Kathleen & Lee... Thank you and glad you Approve of the final product. Ladies... DH & I are taking orders... I only wish!! lol Betty.. I think when your DH makes that Floor to Ceiling cabinet you should be able to store quite a bit of stuff. That sounds ideal and a great idea, to make it to take it, should you leave. That's a nice present to look forward to. I'm sorry to hear about your car, and the Deer. Good thing you didn't get hurt...As expensive a radiater can be, fortunately, it can be replaced... not you. Karen/Gail..Glad you like the 'Old/Antique' look. You both reminded me of DH's Italian DGma. Many years ago, when DH & I bought our 'Old, Old House'.. she came over and didn't say a word..but kept looking and looking at our old refinished tables and chairs, old Oil Lamps and collectables. She turned to us and in Broken English, Said ' Why Do You Want To Live In This Old House, With All This Old Stuff?' We told her we liked old houses, and we liked taking old things, and redoing them. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head and said ' I grew up with this Old Stuff and I didn't like it then and I still don't like it now! You should be enjoying New Things, you're not poor!! She really had a hard time accepting that we actually spent money for old things, because we liked them! Mo, I keep mulling around as to what I will put in the open shelves. Dishes or Pewter... or a combo. I guess it will evolve as I go. Thanks again everyone. jane

If I use this hutch, I plan on adding a middle section to give it more balance with the room. It would be sort of like this. To answer a few questions - the upstairs sideboard is too wide for this spot. It's much wider than the one that I'm going to use in the alcove. I'm not worried about having a place to put food with this hutch, the sideboard could be used for that when needed. Though I've never entertained since we moved here 9 years ago, and not sure if I ever will. Don't have any family close enough to stop in for a visit (nearest is over 400 miles away). I use the dining room table way more for large projects than for eating on, so I really like having the space. Our main dishes are multi colored fiestaware that lives in the glass front cabinets in the kitchen, and I love how they look there. Does not bother me to own china I'm only going to look at, I own lots of stuff that serves no purpose other than it makes me smile when I look at it. I won't use it for everyday because my husband is a klutz when it comes to hand washing, or insists on putting everything in the dishwasher. He's gotten near death threats for taking the scrub pad to my china. It's been a long standing joke about faucets with dents in them, every place he has lived, that has been the result, until we got the high arch faucet and enamel sink. He's too afraid to "shake" the water out of a pan in case he let go and broke the sink. His Dad use to say that he was coming to our house to dent the faucet as DH had dented everyone they had while he was growing up. I would respond that he didn't need to, as mine ended up with dents shortly after installing them anyway. But back to the hutch - I've given up on any plants in the house - since I have a 6,000 sq foot garden, that's enough growing stuff, and the cats mess with the plants any. This is Oliver( the mask faced Siamese) and his sister when they were little - in our previous house. I had my last indoor plant die about three years after moving here, and I've not had one since. Could not do any windows there - here is the door from the other side - there is a stairway behind the hutch. We have moved and replace every window and door in the house, so I'd have to really sweet talk DH if I wanted to change one now. Or wait until he's gone for a week and do it without him! We moved the door to the side and ran the roof across the two story section so we could create a small front porch. I think all farmhouses should have a porch. Actually the whole dining room use to be the front porch at one time, then it got enclosed, but that was long before we bought it. I won't be rushing into anything with this, I would love to be able to use it instead of sending it to the goodwill or dump. Thanks to all you for the ideas, lots to think about, but that is why I bring my sticky problem areas here.

Camlan and jmc01 -- excellent idea, to assess the need first. I had made a list of what space I'd need for what items a few months ago when I was doing the same for the kitchen, but it was mostly off the cuff instead of actually looking through drawers to see what needs to stay and what can go. I have been avoiding the purge-and-consolidate process. Blah. lol. Last night I started emptying out drawers to see how much space we'll need for the things in them (in addition to the things that have no home). We already have a desk, it's very old and it is enormous -- too deep, as we lose things in the backs of the drawers and never see them again. We also have an antique wooden file cabinet (also full of stuff). I don't think we'll keep either one; I like their looks OK but they just don't meet our needs now. The file cabinet drawers don't slide very easily. You know how it is with antiques sometimes. About custom work -- we are in an urban area, and the last time we had a cabinet quote from a carpenter (for a bathroom) it was very high. But that was many years ago and things may well have changed, so I will definitely keep it in mind, thanks! Camlan -- that is a very good point and I agree with you. What we need is a place to put the "action" items other than the middle of the kitchen. The desk (surface covered by books and toys at the moment) is not in the main walk path of the house, though it is near it. The kitchen peninsula is for all intents and purposes not part of the kitchen at all; it is nowhere near the prep/cook areas and functionally it is more a part of the den. It IS right in the main walk path, so we tend to drop things there. I am planning to do a (hopefully not too major) kitchen rearrangement when we replace our chipped countertops. One of the things I would like to do is to get rid of the peninsula entirely. That should help force a change of habit. And you are quite right that things like mail and library books don't need to be stored (I'd forget them too, if I couldn't see them) -- those are things that I envision going into either cubbies or open shelves or vertical slots. Just not flat down in stacks right in the way of everything. And some of the stuff on the peninsula HAS no place, mostly childrens' things. The house was decently well organized when there were just two of us in it. lol. (DH once looked at the stacks, then at me and said "But your house before we got married was so neat. What happened?" lol. I told him that I can deal with MY stuff just fine; it's handling 4 people's stuff that gets overwhelming, especially when there is no designated area for it. I might have also mentioned offhand that I am not the only one capable of putting away [somewhere] the kids' things.) Anyway. My car, at least, is still neat as a pin. Forhgtv -- I never in a million years would have thought of a closet company. I looked up a local one and what do you know, they have pictures of this kind of thing on their website. And they're near our house too, so at some point I will run over and check them out. Thanks for the suggestion! Hmm, reading over all this makes me think we need to rethink the storage-ability in the kids' rooms too. Great. Need new kitchen countertop, therefore must reconfigure children's closets. The usual logical progression of remodeling.

I know you said you did not want to switch rooms; but since you like the look of the sink in the bay (the outside views are awesome), it may be worth exploring. If your DH is like mine, change is hard, but he comes around eventually. Perhaps posting another thread that asks people to weigh in on the two kitchen locations with a mock layout for each might get DH to consider the possibility if he can read what others have to say concerning the positives and negatives of each kitchen location. Many people are remodeling to get a larger kitchen space by eliminating two sit-down eating spaces in their homes. Thus, If you switch the rooms, I do not think you would have to “stage” a formal dining room if the time comes to sell. The larger, well designed kitchen would be a major selling point. Keeping the kitchen in its current location does not gain you a whole lot more space for the kitchen because of the traffic patterns; moving the kitchen to the dining area gains you much more kitchen space. You gain the space for family friendly island seating, and the kitchen does not have to be in a location that “fights” with the traffic patterns of your home. The generous dining space combined with the larger kitchen space would be awesome to entertain in. One negative would be carrying groceries a tad farther but not a whole lot more. ;