Whew. Comment Explosion.: a house log

Who knew a half-baked banquette idea could bring on the chatter like that? Over 800 comments within a few hours time? Insanity. We are loving all of the ideas and suggestions that you folks are throwing into the pot and promise to keep you posted every step of the way! There are certainly a lot more things to consider and nothing’s set in stone, so I think we will likely change our plan by the minute. But you know we will gab incessantly about it to anyone who is willing to listen as we go.

In the meantime, since I should be painting office cabinets (but have not had a second to tear myself away from the journal), I thought it would be lively to share this excellent rendering that a sweet (and apparently quite good at Photoshop) reader named Amber sent our way:

Now can you kind of start to picture it? Of course plenty of things might be distinct (the counter might not be that color, the table might not be that shape/color, the lights may change/move, the floor will change, the cabinets will not be brown and have eyeballs on them, there might be open shelves on the back of the banquette instead of simply cabinetry, etc). In short nothing that you see up there is “for sure,” but it certainly helps us start to picture it. So we thought sharing it might assist you folks too. And a big wet kiss goes out to Amber for her ninja-like photoshop skillz.

I think the hardest thing for people to “see” before this rendering (us included) is that the banquette will not block any more of the room than the table that used to sit there did. And people sitting at the banquette will have the same open POV that they would have had at the table (since the banquette seating will be the same height as table seating). And the countertops behind the banquette will also be around the same height as the base cabinets in the room. So hopefully it will not feel closed off at all (everyone can see over base cabinets… well, except for Clara and Burger). Look, here is John faux sitting in the new area now:

Now that we see this we are thinking it could be cute to even add two small stools to the back of the banquette so that the closest-to-the-kitchen countertop could be used as a casual seating area too. Not sure though, because it might also be strong prep space. And I can certainly picture us using it to set out things like appetizers if we are entertaining. It is all complete speculation and guess work at this point! But thanks again for all of the suggestions this morning. Who knows where we will end up!

On and there were in fact a few folks who thought seating that faced the hallway and the fireplace was less intuitive than something that faced the work area of the kitchen, but we like the counter being the close part to the work area, and also think the two best views of the room are the frame wall and the fireplace. Plus I am not mad at the fact that I would not have to look at a sink full of dirty dishes when I am relaxing in my nook. Haha. Also because that fireplace is in the corner of the room, turning the L to face the other way (with the seating looking back at the prep area of the kitchen) would not solve the balance issue that the L-shaped arrangement does when it faces the fireplace. Hopefully this sketch makes more sense of the reasons why (top setup: what we want to do, bottom setup: what it would look like flipped):

See how that fireplace in the corner would make way less sense that way? Sorry for not including a sketch like this in this morning’s post for ya.

Anyway, you will have to excuse me, I have some office cabinetry to paint. I picked up some new stuff last night (Benjamin Moore Advance paint) and I hear it is excellent for cabs, so I cannot wait to pop back in with all those details – likely early next week if I ever get all those coats done and snap some photos. Anyone else painting cabinets? Or dreaming of banquettes?

Psst- We simply announced this week’s giveaway winners. Click here to see if you are one of them!