We also have a plain vanilla ranch built in 1950. It was never MCM nor any style. It was just churned out as a tract home. The basic layout of bedrooms and living space was ok, but we opened the wall between the kitchen and living room, extended and moved the kitchen so the old kitchen is half of the new one and partly as our new main level laundry room. The rest of the kitchen is part of the extension and is adjacent to the new den we added on. Due to budget constraints, we only cathedraled the new extensions' ceilings and the master bedroom ceiling was vaulted as we extended there too. Where we did not raise the ceilings we added in skylights and a 5ft eyebrow window in the front of the house, boxed in like a skylight (and we have a skylight over the den up high). The greater amount of natural light is fabulous and it feels so much more spacious with the openings for the skylights and eyebrow window. We had hated the all low ceilings when we moved in. Our previous house had vaulted and cathedral ceilings over the living spaces and it was hard to adjust to low and flat. I truly think that being able to raise the ceilings and/or use skylights is one of the best features about a ranch. Since the house was built with little style and updated with no style either (unless cheap and ugly are styles, lol), we felt free to create our own vibe. We went for retro modern with a 40s feel. What a modern person would have done prior to MCM is how I'd describe it. It has some deco feel to it but the lines are simple and not ornate. Crown moldings would not have worked, so we have done simpler ones. We chose modest looking but well designed materials. No one would ever think it is fancy or frilly. We wanted clean lines but not sharp edges. It is supposed to feel homey and unassuming. Like a well worn pair of jeans that fit well. We want guests to feel at home. If you come up with your own style mission statement you can check your choices against it. At one point, we fell in love with white marble and wanted that for our counters. Then one day, we figured out it went against all our other choices and was too elegant. We ended up with Corian in their Rain Cloud pattern, which mimics the feel of a white marble, but is not trying to fake anyone out. It has a softness to the look but with all straight lines and an eased edge profile, it looks neat. We ended up with Carrera marble in our master bathroom for the counter and in the faux rug part of our floor. That space is meant to be more grown up and fancy since it is our private space and not designed for the kids. The veins that make it great there would have been too busy for the kitchen. If we had gone for another look, I'd have loved to use the marble as I usually drool when I see it used anywhere. If I ever do a kitchen again, I would want qs oak with white marble or some other medium toned stained wood. The door style would be different as well. We are happy with our vision and how the look has turned out (the gc screwed us on condition, but that will be fixed, someday). It is not plain vanilla any more! Our house looks like no other in our area and I dare say, it is now one of a kind. Hopefully, you find your groove and your end result reflects your style and vision, and makes you smile too ;)

Thanks, musicgal! Tracie, my daughter was told or maybe she read somewhere (here? ikeafans.com?) that the Numerar butcherblock counters sell out very quickly so I should check the website regularly for stock and then go immediately to get them when they had them. So that's what I did. Later I realized I should have ordered another 6' one; i was still within the kitchen sale period so I got a rain check and was able to get the 6' counter at the sale price as soon as they were in stock again. (They don't call it a rain check though---maybe "shopping list"? Something like that.) I don't believe that they're not ever going to get them again, at least not if they're still listed on the website. I've heard so many differing things about this and that at IKEA---FROM Ikea employees! It seems like it's really hard to get consistent answers about stuff. (Just in the past two days I've gotten four very different answers to a question I had about their faucet warranty. Sheesh!) edited to add: it wasn't more than 2-3 weeks that I had to wait for a new delivery of counters. And when I said I went immediately, I did--like within an hour of checking the stock. This post was edited by spanky_md on Wed, Aug 6, 14 at 17:59

haha, : ) A family recipe we no longer make from my grandmothers kitchen seems similar. (i grew up on the EasternShore) A stick of butter melted slow, add 2 tbsp flour and stir with a fork until slightly golden, like a NewOrleans rouge. But not dark. It makes a paste, then add two cups of whole milk. Stir and heat on very low. In another pan saute a big chopped onion and a few ribs of diced celery to soften. Probably parsley and green onion and some spice like OldBay and/or paprika, Mustard powder. A dash of worcestershire. Bash a whole sleeve of saltines and place in the bottom of a casserole dish. Top with seafood on hand. (chunks of fish, oysters, crab meat, shrimp). Top with the onion saute mix and pour over the 'gravy' and bake at 350 for an hour. Crazy and weird but was so good. At about 45 min it starts to bubble and makes a bit of a crust on top. My grandfather had a big fishing boat and we caught crabs off the backyard dock with a chicken leg tied to a string so the seafood was whatever we caught that day. Seafood is much more expensive now. Trying to get some of these old recipes is like pulling teeth. My x-BIL makes, did make, a killer oyster dressing and it uses that same recipe but just oysters. He did not use soup mix but the cracker sleeve was a bit embarrassing for some reason. I just used my own home baked bread cubes/crumbs. We don't use cheese but i can see how it can have a cheese taste with the mustard and spices. And the thickish 'gravy'. Very rich. I made a small casserole for thanksgiving with a pint of oysters. Love it once a year. So rich. Without a recipe i had to guess and create my own but it turned out spot-on. A recipe for crab imperial might be similar?

Annette, thanks for the heads up :-) There is 2'11" from the window trim to the hallway tile. The window is a vertical slider, right to left. On the DW between the sink and the cooktop issue, I wonder if that would be so problematic if I had that peninsula with an additional, prep sink in it? I would think it would then be an asset to have the DW close to the cooktop for direct to DW 'clean as you go' flow? Stuff comes out of prep bowls/plates into the frypan/pot and the bowl is then just dropped in the DW( no doubt real cooks are going to find this sentence hilarious!) If water is needed while the DW is being loaded by someone from the clean-up sink, no problem for the cook to just pivot around to the prep sink?