Thank you so much everyone for your comments. I was leaning towards the first or second fixture because they have halogen lighting, and I read that halogen lighting is best for the bathroom. However, I've been hesitant because I'm not crazy about the style. Those are out. Now it's between the third and fourth fixtures. I'm going for a more contemporary look in the bathroom, so I prefer the style of the fourth fixture. Can polished brass be contemporary? The downside is that I would have to get it in polished brass to go with the rest of my bathroom, and I think the brass takes away from the contemporary look. Would chrome look okay? My shower door and tub fixtures are all polished brass, but the sink faucet and cabinet knobs are two toned brass and chrome. The sink and tub are about 8 inches apart. I like the third fixture because it is two-toned, but the look is a bit traditional. Athensmomof3 (love that name), my medicine cabinet is directly above the sink. I've been looking at make-up mirrors. It's too late to get one that's hardwired. I've seen a lighted mirror that plugs in, and you can remove the cord from the mirror when it's not in use. I might get that one.

This might sound like a lot of work right now, but have you considered painting the cabinets white? I love the chair rail and the wainscoting in the dining room, but your cabinets do not really match that style right now. Your Kitchen would look fabulous with white cabinets and a white subway tile back splash. No matter what you do, I would suggest changing the hardware to a stainless steel. In the mean time have you considered a brown/putty color for the walls? I think that I too would go more neutral. Stay away from yellows since your cabinets have a lot of yellow in the wood. For example a brown like this picture. I think it would really play up your current kitchen cabinets. I would stick with the same color below and above the chair rail. Brown- Benjamin Moore Branchport Brown, Benjamin Moore Woodacres, Benjamin Moore Stampede, Sherwin-Williams Cobble Brown, Sherwin-Williams Van Dyke Brown (shown below), Behr Traditional.

I want to be logical, and not try to design my whole house around a dream kitchen, but alas, I am after all, TKO. Talk me down? I am flailing here, as you will see. I feel your pain because I'm in nearly the same position as you except it's my roof lines that are driving me batty. I've gone through countless iterations of what I want on my first floor and because I have fewer room needs than your plans shows, meaning fewer combinations, I've tried my hand at playing with orientations in order to achieve my multiple goals. What I'm finding is that no matter what I do, when I pull on the string in one place the rest of the tapestry is affected, so design, as I see it (I'm no professional) has to flow organically, one feature flowing naturally into the next. I'm sensing that you're hitting that same wall - the combination of shapes/orientations isn't working throughout the whole house. I wouldn't hesitate for even a moment in scraping a plan that you don't feel completely comfortable with and I wouldn't for a moment think that you're illogical for building a whole plan around your kitchen. I'm pretty much doing that right now. What I found was that the kitchen was the room that was/is driving me the battiest, so if I start with a blank slate (still mindful of my conditions, which in your case would be the underground garage plus other points) and then play around with the kitchen shape + workflow + adjoining rooms & features and get those issues mostly settled in the kitchen then the rest of the house can flow outwards from there. I noticed that your architects original plan had an angled section and that he put secondary rooms in there, leaving the primary rooms in the traditional square/block pattern. The square rooms are definitely easier to work with. Your attempt at a compromise put a functional room into the angled wing and this created an awkward junction between the family room and the kitchen right at the kitchen. Why not continue the angle with the kitchen included and then try to use the space where the two wings of the house meet in a way that serves a purpose. So my words of advice to you are to break the problems down into individual problems and then try to solve one at a time before proceeding to the next. Count on a 3 steps forward, 2 steps back type of process as you'll find yourself going back to what you think you had solved which now presents as a problem due to something you've just done, and then begin the process again, one step at a time. I don't know what you want to accomplish with the kitchen design, but one thing I would try is to orient the kitchen with the family room. In your crooked picture, find the point where the DR meets the kitchen and draw your 45 wall starting there. Then draw another 45 line right at your door, losing the little window wall to the left of the entry. Now the awkward angled space is right where your pantry and closets are located and it is here that you can hide the awkward space into secondary rooms. You have a lot of room to work with in your kitchen space, so mix it up, try things that you normally wouldn't, and may well reject, but try these new ideas in order to see how they play out and how they affect other aspects of your plan. Try bumpouts, try peninsulas, try a banquette, try a bay window, try an irregular shaped room (beyond just a room at a 45 angle to the adjacent room.) Most importantly though is to spell out what you want in your kitchen and which of the designs that you posted most speaks to you.

Your kitchen layout looks fabulous...Here is a link to a great kitchen with three huge windows over sink as focal point...similar to your inspiration kitchen. (It's the Cote de Texas site with 101 great kitchen elements). http://cotedetexas.blogspot.com/2009/01/kitchens-101-elements-to-copy. You should also look at jen4268's posting of the update of her gorgeous creamy kitchen. She has three beautiful windows above her sink...