"Red Birch" heartwood only wide plank Birch flooring, made in the USA, available sawmill direct from Hull Forest Products. Unfinished or prefinished. Ships nationwide direct from our mill. 4-6 weeks lead time for most orders. Lifetime quality guarantee. 1-800-928-9602. www.hullforest.com

Example of a mid-sized farmhouse medium tone wood floor and brown floor enclosed dining room design in Bridgeport with gray walls, a standard fireplace and a wood fireplace surround

Photographer: Tom Crane
Inspiration for a mid-sized timeless medium tone wood floor kitchen/dining room combo remodel in Philadelphia with beige walls and no fireplace

Maxine Schnitzer Photography
Example of a classic dark wood floor dining room design in DC Metro with gray walls

Don Pearse Photographer
Inspiration for a farmhouse dining room remodel in Philadelphia with white walls

Inspiration for a mid-sized transitional medium tone wood floor and brown floor kitchen/dining room combo remodel in New York with beige walls and no fireplace

Pella Designer Series snap-in, between-the-glass window fashions coordinate with virtually any dining room décor. You’ll enjoy a cleaner, healthier and safer home and the removable between-the-glass grilles, shades or blinds can be changed in a snap.

Inspiration for a farmhouse medium tone wood floor kitchen/dining room combo remodel in Philadelphia with white walls

Photography by Tom Jenkins TomJenkinsFilms.com
Kitchen/dining room combo - cottage medium tone wood floor kitchen/dining room combo idea in Atlanta with a standard fireplace and a brick fireplace

The restored hall.
Farmhouse dining room photo in Philadelphia with white walls and a standard fireplace

Photography by Andrew Pogue
Mid-sized farmhouse light wood floor and black floor kitchen/dining room combo photo in Denver with white walls

Inspiration for a timeless medium tone wood floor dining room remodel in Philadelphia with beige walls

Farmhouse medium tone wood floor and brown floor dining room photo in New York with white walls

Tech Lighting Kable over the dining table and Lucid Lighting pendants in the kitchen. Design/Build: South Mountain Co. Image © Brian Vanden Brink
Example of a mountain style dark wood floor kitchen/dining room combo design in Boston with white walls

This beautiful colonial home transformed from Early American to French Country. With its classic floorplan and owner's collection of vintage accessories and cherished antiques, this home truly reflects the clients with custom upholstery, draperies and pillows, new lighting, decorative accessories, mirrors and artwork for a curated blend of old world charm.

Originally built as a modest two-bedroom post-World War II brick and block rambler in 1951, this house has assumed an entirely new identity, assimilating the turn-of-the-century farmhouse and early century Craftsman bungalow aesthetic. The program for this project was tightly linked to aesthetics, function and budget. The owner had lived in this plain brick box for eight years, making modest changes, which included new windows, a new kitchen addition on the rear, and a new coat of paint. While this helped to lessen the stark contrast between his house and the wonderful Craftsman style houses in the neighborhood, the changes weren’t enough to satisfy the owner’s love of the great American bungalow. The architect was called back to create a house that truly fit the neighborhood. The renovated house had to: 1) fit the bungalow style both outside and inside; 2) double the square footage of the existing house, creating new bedrooms on the second floor, and reorganizing the first floor spaces; and 3) fit a budget that forced the total reuse of the existing structure, including the new replacement windows and new kitchen wing from the previous project. The existing front wall of the house was pulled forward three feet to maximize the existing front yard building setback. A six-foot deep porch that stretched across most of the new front elevation was added, pulling the house closer to the street to match the front yard setbacks of other local early twentieth century houses. This cozier relationship to the street and the public made for a more comfortable and less imposing siting. The front rooms of the house became new public spaces, with the old living room becoming the Inglenook and entry foyer, while the old front bedroom became the new living room. A new stairway was positioned on axis with the new front door, but set deep into the house adjacent to the reconfigured dining room. The kitchen at the rear that had been opened up during the 1996 modifications was closed down again, creating clearly defined spaces, but spaces that are connected visually from room to room. At the top of the new stair to the second floor is a short efficient hall with a twin window view to the rear yard. From this hall are entrances to the master bedroom, second bedroom and master bathroom. The new master bedroom located on the centerline of the front of the house, fills the entire front dormer with three exposures of windows facing predominately east to catch the morning light. Off of this private space is a study and walk-in closet tucked under the roof eaves of the new second floor. The new master bathroom, adjacent to the master bedroom with an exit to the hall, has matching pedestal sinks with custom wood medicine cabinets, a soaking tub, a large shower with a round-river-stone floor with a high window facing into the rear yard, and wood paneling similar to the new wood paneling on the first floor spaces. Hoachlander Davis Photography

