IMO all open shelves are just too much work to keep clean plus your everyday stuff usually just looks messy there . As for flooring what is the flooring in the rest of the house? Your floors should have been leveled before anything else was done in the space so not sure about the reasoning behind no slate

mismatching flooring in an antique home is perfectly acceptable to me. i have a spot in the corner of the library where an old register was removed and new maple was framed in, and i think its a snapshot of how the house used to be. your mileage may vary.

i have two sets of open shelving in my kitchen, one for everyday plates, bowls, and glasses, with my grandmothers mixing bowls above. i've never had to wash something before use i do dust down the shelves 3 times a year, its worth it to me for 'the look' and the convenience of not constantly opening and closing the doors when unloading the dishwasher. and honestly i spend as much time dusting my shaker style cabinet doors!

i have open baking shelves as well but everything in its place so i'd not call it untidy, just useful.

but 'even I' need to have a closed cabinet for things like pasta and odd sized spices and oils which should be kept in the dark. if you have lower space for this, good for you.

what doesnt work for open shelves is those that are immediately adjacent to a cooktop and for infrequently used wine glasses that have to be sparkling clean to be appealing.

Guess I failed to mention that I have a large separate pantry. So much of the food, dishes will be stored there. My living room/dining room is open to the kitchen now, and the flooring is also fir. Nnigrt, your corner is absolutely charming. That's what I plan to do in a an old closet which was opened up-having a glass front cabinet on the top, and a coffee/baking station underneath. I found some slate-colored cork flooring, which I liked, nice and light-I think that is more of the problem...the weight of the slate on the older sub-floor. My husband may have to rip up the old floor and lay a new sub-floor ultimately. Thank you both for your input.

Your plan sound very pretty. The John Bridge Tile forum has a way to calculate whether your present joist can support a tile floor or if the joist need to be beefed up if you are thinking about tile of any kind. I do love my wood floor and I am a little surprised your flooring guy can't patch the floor, but perhaps it is too far gone. Often wood from a closet will match.

I always enjoy pics of nnigrt's kitchen.

i was surprised too. My husband met with him. We have patched other areas of flooring and they blend in fine. He wants to lay a new oak floor, so maybe he isn't comfortable with old floors. Honestly, I'm okay with imperfections and mismatches, I have original wide pine in another room, and we trip over the bungs that pop up occasionally-we just bang them down! It's an old house. The records say 1900, but that was when an addition was built. I love slate and will look into that formula, We may have to beef up the floor joists, already did the ceiling joists. Thanks very much, jhmarie. We're on a mission as my daughter is having her August Wedding at our home!