We have a wood look in the kids/guest bath and it's very easy to care for. The tiles are 6x18 and we moved the 2nd row down 1/2 of a tile so every-other-row matches. Sorry, I have no idea what the technical name for the layout is. We fitted them as close as we could and used a dark grout--we matched the darkest color in the tile. I've seen our brownish tile with thick, dark gray grout and it looks really bad. I don't think any non-matching color would look right. our color has been discontinued but they still have 2 colors available. They used to have a dark and med brown and dark and light grey in addition to the ones still available. There is another company out there that sells very similar tile.. I saw some just a few days ago. As for porcelain or ceramic.. not sure of specifics off hand but I remember googling it and coming to the conclusion that one wasn't really better than the other if they both were 'good' tile. Here is a link that might be useful: gres porcellanato

I think she is saying to put the sink where the stove is and the stove on the wall opposite the peninsula (where all the cabinets are.) This would still give you a view, only better because you would be able to see out both windows. This would also help break up that wall of cabinets at that end. In my house our kitchen is open to the dining room and I would never expect someone to sit at the island and eat instead of taking three or four more steps to the dining room table and you would essentially have that same setup with your peninsula and dining room. My first thought was that the end where all the cabinets are is a great place for a banquette, but I had not gotten further than that to the cooking space layout. Can you share a link of your layout? There should be a way to email yourself, and the email will contain a link you can share here with us and we can play around with it. :o) But not destroy your original design, of course.

Since you DIYed the bath, I assume you will be doing a lot of the work in the kitchen, mudroom, and butler's pantry. It's good that you are looking at all of the areas together to try and get an overall idea before changing walls. However, since you are relatively newly married, have a baby, and also the house is fairly new, as many of us have mentioned above, your needs in this house are going to change in ways that none of us can actually predict. If you begin with the kitchen, for which you have a good plan that only needs to be tweaked, by the time you finish it your child will be older, you may have another one, and it may be clearer whether you want a laundry or storage in the butler's pantry. When the kitchen remodeling is finished and after your wife uses it for a few months, she will have a better idea of what she might need space for in the butler's pantry. Coming and going during a couple of more winters will help you think through how best to configure the mudroom/breakfast area once the kitchen walls have been changed. Keep mulling over the many possibilities, but since your wife loves to cook and bake, it would be nice for her to focus on and begin the kitchen. It's the most important of the rooms anyway. Make the wall changes you have drawn in, and the other rooms will be fine. You might try putting a small chest, table, or IKEA shelves in the SE corner of the breakfast area to see if something more permanent (upper and lower cabinets?) would be a good place to park the laptop, charge phones, keep cookbooks, have a few toys, etc. (BTW, as per an earlier comment, putting a bench under a window in a cold climate area, even with new energy efficient windows, would probably be a little cool at night or on non-sunny days, so you might want to rethink this.) You could put a pantry/cleaning supplies closet on the wall opposite the door to the basement. Since either guests kids/family will always be using the bathroom on the first floor, it doesn't seem like there would be any point in putting a pocket door between the kitchen and butler's panty--when would you ever close it? In designing the kitchen, mudroom, and whatever the butler's pantry becomes, it would be very helpful if you and your wife make a list of EVERYTHING that you have, or might have in the future, that would need a shelf, drawer, cabinet, closet, etc. and plan to have them stored as close to where you will use them as possible. List the three rooms, and then put the "stuff" under whichever room works best for you. That will help you with your design. Some people on this forum have already made lists and could share them with you. Anne

Curious Bystander, that is very similar to what I had in mind, and also similar to deedles' mobile cart/cabinet (her kitchen still amazes me!): I posted this one yesterday on another thread--the cart fits under the ovens, and has a fold-down section on the back: About the pantry door opening against the pull-out--it would depend on your door style and hardware. You can put filler between the cabinets, if you are worried about the door handle dinging the side of the pull-out. You can also get little cables that limit the door swing, if you have kids that might not remember to open the door gently. I have upper cabinets that open against each other in a corner, and have no problem, but maybe we've just grown used to not banging one door into the other. There is a current kitchen reveal thread with a white kitchen and a beautiful fridge/pantry wall--ssharris03's kitchen: I happen to love that wall, but if it's not the look you want, that's OK. A 12" base isn't going to be very useful unless you are storing large cutting boards and sheet pans there--drawers in a 12" cabinet have very little interior space. I do like the idea of the landing space on the right side of the fridge, and that would be a good spot for the MW. Images--fridge/pantry walls