@smalloldhouse - thanks for that link and ideas! It looks so nice what you have done! @kirkhall - my hope is to primarily eat at a stool counter facing into the kitchen… so I can look at the garden. The stairs come up almost literally into the bathroom. It is not so great. Hmmmm, I don't know which I would prefer to lose in terms of doorways. I *think* the one closest to the stairs? Ok, here is the drawing of my current thought…. Sorry for the weird drawings, but I didn't know how to do it. That dark blob on the drawing is me trying to depict a bar-stool counter that faces the seaters looking at the door to the deck/garden (with cabinets on the kitchen side) :) Also I have it now so that the door to the deck starts a food from the wall (and is a smaller door) so that I can put a shallow set of base cabinets (and shelving) along the wall that is shared with the 1/2 bath. I am still unsure about where to place the fridge and whether I should seal off the entrance closest to the bathroom, as suggested by @kirkhall above. In the drawing I have done that. If I do it, I would put shallow cabinets and shelving there too, I am guessing. Although maybe I could somehow put the fridge there? Or maybe that is weird? Thoughts? Clearly I am still open! This post was edited by LSSF on Sun, Jun 29, 14 at 3:11

Everything is flexible except the island. It isn't a question of just wanting one but as physical requirement for functionality. It doesn't matter how pretty a room is if it isn't functional. I got hurt in a car accident and after 5 years and 18 surgical procedures on my back I have to have an island I can customize to my needs because I just can't stand for hours on a hard floor anymore. However, thank you to everyone for shaking me to my senses. Sometimes you just can't shave the corners off to make a square peg fit a round hole. I really do know better. The family business involved every phase of real estate from pour the foundation to warehousing the mortgage loans. Unfortunately the family member that could always get me to move past a mental block has already passed away. I am about to get even with my husband for changing my color scheme that eliminated the sink I wanted. The sink and the island were the two things on my list and I am not about to spend a large amount of money and do the majority of the labor and not get at least one of the things I want. Therefore, there is only one solution. I can't steal the extra width from the office/library, therefore I have put a call into friend of mine that is a contractor to give me a ballpark price on drying in an addition. I can take it from there. So let's see if I can knock out three birds with one stone. I need a master suite, the deck needs to be replaced AND the kitchen enlarged. The blue line is a possible outside wall location:When the foundation is poured for the addition, I will have them pour enough for a patio to replace the deck. Then the roof for the addition can also extend to cover the patio. I already have plans for a new deck drawn up so I know where all the plumbing and electrical needs to be for the outdoor living room and kitchen. Here is a closer picture of the available square footage and possible addition:As for the kitchen, it can be completely gutted and everything moved. I bumped the outside wall out 8 feet but if anybody has a brilliant idea that needs more room the line is easy to adjust. I have one shot at this because I won't change it again other than paint or drapes. Since I will have to make adjustments to the roof line, I should be able to fix the ceiling height. Since any window would open out onto a covered patio, a skylight may not be a bad idea to bring in light. I mainly use upper cabinets for anything I need regularly. Since I can now access all the room I need I will bump the base cabinets up to 30" depths. Necessities in the kitchen: 1. ISLAND 2. Wall Oven (So it can be raised high enough to be easy for me to get things in and out of it. Currently, I have the microwave above the oven.) 3. Door going to the outside (I use it for ventilation and the storm door has a door for the dogs in it.) 4. Dishwasher on right hand side of a 33" double sink. 5. Upper cabinet within reach of the dishwasher for a short person. 6. Enlarge the little bathroom enough for a pedestal sink and have a door that opens into the kitchen (that way there is a restroom available close to the patio for when we have company). 7. 36" Cook top 8. Refrigerator The room directly below the kitchen used to be a two car garage that somebody closed in but just put carpet down instead of actually putting in a floor with insulation. The floor is about two feet lower than the kitchen floor. I use the 5'x9' closet for a lot of my storage including all the vegetables I can from the garden. I could move the closet to opposite the washer and dryer to create a laundry room/walk in pantry and the current exterior door could be the main entrance. By doing this addition I have to address the entrance from the garage to the kitchen. We normally park the car, walk down the side of the house and go in the sliding glass door right above the kitchen. Having to go around that addition would be a long hike carrying in groceries. After that all the square footage left over can be used for the master suite. I thought about converting the three bedrooms on the main level into a master suite and have all the extra bedrooms downstairs but it is never a great idea to reduce the number of bedrooms if it can be avoided. So I just have to figure out how to get the suite to fit in the space available.At least this way I can have roughly a 20'x20' bedroom with 10 foot ceilings so it is in scale with the bedroom furniture. Yep, my husband is going to really wish when I showed him the granite slab I wanted that he said, "That looks wonderful dear. Would you like me to go pick up that copper sink for you?"

Let your husband know that the microwave exhaust fans are not very good at venting. A dedicated vent works much better. You also don't want to crowd the cooking area - both in the way the microwave itself crowds the range and in people using the microwave while someone is cooking. Many don't have another place for a microwave, but you do. If you really don't want it over the range, let him know its the place of last resort to the pros. I am not a pro, but I've been on this forum long enough to know what they think about the venting of over the range microwaves:) One option is to be sure to remove the micro if you tile the backsplash and then put it back. Then when it breaks down you can get a hood later. Another is to be sure to reserve enough tile to fill in the area later if you choose to change out to a hood at a later date.

Yes, this is a penthouse located in the El Poblado district of Medellin, Colombia and it is located next door to the Marriott Medellin property (you can see the Marriott building across the street from the window in the video). I am currently deciding how to develop floor plans - I noticed https://youtube.com/c/Ayuh1103 - I am talking with her now and she charge $1 USD/sq foot and makes some very nice 2D and 3D models using a program called PLANNER 5D (which has a catalog of 5000+ interior design elements!) Does anyone have any suggestions for a floorplan program? I have attached the plans I created in floorplancreator.net