Hats off to my fantabulous DH for his perseverance with the arced wall and making the drawer work!!

Of course, many will recognize the inspiration from kitchenkelly and her fantastic morgue drawers : ) Our drawer is very tall so I think of it as the coffin drawer. Okay, so we keep the dog food & treats in it - but everyone needs a little levity in with their storage solutions.
NOTE: The bench isn't trimmed out yet, I'm posting now 'cause marilyn234 was asking for help with bench plans.


The table is a soapstone top support by 2 oak planks and a 4x4 table leg. The planks are 12" and 8" wide. It's 30 wide by 60 long. The table is rounded at the right end and the left end is flat and sits into a wall/frame on the peninsula end. The face of the peninsula is covered in bead board that was scored in the back to make it curve. The effect is a left curve to the table top. The leg against the peninsula is a half leg. The idea was to have the peninsula hug the table and not look like two squares butted up against each other. The soapstone on the peninsula was cut to arc in to mirror the curve on the outside end of the table. The top of the arc is 4" deep by 30 wide.
We got BM satin impervo matched to cabinets and painted everything to match.
Here's a picture of the bench frame. The heal kick is tall - the seat hangs out to create the heal kick. The drawer isn't centered because we would run into the wall if we did - or we'd only have a shallow drawer. The back of the bench is 30" tall. We wanted it short because the chairs face a fireplace. It is good height - very comfy. the bench is 54" long and 17.5 deep (finished seating depth). A detailed plan with measurements is below.


The bench is very comfy with the angled back and the foam padding. The bench seat is plywood with 3" foam & batting and the back is plywood with 2" foam & batting. The foam was angle cut where the seat and back meet. I used a bread knife because I could NOT find the electric knife - word of advice - FIND THE ELECTRIC KNIFE!!!! I used sharpie to draw the angle and lines on the foam. You may notice that I screwed that up the first time and had to glue it back together and re-cut it (with the freakin' bread knife!). The foam also hangs over each exposed edge by at least 1". I would have it over hang the sides more so we could use a wider trim. The foam stops 1-2" from the seat inside edge so the back can rest there. You need to affix the foam to the plywood with a spray adhesive - I used 3M adhesive. We covered the foam in upholstery fabric using a stapler. It's a bit tricky to get the pattern to line up so make sure you have plenty of overhang to adjust up/down & left/right. We laid it all out - both seat and back - taped everything down - stapled the back - then lined up the seat again - re-taped and stapled it.

The drawer is a big box of pine planks that are screwed together. The screws run perpendicular to the force so it's very sturdy. We used orange shellac and lacquer to finish the wood. You can see in the photo above the 1x4s that run horizontally inside the frame bottom to hold the drawer glides. The drawer box is 48" long x 10.5 tall x 16.75 wide (outside measurement). We got a drawer face from our cabinet company. It's wonderful!!!!! (Can't wait unit the drawer pulls arrive!)

We keep the dog food, meds and treats in here. I got bins from the container store that each hold about 20 lbs of dog food. Maybe I should call it a trough drawer!

In this picture you can kind of see the wall/frame that is attached to the peninsula to support the table.
a href="http://s254.photobucket.com/albums/hh108/bvanney/?action=view&current=bench1.jpg" target="_blank">

IT still needs trim along the sides and bottom of the seat (beaded screen trim) and base board on the bottom of the bench and peninsula.

Here's the plan:

Sources:
Fabric: fabricguru.com
Drawer glides: schockmetal.com 037 series 47.24 full extension 255lb capacity - $105 a pair - great deal
Legs: Osbournewood.com

Here are two befores:

Here are the afters: Layout didn't change much at all. I love my bigger window and the fact that the soffits are gone!

And the morgue drawers (thanks to fori):

Closer view of the dreaded backsplash. (A nice, cheery grey. lol.) The lighting isn't very good to the right of the stove. The backsplash really matches all the grey in the granite.

Thanks to everyone that helped me with my decisions and got me through the craziness(even igloochic.)

Fori, I was wondering when you would be chiming in with some sassy remarks. I don't think it would be complete without you. On the french door oven....I don't think so. I don't want a obvious theme kitchen. ;-)

dragonfly, here is a close-up of the moulding around the cabinets. I want to paint the ceiling a light taupe because I think the "ceiling white" paint is too stark. I think the cabinets would stand out more. The only downfall of the moulding is that I don't think you could really bring it around a whole room because it would need to be at an angle on walls without cabinets?

Dianalo, here is a close up of the granite. I need to thank you for alot of your help and advise. You are always the voice of reason in my mind. I remember you were one of the people who told me to wait until the granite went in before I picked my backsplash. You were right!

Looks like I will be able to answer questions on light reflecting on countertops in the future :O