OK... first time all day that someone is not screaming or crying in my house. Crazy day today. Lavender- I wish I could see more pics of that kitchen. It's great. It even has the same cabinet style/color, island color, and flooring that we are planning to have in our kitchen. The 1 car garage is 15'10" wide. Is that big enough to steal space from it? I'm pretty sure we are limited by the property line restriction on the sides of the house. Our lot is 110' wide and 235' deep with untouchable natural green space in the back 1/3 of it. (100'x235' treed natural green space on the west side that is owned by the development.) Bump outs are a bit tricky because of our lot limitations. We hesitated to bump the kitchen out too much because it will limit our backyard patio and landscaping space. A lot of the odd bumps in the floorplan is because during the design process we did a 1' bump out of the kitchen, and several feet to the music room. Both rooms used to be even with the rest of the house. Lyfia- we put the master in that location of the house because of the view. :) Plus, I've never liked the idea of the master bedroom or bath being on the front of the house. Peytonroad- Thanks! Someone else pointed out the wasted space in the mudroom/powder room area. I'll have to keep thinking about that one. You all have given such great ideas and things to think about! I'm not sure if I mentioned this on this thread, but we've hired an independent architect to oversee the build. I'm meeting with her soon so that we can go over any of my concerns. This thread has been wonderful to collect ideas and issues to bring to her. Would love to hear any other ideas if you think of more. You all have been wonderful! Thanks so much!

I know what you mean by "feature wall"....our home had 3 landings, being a split level,and it does make it nicer to stylize some of those pause and turn spots. However, a feature wall shouldn't command your planning. Gaining the enlarged space at family room area would be wise. You won't believe how much you will love that end of the home if you are going to do this. [ours was a great room built into the split level design in 1960-ahead of it's time and it still is current..it wasn't a mcmansion by any means-just really liveable].a few options: on "featurewall"-is a return down at the right by the UP staircase...perhaps use the right half of the wall therefore for building the closet ....keep the left half for the "feature"....then,the entrance to study [justone] could be moved to hallway area. If the depth of the return on the right can't work then perhaps cripple the studs and build closet going deeper back into sq footage of study....that gives you interesting options-like 2 hinged closets with solid wood carved doors vs bifold door for one closet. Doors can be quite the feature these days.for the size of study..allow for basics and not much extra.. can really be a counter these days....some storage....room for a 2nd chair and ESPECIALLY, an in/out that does not mix in much with the living part of home. If someone wants to tutor/home school/have a sewing business/see any type of customer, the NON mxing of the entry with main areas of home will be valuable. back to the closet thing: at the other entry points of home are there drop zones/closets? this is why waiting on the project really benefits because the finer points/needs emerge after you live there. I'd try shaving 3 feet off the 13 foot length of study for starters.tinker some with this part of the plan-you'll get the kitchen you want so work on the hall/study for a bit....you have wasted space currently.

Hi. Just an update on the fabric for my window treatments in the kitchen. I received a pretty nice size swatch of the Patna Paisley Spice as discussed in this thread with a picture attached above. Those who responded back felt that the pattern would work well in my kitchen. We hung the swatch in various locations and we do love the fabric and it definitely works well on the side of my kitchen with the window located near the back door but doesn't seem to work as well on the window above the sink due to placement near the cabinets. There doesn't seem to be enough contrast when put up against the cabinets - in fact the fabric seems to match the cabinets too much.. Please refresh your memory with the pics I posed above.. With that said, since we love the fabric so much, I was wondering if you thought I could add a separate solid fabric (possibly dark brown/bronze) to the Patna Paisley fabric to add some contrast. If you look closely at the picture posted of the fabric, you will see that there is a little bit of that color running through some of the paisleys now, but not near enough. Since we plan on making relaxed roman shades, I am wondering if there is a way to add some other fabric to our design. Maybe sew some solid brown fabric to the bottom of the shade where it curves? Or maybe there is some other area in the design that we could add the brown. What do you think? I just think we need a little more "pop" and I thought the brown might do it since there are many bronze accents in the room. Thanks to all for your responses.. This post was edited by frank1203 on Mon, Feb 10, 14 at 6:19

Yes, exactly. The term "white kitchen" has been around a long, long time, and when I was a kid, a "white kitchen" could include aqua Formica or floral wallpaper or red linoleum floors or whatever. Oh-kay. I'll get to work on the post. Oh, I was thinking of not specifying the house style, just specifying what it was not. When did the sanitary movement really get going? I want a house that is not late Vic, Craftsman era or early '20s--nothing near Edwardian.