Stuart Wade, Envision Virtual Tours The second-largest and most developed of Georgia's barrier islands, St. Simons is approximately twelve miles long and nearly three miles wide at its widest stretch (roughly the size of Manhattan Island in New York). The island is located in Glynn County on Georgia's coast and lies east of Brunswick (the seat of Glynn County), south of Little St. Simons Island and the Hampton River, and north of Jekyll Island. The resort community of Sea Island is separated from St. Simons on the east by the Black Banks River. Known for its oak tree canopies and historic landmarks, St. Simons is both a tourist destination and, according to the 2010 U.S. census, home to 12,743 residents. Early History The earliest St. Simons Island Village record of human habitation on the island dates to the Late Archaic Period, about 5,000 to 3,000 years ago. Remnants of shell rings left behind by Native Americans from this era survive on many of the barrier islands, including St. Simons. Centuries later, during the period known by historians as the chiefdom era, the Guale Indians established a chiefdom centered on St. Catherines Island and used St. Simons as their hunting and fishing grounds. By 1500 the Guale had established a permanent village of about 200 people on St. Simons, which they called Guadalquini. Beginning in 1568, the Spanish attempted to create missions along the Georgia coast. Catholic missions were the primary means by which Georgia's indigenous Native American chiefdoms were assimilated into the Spanish colonial system along the northern frontier of greater Spanish Florida. In the 1600s St. Simons became home to two Spanish missions: San Buenaventura de Guadalquini, on the southern tip of the island, and Santo Domingo de Asao (or Asajo), on the northern tip. Located on the inland side of the island were the pagan refugee villages of San Simón, the island's namesake, and Ocotonico. In 1684 pirate raids left the missions and villages largely abandoned. Colonial History As Fort Frederica early as 1670, with Great Britain's establishment of the colony of Carolina and its expansion into Georgia territory, Spanish rule was threatened by the English. The Georgia coast was considered "debatable land" by England and Spain, even though Spain had fully retreated from St. Simons by 1702. Thirty-one years later General James Edward Oglethorpe founded the English settlement of Savannah. In 1736 he established Fort Frederica, named after the heir to the British throne, Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, on the west side of St. Simons Island to protect Savannah and the Carolinas from the Spanish threat. Between 1736 and 1749 Fort Frederica was the hub of British military operations along the Georgia frontier. A town of the same name grew up around the fort and was of great importance to the new colony. By 1740 Frederica's population was 1,000. In 1736 the congregation of what would become Christ Church was organized within Fort Frederica as a mission of the Church of England. Charles Wesley led the first services. In 1742 Britain's decisive victory over Spain in the Battle of Bloody Marsh, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, ended the Spanish threat to the Georgia coast. When the British regimen disbanded in 1749, most of the townspeople relocated to the mainland. Fort Frederica went into decline and, except for a short time of prosperity during the 1760s and 1770s under the leadership of merchant James Spalding, never fully recovered. Today the historic citadel's tabby ruins are maintained by the National Park Service. Plantation Era By the start of the American Revolution (1775-83), Fort Frederica was obsolete, and St. Simons was left largely uninhabited as most of its residents joined the patriot army. Besides hosting a small Georgia naval victory on the Fort Frederica River, providing guns from its famous fort for use at Fort Morris in Sunbury, and serving as an arena for pillaging by privateers and British soldiers, the island played almost no role in the war. Following the war, many of the townspeople, their businesses destroyed, turned to agriculture. The island was transformed into fourteen cotton plantations after acres of live oak trees were cleared for farm land and used for building American warships, including the famous USS Constitution, or "Old Ironsides." Although rice was the predominant crop along the neighboring Altamaha River, St. Simons was known for its production of long-staple cotton, which soon came to be known as Sea Island cotton. Between Ebos Landing the 1780s and the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65), St. Simons's plantation culture flourished. The saline atmosphere and the availability of cheap slave labor proved an ideal combination for the cultivation of Sea Island cotton. In 1803 a group of Ebo slaves who survived the Middle Passage and arrived on the west side of St. Simons staged a rebellion and drowned themselves. The sacred site is known today as Ebos Landing. One of the largest owners of land and slaves on St. Simons was Pierce Butler, master of Hampton Point Plantation, located on the northern end of the island. By 1793 Butler owned more than 500 slaves, who cultivated 800 acres of cotton on St. Simons and 300 acres of rice on Butler's Island in the Altamaha River delta. Butler's grandson, Pierce Mease Butler, who at the age of sixteen inherited a share of his grandfather's estate in 1826, was responsible for the largest sale of human beings in the history of the United States: in 1859, to restore his squandered fortune, he sold 429 slaves in Savannah for more than $300,000. The British actress and writer Fanny Kemble, whose tumultuous marriage to Pierce ended in divorce in 1849, published an eyewitness account of the evils of slavery on St. Simons in her book Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 (1863). Another Retreat Plantation large owner of land and slaves on St. Simons was Major William Page, a friend and employee of Pierce Butler Sr. Before purchasing Retreat Plantation on the southwestern tip of the island in 1804, Page managed the Hampton plantation and Butler's Island. Upon Page's death in 1827, Thomas Butler King inherited the land together with his wife, Page's daughter, Anna Matilda Page King. King expanded his father-in-law's planting empire on St. Simons as well as on the mainland, and by 1835 Retreat Plantation alone was home to as many as 355 slaves. The center of life during the island's plantation era was Christ Church, Frederica. Organized in 1807 by a group of island planters, the Episcopal church is the second