I posted this already and who knows where it is, but it's a crazy non-sequitor in someone's thread. And you probably saw these anyway. Here is a jib thanks to chijim and Arch. Digest. You can see it, but all this says is "THIS door isn't as important as the others". I have seen Obvious jib doors in dining rooms that said "The Servants Come in through here, You Don't". Speaking of Dining Rooms. See the columns here. Notice the wall thickness. Notice also that they ranked the orders, with lower order on the pilaster and higher order on the full column: This dining room would only be improved by DeGournay grisaille paper with the figures in color. That would be On Crack. Please do a scenic in your dining room. It would only add another $20K to $50K to the budget. What bugs me in this picture is the "smoke" coming out of the mirror over the mantle.

We use the dining room for most every meal. ''Nice'' dishes, glassware, and silver live in built-ins, glassware cabinets, and sideboard in the dining room. Along with everything else - souvenirs, trinkets, priceless ceramic blobs the kids made in preschool, random batteries, a microscope, various large Lego edifices laying siege to each other, and now a landing platform for Imperial troopships, ringed with laser cannon. Daily dishes, glassware, and silver live in the kitchen, which is a Lego-free zone. The theory is, for everyday meals we often plate in the kitchen, so might as well keep the everyday plates in the kitchen. Although, we often plate nice meals in the kitchen too. Salt and pepper mini-grinders live on the dining table, and napkins in the built-ins in the dining room. There are three sideboards in the dining room - two built-in and one free-standing - so there is plenty of plunking or buffet space. Too much, actually. Nature abhors a vacuum. Serving plates live on the plate rails around the dining room walls, and nicer serving utensils live in the dining room sideboard. Two thoughts about rushing around. First, the narrow doorway between the kitchen and the dining room is the most likely place for collisions, and all things considered, it is best if the breakage is of our daily dishes rather than the china. So we want to minimize how much the china gets carried around - in teetering stacks, by some distracted child skipping to his iPod tunes - the daily stuff can break all it wants, I'm not too bothered. Second, I find the rush is most frantic before the meal, and that's when the collisions and dropsies are most common. After the meal, the guests have left and the kids are somehow absent, so it is just SWMBO and me cleaning up - there's not too much bumping and dropping potential, presuming there's not been too much drinking. So we try to minimize the haulage ahead of the meal. I find the gallon jug of milk so irritating on the dining table, especially when some feeble-fingered child drops it and milk goes flooding. If I had more inner Martha, I'd serve milk into graceful glass decanters. In a perfect world, there would be a concealed pump and hard lines carrying milk to dispensers in the dining room. In a perfect world, I'd have a passthrough to set arranged plates, and a little bell to slap. Yes, my ''perfect world'' is quite a bit different from my real world. For one thing, there would be no space battles raging while we eat.

What I would do if it were my kitchen: 1. move the DOvens to the R of cooktop 2. make that sink area to the L of fridge = clean up zone: - make sink bigger, and - put the DW to the L of the sink 3. Move island sink toward the R (closer to patio): I like to come in from patio to wash my hands after being in the garden, etc. - So now island/cooktop = prep/cook area, clear path to fridge, w/out the rare use of Oven in the way 4. Clean up/putting away clean dishes has its own zone So much potential; great space. Make it awesome! Amanda

I agree with Jan, IMO the mirror overwhelms the space. As far as window treatments, drapes are soft and would be in keeping with the style of your furniture. I have a pair of antique buffet lamps on my buffet (look like crystal candlesticks with brass bases) along with a much loved pale blue Chinese war horse statue and an antique brass and blue tin. You could get a painting and sit it on the buffet instead of hanging, then add some side interest. It just depends upon what you like. Have fun with it, you can always swap out pieces!