I also gave this type of thing a lot of thought when we remodeled last year. I ended up putting a desk and cabinets in a nook in my mudroom, because I tend to accumulate clutter, which I didn't want in the kitchen. I wonder if instead of a cabinet, you should do all drawers - you can put the kids' papers in drawers more easily than a cabinet. The upper cabinet is a good idea for baskets of pencils and extra office supplies. Maybe you could get a cd player that mounts under the cabinet so it doesn't take up countertop space?

Here's a picture of my mudroom desk - sort of the same concept.

November - thanks so much for the ideas and the photo. I looked at your album and recognized many of my 'inspiration photos!-- I hadn't been paying attn to names until recently so it was cool to see the connection of your post with my favorite breakfast room. Thank you.

wow, thanks! I don't think my kitchen has been anyone's inspiration photo before! Your drawing looks really nice - I'll look for your further posts about your new space :)

Possibly mount the bose undercabinet?

Here is a link that might be useful: Wave uc holder

Thank you for the bracket link (the help people give on this forum is incredible). I've been trying to determine from the website if my old bose radio/cd would work with this bracket. The CD holder opens from the top, and needs about 9-12" of clearance as a result. Hopefully a bracket can still work! thx!

Here is my message center. We haven't put the undercab radio in yet thought. We use this area for cell/phone charging, junk area and calendar. It really does the job for us. Underneath the area was for pet feeding, until the dog decided his plan was too eat his and the cats....now he's overweight!!! Moved the food to the pantry, so we can open and close him out during the day LOL. Plan on getting one of those fabric cord covers so we can hide all the cords we plug in too.