We have a similar situation with our kitchen/great room. Kitchen portion is a combination of 4100K fluorescent, slowly being replaced by 5000K LED. The great room portion has a bunch of incandescent BR40s in sloped ceiling cans, and some 3000K MR16 accent lights on the walls. When I replace the BR40s with LED versions, I am definitely going to use 3000K. (E.g., with something like the TCP LED12BR40D30K.)

Thanks folks! All good input. I just emailed my brother, who's an architect, and his suggestion is: Keep the built-ins ONLY on the long wall. Don't wrap them around on the short wall flanking the wood stove. He would like to see bare wall there (with a firewood bin on the right and the chair/ottoman on the left of the woodstove.) What do you think about that? Regarding door hardware: I was thinking no hardware, actually... just those push-to-open thingies :) Color: my brother suggested stained or painted almost-black (playing off the slate woodstove wall). Palimpsest suggests wall color. I would have done white just cuz its my fall-back. I will have to think on that! Depth: The built-ins as drawn are about 11" deep. We don't have any A/V equipment deeper than that, so no need to bump any part out. I'm also not a huge fan of bumped-out cabinetry in a more modern setting. I know I said I wanted to keep it cottage-y, but it still has to work with my modern furniture :) I could probably be convinced if there was a really compelling argument, but my druthers is for simpler, usually :) Height: I considered varying the height (taller on short wall, etc) but I felt like going taller made the already small room feel a lot smaller. DIY- yes, we're building these ourselves :) .... although I think we may buy the doors from Scherr's. We have a really long project list to get through this year!

Thanks. I know that was a little confusing. I'd post a photo of the layout but the photos are on a computer that is inaccessible right now. Anyway, it sounds like you are both recommending laying the floors in the same direction as existing ones(was my instinct, too) despite the thresholds - the opposite of what the builder wants to do. My Q about the island was really whether or not it's preferable to have wood planks go parallel to the island. The fireplace is opposite the kitchen (hood and fireplace face each other at end of a "great room". and the island is between the two. Wood can either be parallel to the island or to the length of the room leading to fireplace, but not both. Doing the latter also runs the floors the same way as existing. Hope that clarifies somewhat! The thresholds are to adjust for a 3/4" or so difference in floor height. busybme, Good question as to what material we are using. Existing floors are prefinished hardwood, but addition needs to be an engineered product, since it's on a slab. Complicating things are that my existing floors(Mirage) are an unusual width and set of lengths and I really want to match the look. The existing floors also have a microbevel, something i'm not sure I want in a kitchen. I hear it's hard to match old prefinished to new, since the colors will be off after a few years. The answer seems to be to put in site finished engineered floors and stain both floors to match. Still not sure what to do about matching the planks for size and bevel, though.

I think bringing blues into your family room would be lovely. Just have a unifying neutral wall color and bring some of the creamy, golden or brown colors into your family room (pillows, throws, artwork, rug). Gold and blue are complementary colors.