oldest in the Diocese of Georgia. Embargoes imposed by the War of 1812 (1812-15) prevented the parishioners from building a church structure, so they worshiped in the home of John Beck, which stood on the site of Oglethorpe's only St. Simons residence, Orange Hall. The first Christ Church building, finished on the present site in 1820, was ruined by occupying Union troops during the Civil War. In 1884 the Reverend Anson Dodge Jr. rebuilt the church as a memorial to his first wife, Ellen. The cruciform building with a trussed gothic roof and stained-glass windows remains active today as Christ Church. Civil War and Beyond The St. Simons Island Lighthouse outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 put a sudden end to St. Simons's lucrative plantation era. In January of that year, Confederate troops were stationed at the south end of the island to guard the entrance to Brunswick Harbor. Slaves from Retreat Plantation, owned by Thomas Butler King, built earthworks and batteries. Plantation residents were scattered—the men joined the Confederate army and their families moved to the mainland. Cannon fire was heard on the island in December 1861, and Confederate troops retreated in February 1862, after dynamiting the lighthouse to keep its beacon from aiding Union troops. Soon thereafter, Union troops occupied the island, which was used as a camp for freed slaves. By August 1862 more than 500 former slaves lived on St. Simons, including Susie King Taylor, who organized a school for freed slave children. But in November the ex-slaves were taken to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Fernandina, Florida, leaving the island abandoned. After the Civil War the island never returned to its status as an agricultural community. The plantations lay dormant because there were no slaves to work the fields. After Union general William T. Sherman's January 1865 Special Field Order No. 15 —a demand that former plantations be divided and distributed to former slaves—was overturned by U.S. president Andrew Johnson less than a year later, freedmen and women were forced to work as sharecroppers on the small farms that dotted the land previously occupied by the sprawling plantations. By St. Simons Lumber Mills 1870 real economic recovery began with the reestablishment of the timber industry. Norman Dodge and Titus G. Meigs of New York set up lumber mill operations at Gascoigne Bluff, formerly Hamilton Plantation. The lumber mills provided welcome employment for both blacks and whites and also provided mail and passenger boats to the mainland. Such water traffic, together with the construction of a new lighthouse in 1872, designed by architect Charles B. Cluskey, marked the beginning of St. Simons's tourism industry. The keeper of the lighthouse created a small amusement park, which drew many visitors, as did the seemingly miraculous light that traveled from the top of the lighthouse tower to the bottom. The island became a summer retreat for families from the mainland, particularly from Baxley, Brunswick, and Waycross. The island's resort industry was thriving by the 1880s. Beachfront structures, such as a new pier and grand hotel, were built on the southeastern end of the island and could be accessed by ferry. Around this time wealthy northerners began vacationing on the island. Twentieth Century The St. Simons Island Pier and Village opening in 1924 of the Brunswick–St. Simons Highway, today known as the Torras Causeway, was a milestone in the development of resorts in the area. St. Simons's beaches were now easily accessible to locals and tourists alike. More than 5,000 automobiles took the short drive from Brunswick to St. Simons via the causeway on its opening day, paving the way for convenient residential and resort development. In 1926 automotive pioneer Howard Coffin of Detroit, Michigan, bought large tracts of land on St. Simons, including the former Retreat Plantation, and constructed a golf course, yacht club, paved roads, and a residential subdivision. Although the causeway had brought large numbers of summer people to the island, St. Simons remained a small community with only a few hundred permanent residents until the 1940s. The St. Simons Island outbreak of World War II (1941-45) brought more visitors and residents to St. Simons. Troops stationed at Jacksonville, Florida; Savannah; and nearby Camp Stewart took weekend vacations on the island, and a new naval air base and radar school became home to even more officers and soldiers. The increased wartime population brought the island its first public school. With a major shipyard for the production of Liberty ships in nearby Brunswick, the waters of St. Simons became active with German U-boats. In April 1942, just off the coast, the Texas Company oil tanker S. S. Oklahoma and the S. S. Esso Baton Rouge were torpedoed by the Germans, bringing the war very close to home for island residents. Due in large part to the military's improvement of the island's infrastructure during the war, development on the island boomed in the 1950s and 1960s. More permanent homes and subdivisions were built, and the island was no longer just a summer resort but also a thriving community. In 1950 the Methodist conference and retreat center Epworth by the Sea opened on Gascoigne Bluff. In 1961 novelist Eugenia Price visited St. Simons and began work on her first works of fiction, known as the St. Simons Trilogy. Inspired by real events on the island, Price's trilogy renewed interest in the history of Georgia's coast, and the novelist herself relocated to the island in 1965 and lived there for thirty-one years. St. Simons is also home to contemporary Georgia writer Tina McElroy Ansa. Since Epworth by the Sea 1980 St. Simons's population has doubled. The island's continued status as a vacation destination and its ongoing development boom have put historic landmarks and natural areas at risk. While such landmarks as the Fort Frederica ruins and the Battle of Bloody Marsh site are preserved and maintained by the National Park Service, and while the historic lighthouse is maintained by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, historic Ebos Landing has been taken over by a sewage treatment plant. Several coastal organizations have formed in recent years to save natural areas on the island. The St. Simons Land Trust, for example, has received donations of large tracts of land and plans to protect property in the island's three traditional African American neighborhoods. Despite its rapid growth and development, St. Simons remains one of the most beautiful and important islands on the Georgia coast.

