Thanks for the pictures. They are fun.

I just looked at a few "old" houses.

I live in Seattle. There are really no houses predating about 100 years old or so. No 250 year old house to be found in this part of the country!

One was 100 years old. The original house did not have plumbing, so there was a rather funky addition for bathroom and kitchen for plumbed rooms. sorry. no picts.

Another was about again 100 years old. The kitchen had metal cabinets from when (?). The cabinets were about 5ft long with built in sink in it. That was the entire "kitchen" except for the appliances....

These come closest to what I think "old world" really is, at least in the English sense, since these houses were new world variants of what the early settlers lived in before they came here.

This house is newer--1830ish and still has a a mid 19th c. cookstove inserted into the hearth in the unused basement:

This is what is left over of the yard when a kitchen was added to an 1810 house in the 1960s. The kitchen is less than 6 feet wide and connects to the neighboring house at the back. This would not even be allowable by current zoning so the kitchen would either be even smaller or in the basement.

That small, pretty kitchen lay-out looks very efficient. (It can't be too small if there's room for that giant refrigerator.)

Whether or not local permitting has anything to say about it, I would definitely go for the basement. Lack of natural light is pretty bad, so if there might be a way to put clerestory windows or a lighttube in, that would be optimal.

That said, there are numerous ways that a windowless basement kitchen can be lit to seem warm and cozy, if not above ground. Having the original cookfire to work around is a boon.

I once lived in the former two-fireplace kitchen of an elegant but slightly run-down 1820 townhouse in DC. The ceilings were high and the "English" basement was far enough above ground that my windowsills were at normal level inside although at ground level outside. For privacy reasons, I had to keep many of the windows covered all the time, but the fact of a window frame with a low sill and what looked like an unraised Roman shade made the space seem not-subterranean.

Another trick might be building in a faux window frame, putting stained glass in it, and allowing it to be backlit as desired.

This one is in a very shallow, vertical house with a tall English basement only a couple steps down from the sidewalk:

{{!gwi}}

This is a modern (40ish y.o.) house with a kitchen basement for the same reason: narrow, shallow lots. Not bad in terms of light. The sill is at about ground level.

{{!gwi}}

I could live with this, perhaps with the sink and range changing places, so that the hood and chimeny wouldn't part of the precious winodw, and with deep enough sills to grow plants.

I love old and quirky, even when it's a little cramped. I will take it over airy and soulless.

I am kind of fascinated by the whitewashed basement kitchen with the fireplace in pictures 4 and 5. In 2011, this house has moved technology-wise maybe to post WWII era, with its open burner, pilot lit range and other basic appliances (there is a DW)--the rest of the house is the same. The kitchen may not be very easy to work in but there is a certain integrity in its rawness. It would be interesting to make it work better without compromising the original rusticity.