I think you have been in DIY remodel when the first call that should have been made was to an architect. As to the peninsula, it is choking the entrance to an already crowded kitchen. What are the purposes of both study and "studio" ?

At this point, your best call is still the arch, and structural engineer. Along with a KD.

In the meantime, a reconsider of the tall and bulky and heavy furnishings could help.

Irene Morresey - making it one large opening has occurred to me. I'm getting a quote as to how much more expensive it will be.

JAN MOYER - You are probably right about the DIY remodel. After doing minimum needed remodeling to the main house (converting the hall bathroom to a walk-in shower and changing the footprint of the kitchen) I've been focusing on the addition (we added a new Master Suite to an unfinished addition).

What is a KD?

STUDIO/ STUDY - I work from home altering wedding dresses and evening attire. The Studio is open to the living room with a low railing. For some reason, the floor is raised about 6 inches from the rest of the house (we think it might have pipes underneath it). The Study is for fabric storage, but mostly as a bedroom/ guest room. We currently have 6 people living in the house (and 2 apartments worth of stuff crammed into the main house and a tool shed while the owners of the apartments find a new place to live).

Patricia Colwell Consulting

You are probably right about the bookshelves in the living room. They were originally part of a larger piece and I was/am having trouble making myself get rid of them. Especially if I go through with enlarging the doorway or adding the "window," they will have to go anyway.

I would love to get rid of the pantry unit, but we are bursting at the seams already. That's where we keep all of our food. Even the top cabinet of the pantry is used regularly (most of the members of the family are 6 ft and up - I'm a "shorty" at 5'7".

I do intend to change it and the upper cabinets to a light cream or pale gray though, so it will feel a little less imposing. My husband hates painted wood, but the stain is too dark. I went overboard getting rid of all of the honey oak and restained everything that dark mahogany (in my defense, it looked great in our last kitchen... which was twice the size of this one

The dark stain was also to hide the "Frankenstein" issues from having to use mismatched cabinets and pre-existing cabinets that had been burned and dinged up because they fit the custom kitchen and we couldn't afford to rip everything out and start fresh). Eventually I hope to replace the upper cabinets and put new doors on the lower ones.

A KD is a kitchen designer:)

If one cannot afford new cabinets, one should not be considering taking down possibly load bearing walls or building an addition. You do need someone - KD and architect to help you determine a long term plan which allows you to save for the changes you want done well. You need professionals to direct you to the right order of the work you are planing on doing. I fear you may have to spend undo some of what you have already done because you did not have a long term plan. HGTV and similar make it all look so easy when it is not. Most do not have the training to see how to bring a large vision to reality. That is why we have professionals to help.

Take a breath. You have a nice livable home. It does not need to be perfect tomorrow - and with the constant flood of changing trends, it will never be magazine perfect, nor should it. It should be your home to reflect the space you want to live in without using up all you $$$. Many have lived happily in less. Be patient. Save up. Get some professionals involved.

jhmarie

Thank you, I'd never heard them called a KD before. :)

The reason we couldn't afford new cabinets was because we were focusing all of our resources on finishing the addition. It's finally done, so now we can focus on the main house again. I have tried to hire a KD but the ones I found would only help if we purchased their cabinets systems.

Maybe I found the wrong ID or maybe she was just overwhelmed by how fast we had to make decisions as the renovations proceeded and last minute decisions had to be made on the fly.

At this point, it's been easier to plan on my own (usually using CAD programs) and then ask for advice from others. So far it's worked OK although I have had to have people talk me off the ledge over some out-of-the box decisions every now and then.

Based on discussion here, I'm also trying to think of ways to lighten the kitchen/ dining room area. I'm planning on replacing the new upper cabinets in a light gray. I like the dark walnut for the bottom cabinets and plan to keep them that color in the kitchen. I'm not sure how to handle the pantry/ bar area though.

One option is to keep the bottom of the pantry dark to match the rest of the lower cabinets, but have the top half done in the same color as the upper cabinets. Maybe even add frosted glass to lighten it up even more (frosted to keep from showing the pantry items stuffed inside).

Or do the whole pantry in the light gray of the uppers.

Or to distinguish the peninsula as more a part of the DR instead of part of the kitchen and to lighten the area, I could put the peninsula base cabinets in the same light gray.

You NEED onsite design help. The mistake was not getting it day one! Before the addition !

Stop the cad programs , back up.

What you can't afford are more piecemeal results.

I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding what you want to accomplish. It seems like you want to lighten things up-- based on my view of the pictures the number 1 way to start in that direction is to remove I guess it's the pantry? that is overlapping the countertop on the peninsula.

I don't think the setup with the two level peninsula being chopped up by the pantry is helping anything. Essentially that pantry is destroying the looks of your very nice peninsula.

From the floor plan you seem to have quite a few other cabinets for food storage.

