So here is what the kitchen used to look like. It's from 1965, bless its heart - my in-laws put it in when they bought the house.
and now it looks like:
Everyone here thought I was nuts having so many lights, but they're on four circuits and on dimmers, so it's possible to create fun lighting effects in each of the different areas of the kitchen, but also have total intense light while busy working. The pass-through to the living room was made larger, giving more light to the living room and opening things up, and a new skylight was put in above the new seating area (where the wooden cupboard used to be). There's also a skylight in the pantry through the open door there. In the pantry there are new cupboards the same as those in the kitchen, on each side, but 7 feet tall. There's a fridge built in under the counter, but typical Dutch small, so there's a second built-in fridge in the pantry. The table in the new seating area (where the skylight and Tin Tin posters are) is made out of the old teak counter top. And the new stove...hee hee...that was kind of the raison d'etre of the whole thing (besides the kitchen being from 1965 and way passed its use-by date)....a SMEG double oven. Maintenance intensive but fabulous. (I'm still learning how not to over-cook things on the powerful burners.)
I'm a very happy camper!
cheers, Bonnie