Hi Buehl, Here are the answers to your questions: "Has the garage door been moved in your layout (1st pic)? Your DH's drawing has it in the kitchen but your layout has it in the DR..." Yes, in Plan B - expanding into the dining room -- one of the proposed changes we depicted is moving the door to the garage a few feet over into what is now the dining room. That would free up space for a 36" fridge. Currently the door is still in the kitchen. "Can the wall b/w the Foyer and the table space be moved? Maybe 2' into the Foyer??" No because that wall extends well into the family room. There is also a hallway closet in the foyer that is right off the kitchen and behind our current pantry closet. "Would you consider switching the Kitchen & DR? Maybe make the table area the DR and then have a big kitchen? I don't know if it would work...I'm just throwing ideas out there! (I suspect those tall windows will be a problem, so probably not...but you never know!) BTW...the reason I asked in my previous post about expanding into the Foyer is that your first "IKEA" layout says the table area is 11'0" yet your 2nd layout & your DH's show 8'6"...so it looked like you expanded into the Foyer." Hm...switching the DR and kitchen..I don't think it would work since the eat-in area is right in the middle of the house and open on all sides. However, (now you've got me thinking!) I guess you could leave the table where it is right now in the eat-in area and then focus on expanding the kitchen area into the current DR by taking down part of the wall that separates them, maybe filling up the space in the DR with a butler's pantry along the one solid wall (as I have depicted in the Plan B layout), a larger island than I have depicted with some bar stools, and maybe some armchairs on either side of the tall windows and a small desk in the corner (depicted in black in Plan B). But would that look natural or totally contrived to fit the space? That's my worry...that if we make these changes it will look like some amateurish DIY job rather than something that fits the house organically. I just remeasured the table area and it is indeed 8'6" not 11'. Sorry for the discrepancies...the numbers may have changed a few times since I started this process! I hope I haven't confused you even further. It's frustrating that we live in a home that is plenty big for our little family (just the 3 of us) but that is so oddly configured that the space doesn't work for us. Anyway, thanks for sticking with me so far.

One particular treatment that was done in the 18th and 19th c. when it came to paint, was to paint the entire room in the same color, trim and all. The modern interpretation of this would be to do a higher sheen level on the millwork. This could address the issue of the different sizes of doors and such and minimize the horizontal banding effect of a wainscot. * * * * Mount Pleasant, a Georgian house that has slowly been taken back from colonial revival notions of what it looked like to what it Really looked like --based upon physical analysis-- had very Interesting paint treatment: The entire room, including all the heavy Georgian detail, was painted in one color (a rather drab gold if I remember) The cupboards had a bright paint treatment on the interiors, and there was a brownish black band of paint that ran around the lower 6-9" of the perimeter, intersecting EVERYTHING: door jambs, doors, fireplace, etc...a cut line straight across. (Apparently to hide the splash marks from washing the floors and muddy clothing and such)

teachbls, I knew you would love Eaglesgal's DR, and the suggestions I made to you are inspired by her. I do think we have a similar quandry. I don't have a resolution yet. As we speak, I'm having picture frame molding installed below my chair rail in the DR, and new drapes are supposed to arrive tomorrow. I thought it best to wait until those things are finished before making a color choice. I haven't given up on the blue yet, but if I do use it it will be a more intense color. I do think that was the bigger problem with mine; the shade just didn't have any oomph to it; especially compared to the rest of the house. The posts by labradoodlelady and segbrown in this thread demonstrate this very well, I think. In their homes, the blue "belongs" because it is of a similar intensity, and looks great, especially with the reds. BTW, in your home, particularly with the dramatic height and gorgeous chandelier, the painted ceiling would be incredible. I'll look forward to seeing more pics of your kitchen and also the sitting room you mentioned. Thanks.

I am kinda a kitchen minimalist - not in design, but in quantities of gear so what I think may not apply to you. I don't know if you are remembering to allow room for overhangs. What you're doing your calculations, a great shortcut for the base cabinets is 26" deep at counter level - it's actually around 25-5/8" deep. An island like you have show is a bit more than 36" deep without the counter and likely around 40" wide allowing for both overhangs. So, you have about 77" for aisle space - one at 36" and one For the great 41". Ikea wall cabs are a little deeper also. The "G" plan would have a center aisle of about 7.5 feet and the pinch point aisle would likely be closer to 38 inches and not 3'8". That might make using the oven interesting, so find a way to have the pantries end up where the ovens are. The other thing I think about is whether you could use the 4 foot long stainless kitchen island base and put wheels on it instead of those two end cabinets. Corner cabinets are always kinda hard to get into - so no sacrifice for me there, but the other cabinet would be gone too. Then you'd have a two by four foot island on wheels that you could roll out where you wanted it for big days, but still function as a seating surface. You needn't get the ikea one, but it fits their counters. You could finish it with one of the wood tops. How to do two single ovens at waist height involves calculating the height of the cabinets from the drawer/door fronts available. So, take a tall oven cabinet, allow room for the toe kicks and start filling it with drawers until you get to the height you'd like the bottom of the oven, allow room for the oven and cut the side and back panels. You need to drill a few holes for the ikea fasteners in the sides and partly rout the top to apply the back - but you can do that with a circular saw. Put the cabinet top in its new location. You will have either a coverpanel top or put counter on it, so if you have a little messed up place, it'd be covered anyway. Any exposed exterior of any cabinet needs a cover panel anyway. If you don't want to shorten them, even better. Just choose the closest matching door height and get something called the non-moveable, permanent shelf. It goes into the same holes as any shelf, but it uses different clips. Put that at the bottom of your top doors and then put filler or toe kick material to fill whatever gap is between the top of the ovens and the doors. If you go with the island plan... I would move the ovens where you show the ref and the ref to the pantry and the pantry on the end. If I have to walk for something, I'd rather it be the relatively low use ovens. It might be possible to work at it to get everything on the long wall. The (curse word omitted) part is that the relatively narrow aisle makes using either the oven or the ref will be tight when people are over. Also, two comfortable seats take more space that you have. So do overhang on the dining room side and consider removing one of the base narrow depth cabinets and let the other side have an overhang too. It's still tight, but not impossible.