Sorry, Marcolo, I must have misunderstood your post on the Rusic Modern thread when we were discussing next topics. I thought there were going to be two threads (about a month) between Rustic Modern and Steampunk. But it sounds like that is what you're suggesting now, regardless of what you said before, is that right? Something other than Steampunk, then Steampunk? Yellow had at least a couple votes, and so did a real MLS listing. I'm okay with either. Yellow would probably be less work to introduce.

Mama goose- I think chair rails are the correct height, so that your chair doesn't damage the wall, when you back up from the table. That's why a lot of old houses have them in the dining room...plaster. Really high ones are usually plate rails, because you used them to display plates, at a height, where they wouldn't be touched or damaged. As for all other rails, if they're just for decoration, or to break up the wall space, maybe try making up your own names for them. The "fingerprint rail" could be handy. Everything below is painted with enamel (where little hands touch) and everything above is something a little less easy to scrub. The "dog rail" would be very similar, but the height could change with the height of the dog. LOL As for area rugs, the only one that's really important is the dining room or eating area, since the chairs will be tippy if all four legs aren't on the rug. In the living room, I think it depends on what you put under the rug, to keep it from slipping. If there's nothing, or it doesn't work very well, then putting furniture legs on the rug might help :) My favorite rule to break...this should never be painted!

I played with your plan a wee bit, turning the laundry room and baking pantry on their sides and moving your kitchen appliances around quite a bit. =) Both laundry room and baking pantry are wider in this plan, which means that you have better aisles in both spaces. I didn't realize until I working on your plan how narrow your baking pantry was. If you were spec'ing standard depth counters & cabs along one wall and 12" cabs on the other, you're left with less than 29" for the aisle. That's fine if you don't intend to work in their but since it sounds like you want to do baking prep in here, that's not going to work well at all, especially if you want your kids to help you. My plan does mean no window in your laundry room but you could always add clerestory windows between baking pantry and laundry room to let light flow from one to the other, like they did between spaces in this home. Okay, into the kitchen. I removed the wing walls on each side of the dining area so that you're not pinched for space around the table. However, as I wrote above, if you want to keep the walls, you can bump the space out instead. I moved the fridge out of the corner and against the pantry wall. That puts it close to your baking center; shorter walks to get eggs, butter, etc. I moved your clean up sink and 2 DWs to the wall next to the fridge. Here are inspiration pics for sinks against walls, not under windows. Moving the clean-up zone, opened up space to move the range top and hood to an exterior wall. Since you're concerned about noise, you should definitely look into adding an remote blower to your hood. This runs ducting up the exterior wall to your roof where your blower will sit. You'll cut noise quite a bit. I moved the ovens to right next to the baking pantry door so it's an shorter walk with pans of batter. I added a prep sink to your island to give you a good work zone between pantry, fridge and range top. The downside of this plan is that it puts the clean-up sink and dish storage the farthest from the dining area. It also means that anyone wanting to grab last minute items from the fridge to bring to the table will walk through the cook zone. Not ideal but I can't think of another way to address that at the moment. Oh, the other thing I did was recess the full depth fridge into the pantry wall so that it appears to be counter depth. I've no idea what your aisle widths were because you hadn't marked them but you have a large enough space to go for generous 48" aisles.

Is the window too low for the desk to be turned with the short "L" part against it? (If your L desk doesn't need to be all the same height, this could be an option. See the Ikea Malm desk with pull-out panel as example of configuration I mean.) (I read the whole thread but might still repeat ideas already shared. Apologies.) You mentioned monitors but I only see one large monitor and your laptop. Is this your regular configuration? (Any glare issues with the window?) For practicality's sake, I'd consider the visibility of wires when choosing a desk. A lot of your renderings show open desks - lovely in mockups but not always so in real life with the inescapable reality of wires. (This is one of reasons I reconfigured my desk to be against a wall, perpendicular to my window. It was floating in the room. Not only were the wires messy (wireless accessories need charging...), I was missing an accessible wall for my visible planning, aka white board.) Some desk drawers are configured for USB charging. How much space do you have next to each window? Could bookshelves on either side make functional sense for you? In the latest mockup, the shelves look to be display shelves. My advice: make sure whatever you display is adding enough pretty to make it worth the dusting. ;-) You mentioned an electrician coming in to add a light? What type of light? I'm not a lighting expert but I have a smaller office than yours with just one overhead light (and a table lamp) and it's terribly dreary on overcast days. Table and floor lamps do help in a space but make sure your overhead lighting is adequate for the room (wattage, type of bulb, placement...). Have you played around with possible layouts or has it been just the designer? I did my scaled room drawing on graph paper and then played around with my little cut out pieces of scaled furniture and came up with 4 possible layouts with Pros and Cons for each. (Sometimes, moving around physical things makes us see things differently.) Continue to be realistic with your work space planning. Knowing yourself and how you work is key to creating a functional space that meets your needs. And if you're already working in this space, you know what's working for you and what's not. Don't lose sight of your functional priorities. It's not just about decor which is why it's a good idea to analyze inspo pics realistically. Don't forget to allocate your budget according to your priorities: is a comfortable chair just as important or more important than the art? etc. and know that the look of things can be tweaked later on, provided enough time, money and energy (an ugly comfortable chair can be recovered, a desk painted, etc.). Hth. ETA: Looking at the current office pictures vs the designer mockups. You have a shredder and a printer in your current office but not sure I see them in the mockups? Offices have a lot of "non-pretty" stuff so make sure your layout accounts for these essentials. If you want them behind closed storage... You also mention possibly getting a lift desk that can be stored away. I caution you in choosing things that might be a pain to use. Have you considered accessories such as swivel arms for monitors or laptop shelves? Sit-stand desks come in many price points with different finishes. Below is one example by a local company. Ikea makes a more affordable version. If you want one, I'm sure you can find one that meets your needs. You can add a filing cabinet or small drawer tower under an open one.