We will be getting a stand-alone range hood when we redo our small kitchen and buy the Bertazzoni gas range. I've grown totally displeased with any kind of food storage above a cooktop/oven because of the moth/meal worm problems when you try to store things there. And with our kitchen having only short amounts of walls, I would be much better off with having open shelves along the walls adjacent to the stove anyway. Across the room where the sink is, we'll add a garden window there, and a nice olf fashioned plate rack over the dishwasher. Even though we are taking in our 7x14' backporch as part of the kitchen, the upper portion there will remain as window panels. This will be a mostly bottom base cabinet kitchen, and mostly have drawers. To gain more space, we are building a window seat under the pair of dining room windows, and opening the wall between the two rooms to make at least a 4' wide passageway. At either end of the windowseat (also used for additional dining seating), I will place the 24x88"" rollout pantry and the 24x88"" tall cabinet w/5 drawers etc from IKEA. The pricing on those two units together are less than the metal insert alone, from another pantry rollout manufacturer. This will give us more than enough storage to compensate for lack of wall cabs. I plan to put most of my dishes in the drawers with the proper hardware inserts that IKEA makes for storing everything. I'm looking forward to buying these two items soon even before we begin work on the kitchen remodel. There are a few individual pieces of furniture in use on a HAVE TO DO SOMETHING basis, and they will be cleared away. That has to be a good thing. If you want to see the two tall cabs I mention, look at the IKEA 2010 Kitchen catalog on p. 78 and 79.

I'm not a fan of the 3" matching granite strip as a backsplash. It's been discussed here before, and many think it's dated. In looking at your photos and plans, I can see why you'd do that. Do you have enough storage that you can go without the uppers? Even if you'd need to get a step stool, you might consider putting them in for items you don't need to reach often. Without cabs, were you planning some art work or the like in those spots? Maybe frame one of those cool wall drawings to hang there? ;)

french toast: Our look is transitional. I just wasn't sure if a cabinetry wood type hood would look right without any surrounding cabinets on that wall. And, we will have an induction cooktop. I can't seem to find any pictures of this sort of setup with a lone cabinetry hood as the only upper with an induction cooktop. The zinc hood is definitely out of budget. We might consider the brushed SS option depending on what the cost is vs wood.

damiarain We are leaning toward the raised bar. It gives a sense of definition of the 2 spaces yet gives a sense of openness. We also don't want to see pots and pans and dirty dishes from the eating table. We have not gotten far enough to decide on backsplashes yet. We will be getting cabinets that are 40 high. They are 2" shy of the ceiling, so we will have to add molding to give it the full-height cabinet look. ceiling height is 96" I use the program on my PC because it's much much faster! After that, when things are settled, then I use the Ikea planner, which I am working on right now. It is a super-slow program and impossible for me to zip around to design something from scratch. And the renderings are full of lines with walls in the way, etc. I don't like the program, but it's a good way to get an estimate of costs.