Sounds lovely, bw! It'd take me some time to think spicy orange, but only because my mom had a disaster in her kitchen decorating days once. I don't know if she couldn't afford to take the paint back or what, but she painted the kitchen the most gawdawful pukey pumpkin orange. She felt badly as did we girls who helped. I know she had no money to do what she really wanted to do...it was a money pit, huge old farm Victorian - a great place to grow up, but oh my parents had to spend so much on it!

I think with a warm yellow on the walls, I could keep the cabinets an updated blue or take the doors off and accent them with something else on the fronts. I can't get Rog to keep them closed anyway...he hates having doors on the cupboards. I really like blues, yellows,and purples together. Green is my fav. but I already have it in the bathroom, which is also going to get repainted and I may do the dining area window wall and the one wall in the extreme southwest corner of it in a very light green on which my son has promised to paint a greenhouse mural taken from a framed print I have on that sw wall, just above the cat feeding table.:-)

Bobert, if I ever get the shutters for outside painted and out of that end I can put a table there for eating, BUT space is at a premium and my treadmill is just right there to the southeast rubbing elbows with the plants. (Good thing I am short, or my head would be in them when I walk on it!) We have an old library table to the nearest right as one walks into the kitchen (facing the backdoor) which we use to dine on, plus Rog has his laptop set up right next to it. The table is kind of like a low breakfast bar in that it sits crossways out from the east wall, creating a divider between the kitchen, the doorway from the living room and the dining area in the south. If that makes sense. If you look at the picture of the backdoor, it's that wide archway, kinda, that enters the kitchen and the table is to your immediate right.

I wouldn't mind moving the stove, at all, Bobert, in fact I like the idea, but my Rog says he'd have to go down in the crawl space to move the special electrical wire for it and that's a no-go for now, at least. It's too cold, damp, and spidery for now.:-) I also like the idea of a bold, darker colour at that end, BUT we'll have to be careful with that. The lighting is not good in the kitchen, another thing to work on. (Can't spend all of the money I am getting from my new job as I promised it was going into savings for Getaway!) Anyway, when we first moved in that wall had awful, dark wood panelling on it. First thing we did to this house was pull it down and paint that wall white. The panelling made the whole room so dark, it was terrible. On the flooring, we will do the stick'em tiles. We could have gotten some wood laminate really cheap on sale recently, but neither of us thought it would fit the look of a kitchen, so we didn't get it. We painted the floor in our bedroom and I really love it. It reminds me of the old painted wide boards floors back in New England.Once we put down new subflooring, we might look into doing that only it wouldn't be very practical as there is no way we can block that room from foot traffic for time for the paint and polyurethene coating to dry, so it'll be tiles.

Alice, thanks for the link and your input. I love your artist's eye!

Joybell, thanks for the compliment re' my tree. I am not an artist, but that is what came out for my sister's b-day one year and I like it. :-)I hope you are patient. Getting my Rog in gear and actually getting things done takes time. He is taking his first week off in five years THIS week, so I am just trying to get him geared up to *think* about what we might do for colours, etc. I know he needs and deserves just a few days of doing nothing. He's thinking about trying to take the next week off, too. If I can get him to do that, we might actually get started! We did our bedroom around his work schedule last year and it turned out really nice, so I know we can do it; it's just usually at a sloooow pace. It's just a matter of getting him started or getting some help, which I may wind up doing.

mg, I've read that red is not a good colour for a kitchen. I do have two walls painted a beautiful, strong red, one in the living room with my library on shelves on it, the other is the long wall running down the hallway (on the other side of the kitchen's east wall.) I have my gallery of old prints on it. Some people tell me it looks like a museum wall.:-)

BillD, I wouldn't mind some wallpaper, but I don't know how Rog would feel about it. It'd probably be a lot easier than painting. I used to love papering with my mom and later with my kids a couple of times.

Bee, I'll think about that for the cabinets, but I am not much for browns, even baby poo brown. :-) Sounds like a few of us agree on the yellow though!

Sorcha, sounds neat. I don't have room for extra stuff on the floor, too much cluttering, but I like the idea of the crock pots, etc.

Susan, thanks for your input, too. I am getting lots of good ideas!

Thanks, folks, please feel free to continue. I can use and appreciate all of the input. It helps to put it to paper, so to speak...get my thinking cap on and explain myself!

kat