https://www.beangroup.com/homes/45-E-Andover-Road-Andover/ME/04216/AGT-2261431456-942410/index.html Merrill House is a gracious, Early American Country Estate located in the picturesque Androscoggin River Valley, about a half hour northeast of Sunday River Ski Resort, Maine. This baronial estate, once a trophy of successful American frontier family and railroads industry publisher, Henry Varnum Poor, founder of Standard & Poor’s Corp., is comprised of a grand main house, caretaker’s house, and several barns. Entrance is through a Gothic great hall standing 30’ x 60’ and another 30’ high in the apex of its cathedral ceiling and showcases a granite hearth and mantel 12’ wide. Owned by the same family for over 225 years, it is currently a family retreat and is available for seasonal weddings and events with the capacity to accommodate 32 overnight guests and 200 outdoor guests. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and heralding contributions from Frederick Law Olmsted and Stanford White, the beautiful, legacy property sits on 110 acres of fields and forest with expansive views of the scenic Ellis River Valley and Mahoosuc mountains, offering more than a half-mile of pristine river-front, private spring-fed pond and beach, and 5 acres of manicured lawns and gardens. The historic property can be envisioned as a magnificent private residence, ski lodge, corporate retreat, hunting and fishing lodge, potential bed and breakfast, farm - with options for organic farming, commercial solar, storage or subdivision. Showings offered by appointment.

Butler Pantries designed by Oakleigh Interiors: Quoted from Wikipedia: In a late medieval hall, there were separate rooms for the various service functions and food storage. A pantry was where bread was kept and food preparation associated with it done. A butler's pantry is a utility room in a large house, primarily used to store serving items, rather than food. Traditionally, a butler's pantry was used for storage, cleaning and counting of silver. The room would be used by the butler and other domestic staff; it is often called a butler's pantry even in households where there is no butler. In America, pantries evolved from early Colonial American "butteries", built in a cold north corner of a Colonial home. Butler's pantries, or china pantries, were built between the dining room and kitchen. In modern homes, butler's pantries are usually located in transitional spaces between kitchens and dining rooms, and used as staging areas for serving meals. They commonly contain countertops, and storage for tableware, serving pieces, table linens, candles, wine, and other dining-room articles. More elaborate versions may include refrigerators, sinks, or dishwashers. Oakleigh Interiors works with only the best contractors and Millwork And More is the custom cabinetry builder of choice that produces the quality cabinetry every kitchen and pantry deserves.