God, oh god, when will it end? Why is it that every single time we go to the city for permits, they tell us something different?
Anyway, I wasn't quite happy with the angled countertop my architect had designed for the space. It was cool, for sure, but it didn't make great use of the space. I couldn't figure out how I was going to fit even basic furniture in there. It would have made invisible lines that claimed too much active area for the kitchen and afforded traffic patterns that would wipe out a lot of usable floor area. Plus, when the contractor finally figured out the stair specs, we realized that the stairs were going to require chopping the counter short by a bit, which in turn meant that the cabinets I had made to go under that bit of counter weren't going to fit. Great.
So I've been trying to figure out what to do with that space. Again playing in Sketchup Pro:
I'm not sure what finish of wood I'd want for the stairs / cabinet / shelves. And I think that instead of making the countertop / eating bar a contiguous outgrowth of the rest of the countertop, I'd make it as a freestanding table that abuts the rest of the counter -- and, ideally, can somehow fold open to double its size and become an 8-person dining table.