I am a big advocate of d-i-y generally, and design a lot of my own things, but I do think you need some help seeing the bigger picture here. Right now, I feel with the right advice you can get this renovation back on track before you make decisions that can't be easily recovered from.

I think hiring someone is going to save you a lot of money in the long run. Retrofitting glass into the pantry, and doing lots of little things won't resolve the issues as much as just dealing with a couple of big things!

I hope this helps and good luck :)

The PROBLEM is from day one, the kitchen needed to "bleed"to study. There are ways to deal with load bearing walls, headers etc. Beams and bridges span miles.

No, the window above the peninsula would not help. You already have the door connecting these two spaces. The window would add to the feeling of chaos and would look cluttered. Why lose the one peaceful wall space in the living room?

So I took y'all's advice and hired an interior designer. She solved most of my problems in less than 2 hours. 3 weeks later and in time for Christmas, my project is mostly done (just making plans for flooring and waiting for $ to replace and repaint cabinets)!!

* I removed the huge pantry and made the opening twice the width I'd originally planned.

* I removed all the paneling in the dining room (now it has orange peel texture like most of the rest of the house). I put up a small crown molding.

* I closed off a small pass-through in the kitchen. I'll fill that space with full size cabinets.

* I took the granite shelf from the original pass-through and moved it to the new opening. I put it at bar height and connected it to the peninsula bar. Almost immediately we started actually using the bar stools (a little more seating in the living room! Yay!

* I took a 24" base cabinet from near the refrigerator and connected it to the peninsula. (The granite guys making the changes were surprisingly affordable!!).

* I'll put a corner cabinet / pantry next to the refrigerator where the 24" base cabinet used to be.

* Because I closed up the old pass-through, I now had room for a lot more storage in my sewing studio (on the other side of the wall). So the decluttering of that room is finally moving forward!* I removed the funky railing and built a pony wall. It gave me a few extra inches in the room, more outlets, and made everything look purposeful. If we ever sell the house, we'll probably call the space a "breakfast room."

Even without the rest of the changes, all 4 spaces are used so much more and the place feels more open.

Thanks everyone for helping me think outside of the box!

Great choices! Though I argued for not opening the wall, I think that closing up the other pass-through makes the new one make sense. Can we see a photo of the 24" cabinet and the new (reused) granite ledge on the new pass-through? I would love to see before and after photos from inside the kitchen, looking toward the peninsula and new opening. If "before" is not available, the "after" would still be nice to see.

I like that closing off your work room a bit is making it better for you there. I also added a half wall in my home. Mine was between the kitchen and family room, where previously there had been a 6" drop-off in the flooring. Like you, we appreciate the doubling of number of electrical outlets that this wall gave us. No one is stepping off the ledge anymore, either!

Nancy Barbour - Things aren't done yet, but here are the pictures I think you're asking for:

The new peninsula counter tops -

Before:

Currently:

End Goal:

Studio Half Wall:

When we bought the house:

Before we closed the passthrough (and after we added a room to the right of the studio):

Now:

Looks like there was a glitch on a couple of the pictures.

Here's what was supposed to be there for "End Goal"

And this is what the studio looked like when we bought the house (before we added the additional room):

Apparently Houzz hates the photo I was going to use here (it keeps deleting it). So you'll have to use your imagination. Here's a different one.

The house has come a long way! (This isn't the most recent "Final" Floorplan but my Paint Shop program is glitching.

Wow! That space that became your studio was an awkward space when you bought the house. You made it into so much more than it had been. From the photos, the "dining room" space you have off the peninsula end of the kitchen is barely bigger than a breakfast room, yet there is a separate breakfast nook in the living room. Plus, there is the peninsula "breakfast bar." If the house designer had simply put the space of the the two together somewhere, the house would have had a nice sized dining room. But then you would not have had your nice studio right in the "action center" of the home. I so like your studio space for that reason - you can keep an eye on cooking, on others in the living room, and the comings and goings of family members without leaving your work space. You can work and not be cut off from family. This design seems to really work for you.

I see that you also had the peninsula cabinet closest to the wall turned around so that the drawers and doors are in the dining area now. I like the 24" cab in its new place and think the small cab you are waiting for will really finish off the space there.

Thank you, Nancy in Mich. :)

The garage was converted in the early 80's. What is now the "Dining Room" was originally the living room. That's why the layout seems so weird/ awkward.

They converted the garage to a living room and added the "Stage"/ Dining Room (now my studio). They built a wall to close off the kitchen and added a door and the pass-through. They also added the corner fireplace.

I'm not totally sure how they used the spaces but I suspect my studio was used as the dining room. I do know the whole house was all dark paneling with ancient carpets until they painted it and put in all new carpeting to put it on the market.

I'm not sure when they added the addition and large patio to the back of the house. Sometime after the garage conversion is all I know.

1971 Original (to the best of my knowledge) -

Original when we moved in and what it looks like now -