Angelclub, Now that I redid my 5" wide floors with the long boards (BR-111 Brazilian Cherry Engineered) since I had water damage in my home with Triangulo 3.25" wide boards that were all so short, I am disappointed in how the installers installed the floors in certain very noticeable areas with seams lined up and patterns instead of random and stacking similar colors to make long boards look longer. I did not know what you meant when you mentioned you like to be involved as you like floors to be random and now I totally see what you mean. I wish I could redo a section of my new floors. I also now wish I went with the wider boards only because they were longer. This post popped up in my email box as someone like a comment I made so I was happy to reread the comments.

I think that small houses can benefit from boundary definition to a greater extent than larger houses can, sometimes. (think of Sarah Susanka) Many people here take out the small vestibules here in their 12-15 foot wide houses, for example, thinking it will make the front room larger. It doesn't, because with a wall there you can back any sort of furniture right up to the wall, where it is technically inches away from the front door, but with the wall gone, people will not put something that close to the front door, and Never something large that would seem to block or crowd it. In a large house it doesn't matter as much. You can leave a 3 foot gap for visual separation and float pieces away from the walls. In this situation I would easily place an end table or the arm of a sofa close to a small wall there, because the wall would indicate that it was "in another room/space". Without the wall there, I would not put it so close because it might visually look like it is straddling between rooms.

Thanks! Your design would be very attractive. I was trying to cut cost down with only two base cabinets. Wanna achieve a similar look to this: https://www.houzz.com/photos/needham-bar-traditional-home-bar-boston-phvw-vp~109768-Bar-traditional-kitchen-boston. My original design is in the link at the bottom. The L shape is a bar height half wall with 20" wide countertop. The L corner is cut off on both sides to accommodate a bar stool but I can't draw it out. The outside and inside of the half wall will be trimmed with moulding in a similar style of the cabinets. I don't have cabinets planned for the inside of the L because of lack of space and budget. I plan to use Conestoga RTA cabinets and the current quote is $2500 for just the full wall side. Their TW-10 door and ebony colourtone paint looks similar enough to my inspiration picture. Any idea where to find a 24" stainless steel or black mini fridge that won't break the bank? I've checked out GE, KA, Maytag, Uline, Perlick, Electrolux and all are way over my budget. Here is a link that might be useful:

thanks for the kind words! I'm just going to reply to those who asked questions but I do very much appreciate your comments. general note- I've had the appliances all over my house for the past 5 years! Pretty much all of it was closeout/clearance/ebay / or craigslist. Imaging my sigh of relief when one by one, they turned on and worked. I did resell some of the extras that I could not fit in, that I had purchased for a larger kitchen expansion. Having the appliances made it "easy" in a sense to plan the layout since it constrained the choices. I had been thinking about this last plan for a few months already by the time I met with Lorna, the Dutchwood kitchen designer, so I was able to send her all the specs on the appliances and she worked out the details to make it fit into the layout I wanted. I did ask for maximum ventilation height of the induction cooktop above the 30 inch oven. dccurlygirl- I brought lots of pictures of things that I had pinned - toekick drawers, pullout cutting boards, cut down drawer for Stages sink shelf, cut-down drawers for 36" cooktop over 30 inch oven, dividers in my pots/pan drawer, custom paneled appliances etc , most of them from gardenweb postings, and Lorna worked them into the plan. In their showroom, they had the pullout cutting boards and toekick drawers in their displays already. One thing I did not post is the electric trash opener for the trash drawer under the sink which was also in their display, it is a big hit with my whole family. I provided the "asks" and Lorna either worked it in or told me if it couldn ot be completed for whatever reasons. I am including one picture of just the fridge wall here so that you can see the level of detail and customization in these plans (BTW the fridge wall is partial overlay and again not one person has noticed that) . Dutchwood is used to working with paneled appliances and appropriate spacing- at the end I wrung out another inch or so of space from Jason for my pantry on that wall over a few emails, the last bit he gave me was 1/8 inch by reducing the overlay to 1/2 inch on the pantry only instead of 5/8 inch on the rest of that wall (that happened after these plans). They were super accommodating with my wishes. lannegreen, here is the "overview" layout , it's a little hard to read but the dishwasher is under the kitchen window around the corner from the sink. It is paneled which is why you could not identify it in the picture. It is at the base of the "U" with 24 inches space on one side and 24 inch space on the sink side. I can stand on both sides and unload dishes. I have the Lemans unit in that blind cabinet between the sink and the dishwasher, so the toekick between the dishwasher and the sink was made removable to install and access the plumbing. This was suggested by the inspection office of my county when I called to explain the problem (before I found a contractor). The removable toekick was the only think that I found surprisingly expensive at Dutchwood but it was more than balanced by the reasonable cost of everything else ($90 for toekick drawers for example). AineLane, here are more picture of my "sitting bay." It cost slightly less than $5000 all told (including moving electrical and adding foam insulation under the exterior Azek cladding, tempered windows since I have all boys :) ), measures 78 inches wide internally by 18 inches deep. Much cheaper than adding a 40k breakfast room or an 80k large kitchen expansion as I first planned. I have a custom cushion for it now and my teen boys enjoy lounging and napping there. The key is to seat it low enough to the ground to make it comfortable for sitting (16" height). I also specified the weight that it had to be able to carry (600 lb). The style is known as a "box bay" and the brand is Sunrise windows. I purchased their premade "projected frame" window through their authorized contractor and he worked with me on the other details. My good friend and former nanny came by to visit the other day and barely noticed the kitchen renovation, she was so taken with the sitting bay. Exterior of original windows New box bay replacing old windows. Somehow those bay walls bring in a lot more light into the space. We also really like watching all the small wildlife outside that we could not reall see before. In terms of the layout, it gave us enough "breathing space" and sitting area that I could put 16 inch deep drawers on that side of the peninsula. I added an undercounter fridge (paneled, it is next to the wall) on that side as well with the idea that the "coffee center" would be accessed from that side. The light, animal/ibird watching, and perceived airiness is a huge bonus. This post was edited by scrappy25 on Fri, Dec 5, 14 at 18:51