Cross post from decorating.

First let me say thanks to everyone here for their great help. I know it seems like I'm all over the place but we are finalizing bids and I know I will get a call telling me I need to make choices on final finishes and I want to be able to get opinions here first as I value the input I get here. So thanks for indulging my scatterdness!

The new house has a small kitchen, and not terribly attractive. That said, dh is adamant that he doesn't want to remodel, other than new counter and sink. As he does all of the cooking I'm not going to push on that. I may convince him to stain the cabinets at some point.

So in order to get a bit more storage I think some built ins in the form of a banquette in the dining area is my best bet. Additionally I'm planning on adding a wet bar in the neighboring great room. I'd like to use IKEA cabinets for the banquette, not sure if I should do matching for the wet bar or if I can change it up or what.

So here is the overall layout of the space in question.

Here is the kitchen when we bought the house, to show the whole space, only pic I have.

And with the new leathered black granite. I am changing hardware to black most likely. This also shows the pass through.

And here is where I'm hoping to add the built ins for the banquette.

And here is the wall where the wet bar will go. The angled stair wall. As you can see the pass thru to the kitchen is right there.

So here is my thought, do black cabinets for the banquette. I like the IKEA black laxarby.

Something like this, I will probably do some mixture of doors and open shelves on the upper portions.

And wet bar laid out like this. I'd love green cabinets in there but not sure that is too many cabinet styles in one space. My thought was that since you can see into the kitchen from there that the countertop needs to be the same material.

And here is what the wet bar would look like in black. But then the black countertop may not be a good choice.

let me note here I that the great room is very bright in that there are windows on 3 sides plus skylights.

View of great room with previous owners decor. Bar will be where the console and lamp is shown on right side of pic.

So so I guess the main thing I need to decide is if the banquette and wet bar need to be matching cabinetry.

Thoughts?