Another reason a template isn't optional: on your drawing your adjoining walls are 90 degrees exactly to the back wall. Are they really? Most walls aren't. Your back wall is perfectly straight - I know, it's a drawing, so of course the lines are straight, but you see the point. Your back wall is likely to have some waviness along the length which a good template will follow. If the fabricator just cuts a generic rectangle and brings it along, you will inevitably have gaps along the edges which you hope will be covered by your backsplash. Maybe, maybe not. Speaking of which, did you measure perfectly? Down to the nearest 1/16th? Do you want to take the hit for that if you didn't read the tape just right? About the sink opening: so he proposes bringing along his hand tools and winging it right there in your kitchen? Yikes. Have you used a skill saw and tried to cut a straight line with it? Personally, I don't get those lines terribly straight even when I clamp on a guide board. Think of the corners! In a well set up shop, a fabricator will have tools that ensure actual straight lines. My fabricator has laser guided cutters which get the straight lines straight, the curve for the sink corners the same radius on all four corners, and the wavy-to-the-wall lines wavy as called for. For faucet holes, he cut them almost all the way through at the shop and bonked them out on site.

We never use that back bathroom as it is now, other than the toilet when someone is in the hall bathroom. It's very cramped. We actually took the shower door off to let the cat have access to the liter box. I'd use a utility sink more for dirty gear. I figure we enter there with our dirty gardening gear and laundry room is couple steps to right to leave things. We don't have a pool, but will get a hot tub, though it will be in backyard with access via family room French doors. Maybe we could keep a toilet and make it a powder room with WM/dryer behind doors, though not sure if Code allows for toilet off kitchen like that. I was thinking of recessing the fridge into room behind. Our fridge case is 29" and our walls are 5.5" so it may not need to be recessed much into room behind, especially if closet is there. I like the open access into the family room, after 11.5 years of walking around walls to get to doorways, I want no walls! But you can go too far in making things open plan. We're not sure how to deal with the access from entry and living room so it's not one great long open space. I like your plans for extending kitchen lengthways into dining room. We need to decide what we're doing with that dining area. I do like the idea of an office, but I don't want the layout to be weird due to it being in middle of living room and family room. It may depend on how we use those spaces e.g where dining table, couch is located. Your plan also centrally locates the kitchen. In mine it's still at 1 end of house, granted not a huge house to walk across. The kitchen at the end allows easy access to outside eating area. We've thought of changing up the side entrance to the house, but that gets messy with very big trees by the house, solid cinder block garden walls etc. Like I said earlier, the walls, doors and windows are all in the wrong places!

Hi. I'm the orginal poster. Our cork floor is now in. We're about one month out from finishing our whole house (down to studs). We went with Cali- Cork, with a color called Pura. I was concerned with fading since we will have tons of light and it goes well with the modern Scandinavian esthetic. It mimics the look of concrete or terrazzo and the sample tile I placed in full sunlight for the past year has shown no noticeable fading. We went with the click/lock flooring over glue-down for 2 reasons. One was cost. Glue down is more expensive because the cost of the adhesive and labor. Also, glue-down takes an installer with expert knowledge handling cork and that's nearly impossible to find. Bottom line, I couldn't be happier. I was concerned the floor would feel hard since we have a concrete slab and you don't get a sense of how the floor will feel based on a 6" sample square of tile. I had the GC put down an underlayment with the cork floor on top and its amazing! There's a softness and bounce that almost feels like carpet. Bottom line, I love the floors and am relieved that I love the floors.:) The entire house is cork except for the 3 bathrooms where I opted for porcelain tile. Good luck and keep us posted on what you chose and how it worked out. I was a little afraid of going with cork but I'm so glad I did! PR

If you want a price quote, we are happy to accommodate you. Just bring in your pre designed cabinet floor plan and elevations or a complete cabinet list, with all of the modifications noted. Or we can tell you that the average 11’ by 14’ Kitchen usually costs 10-40 thousand in cabinets. If you don’t have that design work already done, then you or your contractor can supply us with measurements for a rough beginning quote. There is little to no “design” in a pricing quote, and we do not go to anyone’s home to measure. We will discuss the rough price with you, and verbally indicate other options that could change the pricing. No diagrams, lists, or anything else proprietary to our business is shared with shoppers. Clients, yes. Shoppers, no. At that point, we require a design retainer to commit to the hours of designing and revisions. Or, you can pay that retainer on the front end, if you want the design work to begin from the very first meeting, as an interactive process. But, you can’t price shop, and expect to design shop at the same time. You have to pick what you want to happen from the experience. Are you looking for a price, or a design? If you have professionals involved, then they should have provided you with an implementable design. We frequently partner with interior designers to provide cabinetry for their projects, as primarily cabinet retailers. They bring us the designs, and they are committed to us by that prior relationship to using us as a source. Some designs do need work, as they aren’t specialists. But they are not shopping it around. Their clients aren’t shopping any products all over town. That’s not how design works. The designer is compensated through the purchase of the products. Therefore we do not require design retainers from our professional partners.