Merci! What are your range hood/venltilation plans? Island hoods are very prominent visual elements so you have to think about them right from the start. I don't much like the hanging-down cab between the window, but I think the upper horizontal cabs, if very carefully scaled to work well with the overall proportions of the windows (width and height proportions of front faces having a rhythmic relationship to the fixed dimensions of the window opening) would be very nice. And good place to store and display your glassware. Are you planning on using the glassed cabs as a form of lighting as well? One thing that might make them less looming is to have them made in some less-than-standard depth. At that height several rows (arrayed back to front) of glasses might look cluttered whereas fewer would not. Since it sounds like you already live here, I would install a sturdy shelf above the windows and then mock-up proposed cab front widths/heights and put the glasses up there to see how you like them. (Beware if you have cats - mine seem to be able to get up to impossibly high shelves, apparently for the express purpose of testing whether the Law of Gravity is still in force. You could check how the glasses look by penning the pests up, or out, while you study the visual effect.) One possible improvement would be to move the fridge to the other side of the kitchen to make unloading groceries easier: al your incoming food would be stowed from one central dropping-off point and going at once into the pantry or the fridge. This is the biggest issue for me that I would really try to work on. You also have your work areas predominatly stacked towards the left of the drawing in a kitch where you have plenty of room to arrange them differently. One question I do have is whether your scale on the drawing is correct. The called out measurements don't seem to line up with the graphed squares which is the usual convention (and one of the inherent advantages of using graph paper.). It will be easier to move stuff around if you decide on a common increment of inches for each square. Twelve inches per square is easy to work with, but six or three inches per square also work well, but one foot and three and three-quarters inches per square (15.75 inches per graph square) is a lot of unnecessary math! If this were my kitch, i would want to do some more work on how the zones are laid out relative to each other, and how the food and utensils move around within the kitchen with an eye to avoiding backtracking while cooking.. HTH L.

What's in the armoire? I would place it opposite the fireplace to serve as a visual counter balance to it. Then put your TV on the former armoire wall, above a credenza 25% wider than the TV. Hang large art 5" above the mantel. Use your sofa table behind the sofa without the buffet lamps (do you have a formal dining room for them?) Remove the bergere chair as it doesn't fit the casual feeling of the other seating pieces. Do you have a foyer where it would be pretty? Put the large armchair in its place. Try a new, more casual feeling rug and drapes. Replace all the other art and photos with new art. Hang pieces centered 5' above the floor or 5" above furniture. Upgrade all the lamps and add a nice ceiling fixture in place of the fan. If you like the idea of a mirror above the mantle, you could install a pretty chandelier to be reflected in it.

Any suggestions?

Hi thank you!!! A chandelier would look gorgeous, but I think the functionality of a fan wins out for us because with ceilings this high and a mountain climate, we need the fan to push the hot air down to the rest of the house in the winter. Is there such a thing as an attractive ceiling fan? (serious question!) I think we'll just put the little book case upstairs in the loft, which is desks and another book case anyway. So funny that y'all like the arches! We are so stuck on them. What do you think about squaring the one that goes to the staircase but keeping the others? It would sort of balance the visual impact of the other 4. Are you saying cover the beams with wood or just paint to match the room? or would you do another color? I have no design sense, but I see the potential too!