Thank you you so much for your suggestions and especially for the pictures! It is very helpful to know how good the cabinets look stacked. Lascatz, Jeanne Kitchen and Lishaana- your kitchens are so pretty; what type of cabinets did you use? Sombreuil-- your paneling is GORGEOUS but way beyond my capability! MamaPapaPaige--I did price out custom cabinets from 2 separate cabinet makers. I got a quote for $14K from each which I know is not unreasonable, but I cannot justify spending that much. I have a large family and can only spend that much if one of the kids agrees not to go to college. Right now they refuse to agree that a pretty kitchen is more important than their education! They are SO unreasonable.

I guess it depends on what one's used to Standard 8' ceilings here were a challenge to me in our new house, because it was the lowest ceiling heigh I ever had. I'm not from the US and other countries I lived in had a different standard that was higher ceiling(maybe due to metric system lol). Growing up in the older part of a very old big city-ceilings were even higher. But I loved the house a lot and was willing to work with whatever it had. And it had 8' ceiling everywhere but the entry(which by the way was altered by the previous owners to become higher) and the living room. 7 in the dining but during remodel we were able to raise them up a foot. My way of handling the thing was: a) a thought of crown moulding-previous owners put it in their master bath(tiny supermodest space really)-but I swear to you it looked at least a foor higher than the adjusting bedroom. this thought never became reality though because expenses grew and had to give up on some things. crown moldings were the first to go. lol b) skylights. previous owners had installed several and they drastically change perception of height and space..for the better. so we installed another one when we had our addition built. It also helped to break rectangularity of the room..we also didn't put a door between it and a master bath but left arch opening between them (the toilet got its own small room of course). Otherwise we'd be left with extremely boring room that's too long, too dark, and doesn't inspire any desire to stay there. Giving it more depth and light helped tremendously c) and very important as I agonized over it. Painting the celings the same color-or the color that would look like the same color(which was, in our case either 50% or 66% percent of the initial formula), as the walls. The lines blend, you don't have this feeling the ceiling is about to fall on you. I'm 5.4 so not tall at all..but I can be sensitive to spaces, and sometimes weirdly sensitive. Part of my physique. Lol. d) ditching some common rules. I did install central fixtures where it made sense, and pendants, and sconces..and it took attention away from the lower ceiling, because now you had something interesting to look at instead of calculating ceiling height I have table lamps and floor lamps too, so layers of lighting. I read so much about it all and was in that state of don't do this and don't do that..until I became very tired of it and just took from all this reading whatever I deemed helpful and disregarded everything else. Freedom! now your ceilings are lower, and your kitchen sounds challenging. Regarding kitchen-Kitchen forum is (justly so) considered the best in the matters of planning and advice on everything kitchen, so post your plan there and I believe you'll get many helpful thoughtful answers, regarding layout, workability, etcetera They are very sensitive to specific needs of specific person/family in a specific kitchen, and your plan with dimensions and if possible photos of the space will be very helpful to them to suggest things specific to your kitchen tailored to your needs/wants/budget etc. If you ask very general question it's great when you just want to have an interesting discussion. But if you're willing to get specific advice, and often very good one, I highly advise Kitchens forum. Just copy-paste your question there, and add even a basic rough plan with dimensions. And several pics to show different walls and how kitchen connects to other rooms in the house. I remember myself daring to ask on some site that had this option "Ask a designer" a general question "What do I do with low ceiling" and I got a very kind but very standard answer to paint everything white. It's okay, one can paint everything white of course; especially works well with high ceilings, architectural moldings, and in Paris lol), but didn't provide me with any insight. Sorry for the long post!

Quite a house. Yes, the inspiration photo will work well. You'll need more substantial curtain rods. The Kaling curtains look custom (construction, installation, and color), but you can get a similar look from readymade with a length resewn by a dry cleaner who offers this service. Do you have a close up photo of the sconces over the fireplace? If you hate them, you can take them down, wrap them carefully, and store them in a box for the next owner. You can get an estimate now from a stone mason for a new fireplace, then install a new one when you are ready to remove the 1960's stone.

you have a great opportunity to make that wall a focal feature. so many things you could do. I would wall mount the tv and do a console a bit longer than the span of the tv. builtins on either side or shelving for your plants. here are a bunch of photos showing tv/sofa layout. don't look so much at the style, just the layouts. some have a fireplace so ignore that and just imagine a console in it's place. just one sofa facing the tv w/chairs in opposite corners. (this layout could work for the super deep sofa size) same set up as your room. (ignore the style!) sofas facing each other. if you want super deep sofas, I don't think this layout would be ideal for that size. layout using a sectional Find a vintage mcm console and use it below the tv. look at Article for sofas in my own space I used the Article black leather sofa, the bench and walnut chair, and I have a vintage Brasilia console.