I like the pictures #2 4 and the one with kitty on the table.

Really happy with the drop leaf/ gate leg table I have against cabinet now. I can quickly drag up chairs to it opened and have table for four. Still have not needed dinning table but I do use it for projects and working on city books at home when needed.

I have been leaving one side up only.

my kitchen will be eat in. i want to have the counter piece in it removed (will use in craft room) and put my table in it's place. it's about the same size - maybe not as wide as counter piece. belonged to my MIL. my X and his brother grew up eating at it - it still has crayon marks on it from them. i 'refinished' the top lightly back in the 70's - didn't remove the crayon marks tho. my X is 73 now and I don't know that my MIL bought it new. might have been from her mother or MIL!
it's a trestle table - early 1900's at least.

remove this counter thingie-

Steph, I've always liked that space in your house. The colors, I think, are great. Low contrast in a smaller space always makes it look bigger.

Taking out that sort of peninsula and putting in your old (really antique) table will make it the focal point of the room. Like a jewel mounted in some precious metal.

I like that space too Steph. Are you going to leave the wall with the leaded glass windows? I love those.

I like the banquette in picture #2, but it's way too formal for my house.

Chris, I laughed when I saw the cat on the table photo. It reminded me of the time my cat got on the table and my mother brushed her off and she slid halfway across the kitchen on the linoleum floor. My mother loves dogs and they can do no wrong, but she's just not a cat lover.

"I laughed when I saw the cat on the table photo."

I did also. Somewhere (my old drive) I have a pic of one of my past fur babies (canine) on that trestle table. It was her birthday... she got carried away getting to her cupcake...

ML/marti - glad you guys like it. I do also - and that it is light and open and has lots of windows. The skylite is above that 'counter' thingy. I'll feel so much more 'at home' with my own table. I've had that table since the early 70's! my kids were raised using it also.

the wall will stay tho I do want to close off the area where the glass is. I have an original Marty Slaymaker screenprint I want to hang there. I have 2 prints actually to hang - and very little kitchen wall space to put them. I also have a photo my son did for me of my all time favorite restaurant back home. Actually, it's a little hamburger diner that I worked at (1st real job). My mom worked there for a number of yrs as did 2 of my sisters. We lived next door to it for yrs. Loved working there. Loved their burgers! They are well known in the area. Since I worked there for several yrs I can make those little suckers up myself when I get a craving for them. It tastes a little different because of the beef used - but very, very close!

It was always the first place I went to eat when I'd go home for visit.

the wall space is more important to me. it will stay open at the very top tho.

LOVE houzz and love that first kitchen...not sure i would really do it in my own house, but love the style.

Steph- The table will look wonderful :)

ML- I found these pictures on eplans. I remember seeing this kitchen YEARS ago, I think in BH&G's magazine. The kitchen opens to a nook/banquette and then to the small seating area, in front of the fireplace. Maybe that's where I got the idea! LOL {{gwi:2066432}}From French Country Cottage
{{gwi:2066433}}From French Country Cottage

Lav, I'm all for the beadboard, the slightly off white painted cabs, the tall turned legs of the island. It has the unfitted look, doesn't it. There is a big space beneath the other cabs, and a shaped cutout in the area of the toekick.

I'm sure there will be double stacked ovens somewhere in that kitchen, because the island is home to the gas cooktop. I do not see a range hood, but I suppose the island hides a downdraft vent.

In the second picture, I like the cafe curtains somewhat, but think they require more upkeep than plantation shutters, which would be my first choice. Having a view over the tops, and light coming in, is always a big plus. Valances also require a lot of upkeep, like taking them down for washing, because kitchen areas are the most oil impregnated air in the whole house, and valances end up limp and dreary in short order. Having that old table as a coffee table or really TEA TABLE is a perfect touch to make the room look very cozy and warm. What I can tell of the ceiling, it might be a lot of painted beams and details in the squares, forget what that is called. Dark wood floors with light colored area rugs is what I like too. And the open armed chair with the upholstered seat bottom and loose cushion, very comfortable for someone with back problems.
My favorite kind of chair is a wing back, but not with the fat arms on the one shown. Takes up too much space in a small room. Same with the sofa arms. Keep the curve, but pare down on the thickness of the arm, keep it high off the floor, and keep that nice curved back. Really a classic sofa.

Further comment.....make sure the plants are LIVE not artificial. Move any REAL BIRDS away from the fireplace. If there is a fire, a caged bird cannot move away from the heat, and it can be fatal.

Lav, you must have a photographic memory to recall specific rooms and retain them for such a long time. I cannot even find what I copied into my computer yesterday. sigh....

