash would work, because I was hoping the dining side would be a little higher, to block some of my mess. Maybe add a few stools, to the dining room side, with the table closer to the window :)

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Sink at the pass-through, hmm. When I'm clanking the scorched pan into soapy water to soak during the meal, clearing the dinner plates into the sink, hastily washing and drying the salad plates to reuse for dessert because we have too many people or too many desserts - I don't really want my guests at the dining table to see me doing it . . .

John- I do not have the opportunity to entertain for dinner, very often. As you can see in my "unicorn" picture, we live on a farm, so people don't usually want to drive home in the dark...30 miles back to town.

However, we do have my mom down, some friends in the day time, especially in the summer, and I love to have people over for tea or to help me bake. Lots of nieces and nephews stop by in the summer too! Between baking, gardening and playing with the horses, it's a popular place with the little ones!

I appreciate all your feedback. It's making me really think about my plan, which always helps :)

Please ignore this if I already responded in an earlier thread when you were first planning your space.

I also wanted kitchen and table area to be separate yet still feel connected. This is what we did---it's really a peninsula with all glass uppers but the catch is that the space between counter and uppers is filled in on the dining side to look like a hutch. The doors at counter level open up as a pass through.

This solution was perfect for us.

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There is usable counter space on the kitchen side. Putting dishes into the uppers from the kitchen side and taking them out from the table side works really well and keeps table setters out of the kitchen. The all glass uppers allows light to travel between rooms and still gives the feeling that they are connected (and I'm able to see through to the wall clock in the dining area when I'm cooking.)

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Whether to do a passthrough, half-wall, or full wall all depends on how you want the two rooms to feel and function (both separately and together). So, I cannot tell you what will work best.

However, my brother recently renovated his kitchen (nearly finished) and changed a full wall to a half wall between his kitchen and dining room. He tends towards more informal gatherings and he wanted to help the small closed-off kitchen feel larger and more open to the house. He does not like upper cabinets and with the remodel was able to acquire additional lower cabinets to make up for the lost storage. He has no stools on the dining room side of the half wall, though the granite does cover the top of the half wall. (In fact, the dining room is simply too narrow to accommodate a table and chairs and counter seating.) His new kitchen feels very open and light (the dining room is on a corner and light floods in from two large windows) and he is extremely happy with the result.

Your inspiration picture is very lovely. The detailing on the window is beautiful and could probably be duplicated through wood trim on a pass-through if you would be interested.

zelmar, that's just what i'm doing between my kitchen and dining room. thanks so much for that picture!
lavandar lass i think your kitchen s going to be wonderful!
i'm not clear, does that window have to be over the sink?
i think it could work, with a raised edge for kitchen mess.
i know what you mean about the stools, i have found room luckily to keep stools in the kitchen proper.

Thank you all for the great advice, suggestions and pictures. I'm going to work on getting a kitchen plan together, tonight, so you can all get a better idea, what I'm trying to do :)

The little "unicorn" is Chance...pretty cute, isn't he? LOL The little guy behind him is Lucky, with their mom, Mandy. This picture is a few years old, so both boys are much bigger now!

I like the pass through idea in an informal setting. I am creating one, and think you can make it both functional and beautiful! I also love love love the charm of the windowseats. I would sit there all day and look at Chance and Lucky... and all of that Lavender (where is that?) :-)

are they paints? what kind of riding do you do with them?
they are very nice looking ponies!

Falling- They are paint and quarterhorse, with a bit of Morgan thrown in :)

I don't ride, since I hurt my back, (slowly getting better) but they love to follow us everywhere and think they're guard dogs. They chase off porcupines, stray dogs and even the occsional deer. They tried getting after a moose, once, but they're huge, so we called them up and the moose took about five leaps/steps and was over the hill!

Do you ride? My sister-in-law loves it and has some specially trained horses, she rides with a friend. Dressage, maybe?

Lavendar, your horses are beautiful. Your scenery is beautiful. I can only dream of looking out my window and seeing that everyday. I am an artist and would be so inspired to do many paintings!!
I also love to ride! OK, so no help with pass-thru.

That's okay! We need a break from kitchens, once in a while :)

I do love living out here...although the view the last few weeks has been a foot of snow everywhere. Still pretty, but hard to get out and do much!

Zelmar....now that's cute!