I'd love to help but you linked to your own photos on your own computer. You need to put them web accessible. Try photobucket.com and then paste the line after where it says html. Good luck!

First you need to determine if it's a bearing wall. Either way, cost will be a factor. If not load bearing, you'd be looking at new cabinets, countertops, and perhaps matching the flooring some. You could make it a half wall adding some storage along there; but I see you have a heat thing (sorry... Floridan here so not sure what you call it) coming out of the floor along that wall. That may need to be revented then. BUt if you could, with storage along that wall you can do an over-hang to give it a more open look.

I really like the gray/white; blue-gray/white; green/gray/white ideas as well as classic black and white kitchen. Considering that you might be able to tackle the backsplash as a DIY project, it would also be your cheapest bet. However, you WOULD be sinking SOME time and money into traveling in a direction don't really want to go in the first place. If your ULTIMATE goal is warmer, and you don't anticipate having the money for a large scale redo in just a few years, you might not want to invest more time and money in this color scheme. Even if it is not alot, if you really don't like it, it is still time and money spent that could have been used towards your goal of a warmer space, if that indeed is what you would most like. This is going to sound like treason to many here, and I don't know that I would go this route, but you could get rid of the counter for an inexpensive laminate countertop. I swore I did not want laminate again, but if your personal taste is such that you would be embracing a style totally foreign to your personality, it could be done, and it is kid friendly. A laminate countertop in a warm color to coordinate with the backsplash, paint and a large center rug, as well as maybe a couple of coordinating rugs in front of the sink and stove would take you there. You could replace the floor in just a few years or sooner if you decide to go with another inexpensive vinyl until the kids are quite a bit older, and not have to tackle a complete kitchen redo for some time. Then the gray in the other rooms could be next in your list of improvements. You can cover tile with wall to wall carpeting or laminate inexpensively and change carpeting to another color much cheaper than than hardwood installation. There have been a lot of recent offers for almost free installation of carpeting (199.00 whole house installation I saw at HD recently) and those will probably continue for a while until the economy picks up some and so does business. Just another way to go. It depends if this gray color scheme is ok enough with you that you can comfortably live with it a few years or more. If yes, great. If not, don't throw good money into it only to decide that you really just can't tolerate it. Sue

My suggestion is that you combine the living room and dining room functions, but keep the kichen separate. Don't get yourself wrapped up in trying to replicate all the features of much-larger spaces. A dining room table can be easily intergrated into a living room and do double duty there as long as you don't try to copy the big table with chairs all around it plus sideboard. Think of a table (with leaves) that generally sits behind a sofa, for instance. Some times it's a sofa table, some times it's a dining table. The chairs need not stand around it all day long. They can be spread around the room, or even in different rooms if you don't use all of them for every day meals. The sideboard function can be handled by a cupboard, or a hutch, with some books as well as linens, serving pieces, and other DR accoutremnts. Bookshelves that are wonderful in a livng room are also fab for the walls of the DR space. You may be able to get a few seating postions (one or two) at a small island in the kitchen for those times when you have a kitchen companion hanging out with you, or when you're just grabbing a quick snack. I would concentrate on making the kitchen the most efficient and highly functional that your space allows. Since this is working area, function will really make or break the space. Think of your downstairs as having two rooms: a sitting room with the dining table in it AND a well-designed kitchen with a great place for another person to hang out with the cook. "Opening up" the rooms is a currently a popular trend, but its pouplarlity will wane (like all highly sought after and endlessly copied things). Meanwhile if you have made major structural changes in your building you will be stuck with them. Save yourself angst and money and make two great rooms -- you'll be way ahead of the style curve and you'll have two wonderful rooms that really work. Don't worry about "sliders here" or "sliders there" question at this point - think of the rooms' uses and work on those questions first. Once you have that worked out you can see how to integrate the fenestration pattern with what you already have. I think part of the current urge to open up the kitchen to the other rooms is because of the enormous size of most houses. In smaller houses there isn't as much os sense of estrangement between the people sitting in one room and those in another. Don't think you have to copy the "remedy" for the faults of houses that aren't like yours simply because that's all you see in shelter mags. Small houses are special, not the least because they are very human scaled and require you to think very carefully about your space and the choices of how you use it. I suppose you are familiar with the work of Susan Susanka of the Not So Big House fame. If not highly recommend getting her books from your library. She is a master of wonderful, small space planning. Above all else, don;t think you have to rush into a renovation. The most successful ones are those which start with a period of living n the house to see how it feels. This is the standard advice for new owners of old houses, but even less-than-antique houses have much to teach you about how they feel that you can't tell just by walking around in it a few times. Live there for 6 months ot a year -then you'll know what needs to be done and you'll have fewer regreats about your choices. HTH L.