Earlier this year we had (custom) cabinets made and installed in what we call the den (aka study / home office). The room is still not yet unpacked because my two year-old likes to "help," so I do piecemeal when he's napping. Hopefully by the new year it'll be functional. Ha ha! Not saying which new year .... The home office is for me because I am the one who pays bills / organizes / manages our family's life. I also do calligraphy and envision doing it there. My children are little but I can only imagine that as they grow they'll have more projects / paperwork, and now we have one room dedicated to just that! We have a lot of cabinetry in there (it's practically a kitchen!) and the (high-end) custom cabinetry alone (not inc. installation) was about $10,500. (I'm in Colorado.) I looked at some stock and semi-custom lines and those gave me less for more, meaning for a similar set-up (but not perfect) the quote was between $13,000 and $14,000 (for KraftMaid at HD); StarMark was a little more than $14,000 and UltraCraft was ~$11,000. This is the "computer" wall (the cpus, printer, scanner / copier, modems, etc. are contained in the big cupboard on the left -- it has pull-out shelves and channels for wires); it's about thirteen feet long: We have two work stations (one is currently holding a portable radiator, the other a box), again with a channel under the desktop (which was included in the price -- I love it!) to hold wires for monitors, phone, etc. The long drawers under the computer cupboard is file storage, and each work station has its own bank of three drawers. This is the bookcase / sofa wall, a little less than thirteen feet: Our GC said he could've built the bookcases for us (propping them atop the drawer banks which are kinda obscured by the boxes ...), but it was actually less expensive for us to have the cabinetmaker make them. Over in the Kitchens Forum buehl did her kitchen through Expo and she has some v. unsavory stories about that experience. I don't know if it was just her space or just her Expo or what; we don't have an Expo in CO so it was never an option for me, but her stories scared me. Anyway, to me the money we spent in the den was a lot of money -- don't get me wrong -- but I absolutely believe we will reap its rewards for years and years to come, both in terms of utility and also my sanity (in not going crazy about having important papers scattered all over which drives me bananas).

I have a countertop model microwave on a shelf on the working side of my island. We don't use it all that often so I didn't want it to be more prominent or expensive. I don't really mind the gaps, you just have to clean them out periodically but it's not difficult. (We left extra room on the sides for venting purposes, you don't want a tight fit with a countertop model.) one of the cons that you didn't mention is that it can be difficult to see the numbers/controls when it's at a lower angle. That wasn't something I'd realized until after we made the decision to treat our microwave this way. However, we don't actually find it to be all that inconvenient... it was worse when the microwave was new to us, but we pretty much use the same buttons over and over and you get it memorized quickly and there's no real need to actually see the controls. I'm sure there are others who use their microwaves for more functions, but we are not one of those households so this works very well for us. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I would have still made this decision for microwave style and placement, but I still wanted you to be aware of that additional con. :)

Some concepts I’ve toyed with. I’m just not great with scale or conceptually what is enough walking and sitting space.

ok thanks so white.. I was wondering if I should just make it white. Then again here is an example of a project where they just matched the trim color to the rest of the built in but keep the white on the other wall.