I did discover over on the Garden side of GWeb that folks are using Excel to plot out their gardens and pieces of their interior spaces. I'm interested in that, but have to learn Excel before I can proceed.

How did you get Picasa to use your LavenderLass user name instead of your real name? I won't register there because they try to show my whole name. Sort of off-putting to me.

"Lav, you must have a photographic memory to recall specific rooms and retain them for such a long time. I cannot even find what I copied into my computer yesterday. sigh.... "

LOL, I've thought that before too.

"I did discover over on the Garden side of GWeb that folks are using Excel to plot out their gardens and pieces of their interior spaces. I'm interested in that, but have to learn Excel before I can proceed."

When you find out, let us know. That sounds easier and more permanent than using some of the software online.

LL, do you recall if there was a vent over the stovetop do you? It doesn't look like there is one, and probably isn't a downdraft with it being open under the cabinet.

I don't know about photographic memory, but I do remember certain rooms or house plans, for a long time :)

Here's the plan of the house, along with a drawing of the front and an actual shot of the side. This was a really cute home and the kitchen fireplace really stuck in my mind...obviously! LOL

I think the cooktop should have a downdraft, but I wonder with the look of that island. Maybe they didn't vent it? Of at least, not for the pictures, since it was some kind of 'home show' type of home, I believe...or maybe annual home for the magazine. It's been a long time, since I saw the article. From French Country Cottage
{{gwi:2075395}}From French Country Cottage
{{gwi:2075397}}From French Country Cottage

Now we all know that the last thing I need to look at is a kitchen! But reading your comments sent me to open the link and see what you were talking about. Kitchens 3 and 7 were interesting for me. Kitchen 3 showed me that I could remove the desk that is in my kitchen now and replace it with a bench and a narrow table (maybe even drop-down or fold-out from the side of the pantry cab) and I could add a table-height sitting space to the kitchen that way. DH currently uses the desk quite often. Whenever he brings work home, he perches in there and can see into the family room, see the ballgame on TV, talk to me, whatever. But maybe someday, a bench and table there might be more important than a desk. In photo 3, the banquette seating is RIGHT behind the counter sitting area, as it would be if I changed out the desk for a bench in my house.

Photo 7 reminds me of my previous house. No, there is little in common except the windows and a long, skinny space. In that house, there was a room just below the back right side of the kitchen. The floor was about 30" lower in height than the kitchen floor. The room might have served as a dining room, but no matter where I placed the stairs, the 10 x 10 room with a door to the backyard smack in the center of the side wall, was unusable as a dining room with the new stairs. New stairs were needed because there were only three stair steps down into this room, three very high and out of code, and lethal to my hips and knees stair steps!

Because my husband is a vegetarian, and because there was only one real "health food" grocery store in the area, we belonged to a food co-op. We bought in bulk. We needed narrow cupboard storage for cans and boxed foods. So I essentially divided this 10 x 10 room into three sections. The back section became a gallery about 45" wide. Its floor was as high as the kitchen floor, and it held 1 ft deep pantry cabs. At the end was an also very necessary item for that house, a utility cabinet. I could store cleaning supplies, mops, vacuum, etc. there.

The center third was about 36" wide. It was the new staircase. Because that part of the lower room was ruined by having the stairs there anyhow, I moved the stairs out a good three feet, making the floor in the kitchen wider there at the top of the stairs. This allowed the first three feet of the pantry cabinet third of the space to become a tall work station with a 40" high counter space and four needed drawers for household tools and tray storage and the like. The space at the top of the stairs became the standing area for this workstation. We left just enough space at the bottom of the stairs to come in, shut the door, and turn around. That space at the bottom of the stairs also became the place through which to enter the storage area under the platform that brought the pantry gallery up to the level of the kitchen floor. Jim put carpet on the concrete floor under there to make crawling under there easier.

The last third of the 10 x 10 room became a tiled dog-washing station and a storage window seat.

When I had this house up for sale, I kept hearing that people wanted an eat-in kitchen. I considered removing the pantry cabinets and the utility cabinet and just putting up a narrow tabletop either facing the wall (boring!) or the backyard. The biggest reason I did not do this is that there was no flooring under the pantry cabs and I could not get enough to do the job. It was no longer made in that color. The platform of the pantry gallery is about 44" deep, including the railing itself. So you could not really have a table where people faced each other. You would have to line up as at a bar, side by side. But at least the windows give a view of the back yard. Picture #7 in ML's link made me think that maybe such an arrangement might work. Serious landscaping would be needed, though!

Here is a link that might be useful: Chippewa kitchen