Evaluate what you use and how you really live

I'll repeat that again, evaluate what you use and how you really live.  In other words, don't just put in something because it's what everyone else has and therefore you should as well.

The table for me was a nice idea, and the storage in the benches was very nice, but the fact of the matter was that I hadn't used a table to eat or work on for years, and having one didn't change that.  It and the benches just became more flat surfaces to set things on and stack them up.  Even later on, when I enclosed the porch to gain room enough to put in a woodstove (which actually could have simply been accomplished by abandoning the table and benches) I still moved the table into the extra space gained by the expansion.  Only fairly recently that the table was taken down and put out in the shed in anticipation of moving the cookstove in have I finally come to the conclusion that it may very well not be reinstalled once the cookstove is in it's proper place. 


As the plan for the other cabin is that the front room should be more on the order of a community room with a kitchenette, (and I do have a table to go in there), for the few times that maybe I would find reason to use a table, I could just very easily use that and rethink what I really want to do with that extra space the porch provides.  Either way, enclosing the porch wasn't a waste by any means, for example, what if at some time I needed to have the bed on the main level instead of up in the loft, I could do so without giving up any of the present living area, or what it I decided to get off the "you're lucky if you get 7 years out of a refrigerator these days' merry-go-round and elected to instead get a chest freezer and just a small countertop model for those things I don't want frozen and stop me from keeping more than I can use up before I throw it away as being too old (and it would be a whole lot cheaper to replace a small unit when it decides to give up)

Really do think through if you do need something, or is it because everyone else has one or you've been simply trained to think that way..  And if something doesn't work, or your desires or needs change, have the foresight to install things in a manner that they could be eliminated or moved in the future without creating an entire makeover (such as installing your flooring first instead of after things are in place)